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Home Offices: What to Consider

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Home Offices: What to Consider

Options for your home office

 

Working from home is becoming increasingly common and more people are looking at providing a self-contained office space within their homes. Some the possible options are outlined below.

 

In principle you need to apply for planning permission to work from home, since this counts as a change from purely residential to part-business use.

However, many local authorities are prepared to allow home working without official permission so long as there are no outward signs of a business being run from the premises. Formal permission will be needed only if you have regular deliveries or visitors, if you store or sell goods or materially alter the character of the house or street. It is best to contact your local authority planning department for their views if you plan to start working from home.

 

 

Whether any Building Regulations approval is needed depends on the scale of the work proposed. Next in our article we will be taking a look into the different types of home office that are available and consider how they may be suitable for your home office location.

Spare Room – This is most likely to be a spare bedroom, but could be any under used room that there is space elsewhere in the house to move things out from to allow you to create your home office. Another alternative is to partition a large room, so you have a set location for your office space.

 

The Loft – This is a brilliant solution if you have the unused loft space. Since the office will be tucked away in the loft there will be no loss of existing living space involved. 

 

 Garage – This is a great solution if you are willing to sacrifice a parking space and relegate the car to the driveway or the road. 

 

Garden Office – You could simply move to the garden shed, but a more satisfactory solution is to choose one of the growing number of purpose design garden office buildings now being sold around the internet, with some being advertised as ‘work pods’ and others looking like a traditional summerhouse design. The building may need planning permission, so it’s important to check with your local authority before you start. However with that being said, it will be exempt from Building Regulations control. To install a new electricity supply you will need Building Regulations approval.


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