Most rental agreements have clauses listing things you aren’t allowed to do in the property: subletting, dealing drugs, knocking down walls, that kind of thing.
In recent times, however, it’s become increasingly common for landlords to forbid more commonplace activities – including tenants working from home.
Detailing the growing trend, @HarleyShah shared a picture on Twitter of a property listing, claiming that despite the room’s monthly rent of £1,300 and the fact it had a desk, it was advertised as ‘no working from home allowed’.
While exact numbers are difficult to pin down, a quick search of Spareroom shows hundreds of ads in London alone with the phrase ‘no WFH’ front and centre beside the likes of ‘tidy professional preferred’.
These aren’t just cheap digs either. Some landlords stipulating in-office staff onlyare charging upwards of £1,000 per month (just above the capital’s average room rent of £983) for a cramped room in a property shared with a number of other tenants.
Many on Twitter shared outrage at this, including @rorybeanz who called anti-WFH stipulations ‘utterly ridiculous’ and @RobertCatesby72 who commented: ‘They can’t dictate how much time you can spend in your own home. The audacity of these people.’
Some also questioned whether it was legal to enforce such a rule. And if you’re spending a large chunk of your wage on somewhere to live, you too might assume you have the right to do as you please (within reason) within it.
Unfortunately, though, that’s not always the case.
Shelter’s legal team explains that it’s perfectly legal for a landlord to either ban a tenant from working from home or charge more for access to shared facilities – however bleak it may seem.
Regarding ‘no WFH’, they tell Metro.co.uk: ‘We might consider the restriction to be unreasonable or unfair, but the landlord will no doubt argue that they have their reasons for imposing this condition, and that it is reflected in the rent, so it is unlikely to be considered an unfair term under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.’
It’s also highlighted that this is different to when a renter conducts ‘trade or business’ from the landlord’s property (turning the couch into a hairdresser’s chair or using the kitchen window as a hatch for your tuck shop side hustle, for example) as this is prohibited in most tenancy agreements.
Additionally, a landlord’s rights in terms of evicting a tenant who breaches their rules differ depending on whether they’re also resident in the property or not. If you’re an ‘excluded occupier’ with a live-in landlord, you can be evicted for any reason without a court order on the condition you’re given notice, but otherwise the landlord has to ‘serve a notice of proceedings and go to court’ to get you out.
Either way, it’s unlikely to help a place feel like home; something many renters in the UK yearn for given soaring rates of housing insecurity. But what alternative is there?
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, tells Metro.co.uk: ‘We haven’t built enough genuinely affordable social homes for decades and renters are paying the price – private renting has ballooned but regulation hasn’t kept pace, stacking the deck against renters.
‘As a result, landlords are free to dictate unfair and unreasonable terms, knowing tenants will just have to put up and shut up in the hope of keeping a roof over their heads.
‘To give renters a fairer deal, we need a Bill to be brought forward in the King’s Speech that strengthens tenants’ rights and makes renting safer, secure and more affordable. But ultimately, to ease the pressure on private renting, the solution is obvious: the new government must build a new generation of social homes with rents tied to local incomes.’
Of course, this is a longer-term goal, so in the meantime your best option (if you can) is to ensure a property suits your needs before signing an agreement. Otherwise, you could end up with nowhere to live in, let alone work from.
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