Working from Home - Expenses

sarahwilson

I'm just after a little bit of advice. My partners thinking of working for himself and is looking at working in the garage which isn't attached to the house.

I've had a look at HMRC re what could be claimed as a business expense from the household bills and I just want to query I've understood something properly. If we want to put through say the electricity it has to be apportioned by number of rooms but the bathroom and toilets cannot be counted as rooms in that apportionment figure. If we find that electricity, etc all come to less than £2 per week when its been apportioned we can just claim it back no question, any more we have to show how we have arrived at the figure?

farmergiles

Hi Sarah, I've "PM'd" you on this

Gem7321

Don't forget you also have to apportion by the no. of work hours that you use the room for. The total work hours available are 50 per week, but we tell our clients to use a max. of 90% (45 hours) for PPR/CGT purposes.

sarahwilson

Oh crumbs, does that apply if the garage is made so it cannot be used for anything else it would solely be for his work?

groundy

If your are a Limited company all you need to do is charge a rent based on a percentage of the expenses. Therefore creating a company expense and an individual income. However, the real cost to the individual is offset against the income and therefore no profit is made.

If you are a sole trader then a use of home as office charge is normally the simple way to do things with a rough percentage of expenses as a guide.