It is frequently thought that there are laws which attempt to control work from home activity. Many believe that they are not free to actually start a work from home operation because there are rules and regulations preventing or curtailing this. This piece seeks to explain the situation so that anyone considering going down this path can be reassured and conscious of the steps they may need to take to keep their work from home conduct in step with any legislation.
First of all, there is no law of the land that says you cannot Work From Home, set up a home business or conduct any commercial activity from your home. An English mans’ home is his castle and there is nothing in law halting him from, for example doing online jobs or beginning an internet business at home. There are no unique permissions to be sought or licenses needed, typically speaking you can just go ahead and do as you please.
However, there may possibly be, probably are, restrictive covenants within the deeds to your house which will constrain you to some extent in what work from home activities you can actually operate. These covenants are not laws, but they are binding agreements which you entered into when buying your house. These covenants are registered against the house with the land registry and because you have entered into them when you completed the purchase you are legally required to adhere to them and if you do not do so then any ill-treated party may successfully claim against you.
But don’t worry too much. You can very easily task your solicitor to check out what covenants are in place, in fact you can even do it yourself. And you will normally find that the covenants do not exclusively forbid Work From Home. They are more likely to restrain you from carrying out certain specific activities which would present an irritation to your neighbourhood. For example it is very usual to find restrictions against the keeping of livestock, sheep pigs, hens etc, or the opening of a shop or other retail outlet. Any work from home business which involved manufacturing, operating plant and machinery which caused a noise nuisance or involved the constant collection and dropping off of stock items by commercial vehicles would also be barred. Similarly any business which involved steady visits to your house by clients, with connected parking nuisance, is virtually certain to be mentioned by the covenants.
So the carrying out of Online Jobs, an Internet Business or small scale assembly of products are almost always acceptable. As a common sense rule of thumb all you really need to do is consider any impact you work from home conduct would have on your neighbours and if the answer is none at all then you are on quite safe ground. Taking an Internet Business, or other Online Jobs, as an example, these can be operated with none of the above mentioned nuisance aspects. Indeed if you were operating say a web development business from home then there is probably no way that your neighbours would even be conscious of it.
Use that common sense approach, don’t do anything which will irritate your neighbours and your Work From Home activities will go entirely unnoticed and you should not get into any difficulties. However, if you are in any doubt whatsoever then always seek the advice of your solicitor.
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