Paid time off to move house?

Stamp duty holiday

An employee is going to be moving house in the next few weeks, but the actual date is up in the air. They might be moving because, like thousands of others, they are taking advantage of the stamp duty holiday which ends in March 2021.

Are they entitled to any time off to move house?

No automatic right

The short answer to this question is “no”. It’s a common misconception amongst employees that their employer must grant them paid time off to move house, but this is not the case.

The only exception is where an individual is moving house for work-related purposes, e.g. they are relocating to a branch in a different area.

Can insist on holiday

In all other situations you can insist that an employee takes annual or unpaid leave on their moving day. Of course, one issue with moving house is that plans can change at short notice.

For example, an employee might book annual leave giving you the correct notice, but then needs to move the date.

Last minute changes

This might be due to the fact they can’t arrange removals, are unable to access their new property on the originally anticipated moving date or others who are involved need to alter their timescales.

Declining a request

What happens if you can’t accommodate annual leave on the employee’s proposed moving date, say, because it will leave you short staffed or without managerial cover?

If you really can’t accommodate an annual or unpaid leave request you can decline it, meaning that the employee would have to make alternative arrangements or change their moving date.

However, there must be a genuine business need on your part to refuse the annual leave request; it can’t just be a bit awkward.

Tip. If you genuinely can’t accommodate an annual leave request, make sure that you give the employee as much notice as possible of this, and the reason why. Then try to be as flexible as possible over an alternative date.

Staff perk

Some employers do grant their employees a paid day or two off work to move house. If you want to do the same this perk should be available to all staff. That said, you don’t want some employees to have more time off than others because they routinely move house, e.g. around different family members or friends.

Tip. To prevent this, you could say that every employee could have one or two paid days off per year to move house. If they move in excess of this, they must use other leave.

Tip. You can request proof of a house move, e.g. a signed rental agreement or correspondence from a solicitor or estate agent. Without this you could refuse a request for time off.