Garden office for software consultant

[JDX_John]

Couldn't decide if this belonged in legal or accountancy... mods please move if needed?

I'm a software contractor and I work from home, have done since 2007 with only brief spells on client premises. As such my home office is actually my workspace, not just used for book-keeping so I can claim the £4/week or whatever it is.

I'm kind of tempted to set up a garden office - even more separation between home and work, free up a room in the house, etc. I've seen some lovely ones - if anyone wants to share theirs please do!

I'm quite conservative about claiming things through my business other than my computer and phone but as this is quite an expensive proposition, I'd be interested to consider it. Are there any risks here or is it a slam-dunk as far as acceptability goes?

In my specific case, I have an old hot-house in the garden perhaps 5m x 3m - including old boiler and huge iron pipes. It needs a bunch of work anyway so I considered turning it into usable space, but it's really only a day-room so an office appears a good use. Get electricity in and glaze/decorate it.
The other option could be to buy a small log cabin or home office 'shed'.

 

[Alan]

Yes do it, as in get a garden office, I've had one for years, but actually now work in the house, but don't claim it through the business, nor specify it as exclusively for business or you open a whole new world of tax and rules from planning change of use to no capital gains relief on a % of your property to business rates ( although you would then get small business exemption it is another layer of paperwork )