re-mortgage application form - "Do you use your property for commercial purposes?"

[sbakoola]

On a re-mortgage application form in the section - "Do you use your property for any commercial purpose/activity?" YES/NO If yes please provide details in section 10.

Do you circle "YES" and write down that you have an IT Consultancy limited company registered at the your home property but no work is undertaken on these premises instread work is always on external client sites ???

I just don't want to scupper my chances of getting a mortgage, I guess they don't want a chippy to be used on the premises just in case the place gets burned down.

[RichardCranium]

Do you circle "YES" and write down that you have an IT Consultancy limited company registered at the your home property but no work is undertaken on these premises instead work is always on external client sites ?

..." and no customers would ever have cause to visit the premises. The only company assets at the home property would be a PC, laptop and manuals."

Insurance companies, mortgage companies, letting agents, and so on used to have kittens at such an arrangement. Now there are millions of people with registered offices at home, or running self-employed businesses, they are accustomed to it.

Their reaction will very probably be "Oh, we don't worry about that these days but thank you for telling us for the record".

But if you don't tell them and something goes wrong somewhere down the line...

[centurian]

Every year when I renew my home insurance, they ask the same question, about whether there are any changes in the usage of the house.

Every time I mention the circumstances - and every time they say "thanks for letting us know", but otherwise don't break their sales stride, so clearly my LtdCo circumstances are of no interest to them from an insurance point of view. But at least it's been recorded - on multiple occasions "for training purposes".

Because having worked in insurance before - I can absolutely say that if there's anything they can do to wriggle out of a claim, they'll certainly consider it. If you don't tell them about something related to your cover - you hand them an excuse on a plate. Even if it has nothing to do with your claim, they insurance company can turn round and say that they wouldn't have offered you insurance.

So if it's a big claim, they'll (probably) refund your premiums, but then reject the claim on the basis that as far as they were concerned, you were never insured. Even if they have already paid out, they can come knocking later. This woman is being chased for 241K even though her conviction had no bearing on the claim.

Woman must repay £241,000 claim because of minor offence - News - The Star

[Wanderer]

On a re-mortgage application form in the section - "Do you use your property for any commercial purpose/activity?" YES/NO If yes please provide details in section 10.

I'd answer no. Same with insurance.

I went through a detailed thing about this a while ago where they came to the conclusion that if you were just using it as a home office then it didn't count.

[ratewhore]

Do you circle "YES" and write down that you have an IT Consultancy limited company registered at the your home property but no work is undertaken on these premises instread work is always on external client sites ???

Where do you do your paperwork, accounts, invoice prep etc?

This never came up during my remortgage last year. As for insurance, there is a 'clerical use only' option which fits with how I (and presumably most contractors) run their businesses.

[SueEllen]

I'd answer no. Same with insurance.

I went through a detailed thing about this a while ago where they came to the conclusion that if you were just using it as a home office then it didn't count.

Regardless of whether you are doing contracts at home or not if you are buying equipment that is in your business and your name, then you need to answer "Yes" for an easy life.

Lots of insurers are happy to pay out for office equipment to the value of 5K on standard insurance policies but if the records you can produce to show you have the equipment are only in the company name or a combination of your and the company's name then they can be difficult in paying out for it.

This is because they don't pay out for employer's equipment that is damaged on a home policy as it's not yours, and the employer should have insured it themselves if they wanted you to have it at home.