Home business rules policy template: limits and notices

A home business policy fits on one page because the person writing it is usually the person following it.

Its job is not to state what the planning or zoning office for the parcel, the association, the landlord, the state board that licenses the trade, or the insurer or broker require. They decide that, and a lawyer reads their answers where the home is at stake. It writes down the limits the business has chosen, who it has told — including any permit, approval, or letter that came back — and what would make it ask again.

The home business rules policy template below is written in the first person plural because that is how it reads best when there are two of you, and it works unchanged for one. Square brackets are yours to fill.

What to take away

Declare limits you have chosen, not rules you have found. A limit is something you can keep; a rule is something somebody else applies.
The "who we have told" log is the part that protects you. An answer nobody wrote down is an answer nobody can rely on.
One re-ask list, kept on the same page, is worth more than any amount of reading.
The document expires when the footprint changes, not on a date.

The page

What this business does at this address

[Describe the activity in plain words, then the footprint in measurable terms. Who comes here and how often, what is delivered and how, who works here, which rooms are used, what is stored, what equipment runs, what vehicle and where parked, what can be seen from the street, and the hours.]

Describe the business footprint

Who comes here and how often
What is delivered and how
Who works here, which rooms used
What is stored, what equipment runs
What vehicle, where parked
What can be seen from the street
The hours activity happens

This description is the one every outside reader has answered against. When it stops being true, the answers stop being reliable.

The limits we hold ourselves to

We have chosen the following limits. They are not a statement of what any authority requires; they are the footprint we have decided to keep, set at or inside whatever the readers below told us.

Limits we hold ourselves to

Visitorsnone or stated maximum
Non-resident workersnumber and pattern
Space usednamed rooms only
Storagewhat, how much, where
Equipmentwhat runs, when
Vehicleswhere parked, no signage
Signage, deliveries, hours, public address

Any change to a line above is a change to the footprint and goes to the re-ask list before it happens.

Who we have told, and what they said

Who we have told

Reader	Contact and date	What we gave them	What they said, in their words	Where the record is
Landlord, or the association, or the recorded restriction	[name, date]	[the description above]	[answer, or the clause]	[file]
Planning or zoning office for the parcel	[office, name, date, parcel number]	[the description above]	[answer, including any conditions]	[file]
Trade board, if the work is a licensed trade	[board, date]	[the description of the work]	[answer]	[file]
Insurer or broker	[name, date, policy number]	[the description above]	[what is covered, excluded, or required]	[file]

An empty row is a conversation not yet had. A row older than the description above it is a conversation to have again. Keeping obligations written down and dated, rather than remembered, is the whole habit this table is built on, and it is the habit behind the Small Business Administration's guidance on business records.

A row about the landlord, for example, reads: reader — the landlord; date — the day the lease was signed; what we gave them — a copy of the description above; what they said — their answer, kept as they gave it; where the record is — stapled behind the signed lease.

When we ask again

Before, not after, any of the following:

Anyone starts working here who does not live here.
Customers, clients, or students start coming to the house, or come more often than the limit above.
Stock or equipment goes into a garage, shed, basement, or a room not listed above.
A vehicle is bought for the business, or the one we have gets signage.
Deliveries change in size, frequency, or carrier.
We build, convert, wire, or plumb anything for the business.
The home address is published for the business anywhere new.
The lease renews, the association changes its rules, or the policy renews with changed wording.
We add a service or product that is a different kind of work.
We move.

Each of these changes a line the readers answered against. The person who notices tells [named person] before the change, and the re-ask happens before the change, because a change already made is a fact to explain rather than a question to put.

Who owns this page

[Named person.] Reviews the page whenever a trigger fires, and once a year on the anniversary of the day the page was first filled in. Keeps the four records where [the other named person] can find them. Puts every date from the readers' answers, and every renewal date, into the calendar.

Filling it in honestly

Two temptations undo the page.

Set limits you will keep

Is what you actually do over what a reader told you?

Yes

Resolve the problem, do not soften the line

Set the limit at what you actually do

Write limits, not requirements

Write this

Wording: We limit ourselves
Source: Your own decision
Where kept: On the page
If code changes: Limit shows what you did

Not this

Wording: The city allows
Source: Counter's answer
Where kept: Dated in the log
If code changes: Log shows what you relied on

First, write a requirement into it. "The city allows two visitors a day" turns a counter's answer on one date into a rule you rely on, and it goes stale silently.

Write "we limit ourselves to two visitors a day." Keep the counter's answer, dated, in the log. If the code changes, the log shows what you relied on; the limit shows what you did.

The second is choosing limits you will not keep. A limit that the business quietly exceeds is worse than no limit, because it records that you knew. Set the limits at what you actually do, and if what you actually do is over what a reader told you, that is a problem to resolve, not a line to soften.

What sits outside the page

The page covers the property side of a home business: who may object to what happens at the address. The trade side does not change with the address, and the industry licensing overview covers it.

The private documents in the first row of the log are contracts. Contract law is the frame for reading them, with Cornell's outline of contract law behind that for the elements themselves.

Dates live in the compliance calendar rather than here. The wider reasoning behind the four readers, why a home has four separate systems to satisfy and why any of them can stop the activity alone, is set out in home business rules.

Common questions

It is just me. Do I need a page?

The limits and the log, yes, because you are the one who will forget what the counter said and when. The rest can be three lines.

Should the page say what the code requires?

No. It says what you asked, who answered, and what you decided to do. The code is on the government's site, current, and the counter applies it.

What if a reader told us no?

Then the page records a limit of none for that dimension, and the business runs inside it or takes the question to a lawyer. Writing a softer answer than the one you were given is the one thing this page must never do, and it is where the local licensing exposures that arrive through neighbors and insurers begin.