Is Everyone Allowed and Able to Work at Home?

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Hanifmr.com - Working at home is a dream for many. No way to work, familiar surroundings, and much more flexible working hours. But it is usually not that simple after all.

In this article, I want to answer 2 questions that readers keep asking me.

In addition, I will describe my experiences in the home office and also discuss what has changed after moving to an external office.

Note:

As I am not a lawyer, the following statements are my personal opinion and my own experience. It is not legal advice. If you have specific questions or problems, you should contact a lawyer *.

Can Everyone Work at Home?

Is Everyone Allowed and Able to Work at Home?

The first question is about the workplace in your own four walls.

In principle, you are allowed to work in your apartment, but of course, it depends a lot on what you do. In 2009 there was a ruling by the Federal Court of Justice.

Most of my readers run websites, blogs, niche sites, or something similar. And many of them part-time. This is usually not a problem, as you neither disturb the neighbors nor are you conspicuous in any other way.

The situation is different, of course, for manual trades or when setting up a music studio in the bedroom. Such activities sometimes not only require approval from the supervisory authorities but also annoy the neighbors, which quickly leads to anger.

For most of the readers of my blog, a home office is usually not a problem if the apartment is primarily still used as an apartment. To be on the safe side, you should discuss it with the landlord.

So if you meet the following requirements, you can usually work at home without permission from the landlord :

No too little customer traffic
No employees
No disturbance of the neighbors by noise, waste, etc.
No renovation work

The typical self-employed person on the net is allowed to work from home unless it is an online shop operator who receives and sends 100 parcels a day. ;-)

It looks a little different from your own house. Here you have no direct neighbors and no landlord. Still, there are limitations. Here, too, it must be ensured that the neighborhood is not bothered by, for example, large customer traffic.

Activities that require approval must of course also be approved here and the house must be used primarily as an apartment in a residential area. In the case of a study for your online business, however, these requirements are usually met.

Can Everyone Work at Home?

A second common question is whether you can work productively at home at all.

In the past few years, I have written a lot about working in the home office, because I worked in a study in my house for almost 9 years.

It worked very well for me, even if I had to get used to it at first. The distraction was there, of course, and sitting in front of the TV at lunch made it hard to get back to work.

Even in summer, the way to the garden was not far and even if many others can work with the laptop on the garden bench, I cannot.

But it didn't take long and I got used to working at home. It's fine with a little self-discipline. Of course, it also helps to have a separate study that does not contain any private distractions. I imagine it will be much more difficult to work in a corner of the living room or the kitchen.

The advantages of a home office:

Short way to work
Inexpensive
More flexible working hours
Pleasant environment

But there are also disadvantages:

Distraction from family and private matters
No personal contact with colleagues
The home office is poorly suited for receiving customers
It's harder to switch off because work is only one door away.
You get out less

And so you can't say in general that everyone can work at home. You have to try it out and try to create the ideal working environment for yourself at home. Then you will notice very quickly whether this is something for you.

Can you work in the home office?

Yes, it works very well. (45%, 89 votes)
I would like to work at home. (29%, 58 votes)
No, that didn't work for me. (16%, 32 votes)
I haven't tried it yet. (9%, 18 votes)

Number of participants: 197 (1 vote)

My Experiences

As already written, I worked on my own four walls for almost 9 years.

The advantage of this, however, was that I could use a separate room in my house for this. It wasn't huge, but I could really only do the work there and thus had a certain separation from the private area.

And so, after a short period of getting used to it, I was able to work very well there and also enjoyed not having to travel long distances to work, as it was before in my job.

But over the years my business has grown and I have thought about an external office now and then.

One reason for this was that even after so many years, I had problems switching off. When I had the choice between free time and work, I often worked because there was always something to do.

At the beginning of 2015, my wife and I moved into an office building that we built not far from home. Not only is my office bigger now, but I can actually close the door at the end of the day and go home. It's a completely different feeling because apart from a few mail accounts I don't have any work opportunities at home and so I am not tempted.

In the beginning, I had a few doubts about whether I would manage everything and how I would now organize my work. But that works without any problems and I'm even a bit more efficient because I know that it is over at a certain time.

But of course, such an office causes additional costs and that is not always necessary, especially for business start-ups.

Conclusion

I have very good memories of my home office, even if I am very happy with my step into the external office.

The home office offers a cheap and flexible entry point, especially for self-employed people on the Internet. You should only clarify whether you are not violating any conditions or need permits.

You should also find out whether working from home is really what you are looking for.

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