Promotion: Catherine Hunt says landlords need to embrace WFH

This trend, accelerated hugely by the Covid pandemic, means that landlords are needing to rethink their attitudes as blanket bans on working from home no longer cut it.

Instead, landlords are having to accept that the world has changed and adapt accordingly.

Traditional landlord insurance policies, not to mention legacy planning law, did not foresee the huge rise in tenants spending their days at the kitchen table with their laptop.

The working from home trend has been accelerated by Covid but is now here to stay (Image: Getty Images)

The new report highlights how important it is that tenancy agreements are explicit about what type of home-working is permitted, and what is not.

Few would argue with an employed tenant spending the occasional day at home writing a report, whilst it would be entirely reasonable to prohibit home working which, for example, resulted in a constant flow of clients or deliveries at what is still a residential property.

Almost all tenancy agreements will prohibit a business being registered at, or trading from, a rented residential property.  Some properties – especially in apartment blocks – may have covenants which prohibit sign-written commercial vehicles from being parked in residents’ spaces. Certainly tenants should not undertake any type of work at home which will cause nuisance or disturbance to neighbours, or potential damage.

While most tenants won't expect a full home office, they are much more likely to be seeking properties which have the space for them to sit with a laptop (Image: Getty Images)

However, landlords need to be pragmatic. Tenants are much more likely to be seeking properties which have the space for them to sit with a laptop, and for their home to have a quality Wi-Fi connection, enabling the inevitable Zoom and Teams meetings to take place smoothly.

Another thing to think about is that tenants working from home are likely to need to heat their homes during the day, and will therefore be more attracted to properties which are energy-efficient. There is already a focus on EPCs due to forthcoming legislation, but the need to have somewhere warm to sit and work during the winter will throw a renewed focus on the subject, even before regulations change.

It is no good landlords burying their heads in the sand and hoping that the working from home trend will fizzle out; it is here to stay. Adapting tenancy agreements, ensuring their homes offer tenants the space to bring their office home, and adopting a pragmatic approach, are vital.

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