Remote work - travel expenses for mandatory day in office

[BlueRaspberry7]

Title says it all really.

My remote job requires me to come in to the office (in a different city - 4.5 hour round journey) once a month. I'm expected to pay my own travel expenses for this mandatory trip. Any other client meetings or required travel is paid for by the company.

My contract also had the work office stated as my usual place of work, which it obviously isn't.

Would value any opinions/experiences from other remote workers. Is this the norm?

Yes it is the norm if your office is your designated normal place of work.

I agree that if your office is your designated place of work, you pay to go there. My contract was updated to show me as a fully remote worker so I get extra pay for home heating etc and if I need to go to the office I can expense it

Yes, the norm.

(Because, per your contract, you are not actually classified as a remote worker. You are an office based worker who is allowed to wfh. HMRC does not allow paid travel to your normal place of work).

Yes, that’s the norm.

Which industry is this OP?

That's how my firm works it.

If your contract changes to home or mobile worker then you are eligible for expenses.

Were you originally based in an office?

When you accepted and signed your contract, where was your place of work?

Even if the contract stated the office as your work place one day a month I would still expect to have to pay to get there.

Unless you accepted the job on the basis of WFH 100% of the time & this was then changed to add office days, I don't think you should be expecting expenses.

This is how it is in my organisation. My place of work is officially the office however we work from home 4/5 days. This is so if we ever need to be recalled into the office we can’t dispute it.

We don’t get paid travel time between home/office on the days we have to go in. I see it as a saving rather than an expense only having to go in once a week.

Yes this is the norm in my company.

This is fine - provided your contract states a particular office and that’s the office you always attend. If your contract states one office but you go to several different ones, then that’s not ok and you should be recompensed for journeys to other offices within the HMRC travel rules (as a min)

As others have already said, you're not actually a remote worker from a contractual perspective; you're an office-based worker who's allowed to WFH. Therefore travel expenses to and from your primarily office location are covered by you.

Primary*

Yes, this is the norm.

This.

I'm in this situation. Technically I work in an office. Truthfully I work from home and occasionally go to real meetings! It suits my employer because I'm disabled and they don't have to make adjustments (they aren't being awkward about that - I'm coming up to retirement, we both agree it'd be stupid to pay for the adjustments in an office that was totally redesigned post- covid). On the occasions that I travel to work I can only claim the difference between my normal home to office commute, and the mileage I actually did.

I don't mind this, and think it's fair. But I do object to the fact that the skinflints are saving £thousands on office adjustments but won't pay be a bloody working from home allowance to help with the energy bills. But I'll be getting that back another way before I retire. I feel a period of disability related illness coming on...

Sorry not the norm. If you are home based it should be reflected in your contract. Otherwise at any point they can ask you to come in full time.

(also make sure they add the note about you paying once a week and all other travel being expensed).

That's quite disgusting using a disability for sick leave when you're not sick.

Nope as others have said . Your office is your official place of work so you're not entitled to travel expenses to and from that.

You should have queried it at the time you signed the contract OP, now what they're expecting is entirely within the conditions of the contract.

It's normal. You don't get expenses for that

But I'll be getting that back another way before I retire. I feel a period of disability related illness coming on...

I'm disgusted.

I wish people were identified on t'internet

My contact states my place of work is my home, I get expenses to go to the office c. once a month.

My contract is home worker, if I travel anywhere I get expenses paid UNLESS I choose to go to the closest office to work for example if we had builders in or DH had a day off and I needed to focus. Work have not told me to go there so they don't need to pay.

But when I need to go anywhere for team meetings/events/etc my travel is covered

The OP has an office stated on her contract so she is not home based. At best she is hybrid. My guess is the company don't have an actual wfh policy in place so departments do what they want but it isn't official. Unless the job advert stated home based she can't do much either. And she really shouldn't have signed the contract if it said one thing and she was told another.

We have issues with people refusing to go into the office because they've taken a job 4 hours from home. When in fact they aren't home based. We were discussing whether to expense their travel or hotel costs but decided where do you draw the line.

We do have official home based employees and this is stated on their contract and job advert.

@Notanothernewname I'm actually agreeing with you. She needs it reflected in her contract and shouldn't sign it till its correct. (I thought she was asking before starting a role and querying the contract.....).