Running your own business very often starts with working in your own apartment. An office is organized there, a small command center from which you can monitor orders, establish cooperation with the client, and often also execute orders, if they do not require special conditions. Is such action from the apartment legal then? Is it not necessary to have a special permit? What about the neighbors and the registration of activities with the cooperative? Here are the most important points on this topic.
Running a business in your own apartment is, first of all, a significant saving of money. This saving comes in the fact that you don’t have to pay for a separate office. There is no need to cover the costs related to its maintenance and equipment. That’s a lot. The more that the maintenance of the apartment has to be paid anyway, and you have to bear the costs associated with it.
Additional savings appear precisely in the possibility of including housing maintenance in the costs of running a business. Obviously, you cannot include the entire apartment and the cost of the entire apartment as part of the costs of your business. This is primarily why it cannot be done because it is a shared space. Not only is time spent there for work, but also private time for rest. Therefore, it is necessary to estimate how much space is allocated to work and what percentage of the entire flat is this area. Then, proportionally, the appropriate percentage should be deducted from the rent and utilities. This deducted part can only be counted as tax deductible costs that reduce the tax base.
Why should you perform such procedures? Because the regulations clearly say that the costs of running a business can only include those expenses that were directly incurred to obtain a specific income. These expenses cannot be the maintenance of the flat you just live in.
On the other hand, if a part of the apartment is intended for business and work is carried out there to attract clients, orders or fulfill orders, then this part of the rent and utilities can be included and deducted in the costs.
As a general rule, you do not have to declare your own home business, neither to the cooperative, nor to the neighbors. The exception is the plan to open a doctor’s surgery or hairdressing salon in a private apartment. You must obtain consent for such activities. However, if the apartment is used only for making telephone or e-mail contacts with clients, then there is no need to report it anywhere or to ask for permission for such activity from other tenants in the building.
A change in the use of the premises must, however, be reported to the starosty, if such a change actually takes place. If the entire change consists solely in keeping documents on the shelf and negotiating by phone or e-mail at the desk, then there is no change in use. So there is no need to report. If it is necessary to make changes to the structure of the apartment, construction work will be carried out, the purpose of which will be to adapt the apartment to changes in use, should be reported along with the necessary documents confirming the right to the premises, spatial development plans and technical data of the building.
In some situations, it is also necessary to pay a slightly higher real estate tax if the premises is intended, even partially, for business purposes. Before starting work and before registering in a given premises of your company, it is worth checking and verifying these circumstances so that after time the tax office does not become interested in this topic.