UK Home office related expenses and rent

[pol.szc]

Hi everyone,

I'm the Director of a UK limited company.
I work from home - which I rent - and a have a dedicated room to my office which is solely used for that.

My question is : can I claim part of the rent ?

Initially my accountant suggested the following options :

There are a couple of methods for claiming a use of home expense – you can claim the standard government approved rate of £6/week (£312/year) or you can also do a full calculation based on number of rooms used/time used for business & actual costs (rent, energy, Council tax, etc.) incurred.

A few weeks ago they went back with another answer :

We have had updated instructions across the department so our current advice is that you are only able to claim a proportion of the variable costs, and not the fixed costs as those would have been incurred anyway.

See HMRC guidance here: gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim32815

“It is a condition for relief under section 336 ITEPA 2003 that the expenses must be incurred “wholly and exclusively” “in the performance of” the employee’s duties, see EIM31660. In practice that means that relief can only be allowed for:
the additional unit costs of gas and electricity consumed while a room is being used for work
the metered cost of water used “in the performance of the duties” (if any) - as regards water rates, see EIM32820
the unit costs of business telephone calls (including “dial up” internet access).”

What's your opinion on that ?

The room I use as an office is almost “wholly and exclusively” used as an office.

Thank you very much,

P.