Ensuring Your Rights are Exercised to the Fullest

If you choose to work from home, you may be unsure as to what your rights are, however in these modern times of home-working they may be included in your employment contract. Some rights are statutory, and you may not be immediately aware of what these are. If you have transitioned to home working recently, these rights may seem ambiguous as they may only apply to your workplace.

 

If you are prevented from using your home for business, for instance, you may be in a council house (businesses are not allowed) or restricted by your lease or deed. If this is the case then you may need to speak to the council/lease owner to change the agreement before being allowed to work from home.

 

The following shows some of the rights you have and what you can do to enforce them.

 

Your Rights	Enforcing your Rights
Right to Health and Safety	You may enforce these by contacting your workplace or your union if there are issues involved with your workplace’s health and safety.
Right to Privacy	Under the Human Rights Act 1998, you may deny entry to your employer if they come to your house without your permission or outside of an agreed time.
Right to Working Hour’s	Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, you are not required to work more than 48 hour’s or what has been allotted into your employment contract. This is still valid even if you are now working from home. Your employers cannot force you to work beyond these hour’s.
Right to Minimum Wage	You still maintain the right to be paid for your time at least at minimum wage.
Right to claim Tax Relief	If you are working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic, you may be able to claim tax relief on heating, water bills or home content insurance, or on any equipment which you have bought for the use of work. A full guide and claim calculator are available here: https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home
Required equipment	For many issues, such as who should pay for the costs of setting up a home office (if needed) or equipment needed to access Zoom etc. It is assumed that most people have such equipment but if not, then the employer should provide it.

 

How we can help

Lestons can check your employment contract to ensure compliance will all legislation and regulations. Upon starting a case your caseworker will create a briefing note for your legal team to examine the issue. To gain our assistance you need to open a case, this is done by taking advantage of our free consultation service, activated by the link at the top of the page, should you wish to start a case the caseworker will send you the suitable payment link.

 

Please note your caseworker can only give generic advice, their role is to prepare your details for handling by our legal team and to act as your point of contact, they will also issue you with your Password and PIN, these will be needed to log onto your client dashboard. From your dashboard you will be able to manage and view every aspect of your case, upload documents, images, files etc.