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"Work From Home" Doesn't Mean "Work From Anywhere", And One Contract Just Proved It

ended 20. August 2026

Her husband got a job in France. She'd worked from her spare room in Bristol for two years and nobody had blinked. So she asked to carry on doing exactly the same job, just from a different postcode.

Her employer said no. She went anyway. She's now lost her unfair dismissal claim.

Iryna Malyk had been a European regional finance business partner at Bristol-based Teleperformance Contact since May 2022. Her contract named her principal place of work as her home in Bristol.

When she raised the move in 2024, her manager Michael Aouate told her she couldn't work from France on a UK contract, that there was no role for her over there, and that running UK projects from France permanently would create legal and tax problems. Drussila Solomon, head of HR in the UK, told her she needed her line manager's permission to work in another country. Aouate asked her to think again, and said that if she went ahead, she'd need to resign.

She moved anyway and kept working. She was suspended, then dismissed after a disciplinary hearing for ignoring an express instruction.

Malyk argued her contract was fully remote, so she could work from anywhere. She'd been open about it. The sacking was disproportionate. Employment Judge Hazel Oliver didn't agree: "The instruction was reasonable in the circumstances, and the disciplinary action was pursued because [Ms Malyk] was continuing to refuse to comply despite having been warned about the consequences."

Here's the bit that should make small employers sit up. The company wasn't being difficult for the sake of it.

Whose law applies, and it isn't the one on your contract

Your contract can say "governed by the law of England and Wales" all it likes. It doesn't settle it. Under the Rome I rules, an employment contract is governed by the law of the country where the employee habitually carries out their work, and a choice of law clause cannot strip them of protections in that country that can't be signed away. So an employee habitually working from Lyon picks up French employment protections whatever your handbook says, and French protections are considerably more generous than ours. Notice periods, dismissal process, severance, working time. You could run a textbook fair UK dismissal and still be on the wrong side of local law.

And the tax follows the same logic

Where the person sits is where the exposure lands. Long-term working from another country can create permanent establishment risk for the business, plus foreign payroll and social security duties. Tax advisers warn that a home office abroad can be treated as a fixed place of business of the employer, penalties included.

If they're in sales, it's worse

Back office and finance roles are a fixed place of business argument, which is arguable. Sales is not. If someone habitually negotiates or concludes contracts on your behalf while sitting in another country, they can be treated as a dependent agent permanent establishment, which means that country can tax the profits attributable to that activity. The tests are roughly: do they have authority to bind the company, do they use it habitually there, and do they work mainly for you. One salesperson closing deals from a kitchen table in Spain can register your company for Spanish corporation tax without anyone in the UK noticing.

For a business with 12 people and no in-house legal team, that's a foreign tax registration, a local payroll provider and a bill nobody budgeted for. All because a good employee's partner got a job somewhere lovely.

And most small business contracts still say "home working" without ever saying which country home is in.

We'd like your views:

  • Was dismissal the right call, or should a company happy for someone to work from a spare room in Bristol have found a way to make France work?
  • Does "fully remote" mean "anywhere" unless the contract says otherwise? And whose job is it to spell that out?
  • Be honest: does your home working clause name a country? What should one actually say?
  • When an employee tells you they're moving abroad and you say no, are you protecting the business or losing a good person over admin you could have sorted?
  • Should employees carry any responsibility for checking the tax and legal fallout of where they work, or is that entirely on the employer?
  • Sales teams are the sharp end of this. If a rep closes deals from abroad, they can create a taxable presence for the whole business. Do most SMEs have any idea that's a risk?
  • If local law overrides your governing law clause anyway, is a UK contract worth much once someone moves? Would you refuse all overseas working, or price the compliance and say yes?
  • Gross misconduct, or would you have looked at a contractor arrangement, an employer of record, or a decent phased exit first?

Sources

TheBusinessDesk.com: Finance manager at Bristol firm loses tribunal claim after moving to France against employer's orders

Thomson Reuters: Permanent establishment risk for remote workers, 2026 guide

Ius Laboris: Telework from abroad, tax consequences for employers

7 responses from the Newspage community

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Kate Underwood
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
I've got the t-shirt on this one. I've sat with the tax solicitors over exactly this, and honestly, what a joy of joys that was.
They were worth every penny though, and that's the bit that bothers me. Most small employers haven't got a tax solicitor on speed dial. So when someone asks to work from their mum's place in Portugal for six months, they either say yes and hope for the best, or say no and feel like the bad guy.
Do ask. Please ask. Just don't be shocked if the answer is no, and don't assume your boss is being awkward for the sake of it. One yes given without thinking can leave a small business with a foreign payroll, a tax registration and somebody else's employment law to deal with.
And this is the bit people miss. Being allowed to work remotely isn't the same as being allowed to work from anywhere. Home working means your home, in the country your contract sits in. If you want it to mean more, sort it in writing before you book the removal van.
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Riz Malik
Independent Financial Adviser at R3 Wealth
Location flexibility increased especially following Covid. However, stories like this are the reason some employer are fearfully of giving their team flexibility. Imagine the time and cost of firm in defending such a claim. There are implications to having your staff work outside your domestic territory and employees should understand they can’t rewrite the rule book to suit themselves.
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Kelly Smallcombe
Fractional Chief People Officer at Meliorem HR Consultancy
This case is exactly what happens when flexibility outruns understanding.

Teleperformance were right to refuse, because working a UK contract permanently from France risks creating a taxable presence and a change in employment rights, exposure most SMEs don’t even know exists. But plenty of companies swing the other way, so relaxed about ‘anywhere working’ they never check where staff actually are, until it’s a tribunal or a tax bill.

Iryna assumed remote meant anywhere; that gap belongs to the contract, not just her.

The law needs to be sharper here, and both sides need short, clear guidance, especially as AI and emboldened rights tempt more people to chance their arm at tribunal
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Nouran Moustafa
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
“Remote” does not mean “work from any country you fancy”. The employer was right to draw a line here. Once someone permanently works from another country, this stops being a home-working perk and starts becoming a tax, payroll, employment-law and potentially corporate-tax issue.

For SMEs, one employee moving abroad can create a compliance problem completely out of proportion to the size of the business. That is not “admin”; it is risk.

Contracts also need to catch up. I would explicitly state that remote working is permitted only from approved locations and that overseas working requires prior written approval.

That said, I would not automatically lose a brilliant employee. If the commercial value justified it, I would price the options first — local employment, an employer of record or another compliant structure. But the employee cannot simply move first and expect the business to absorb the consequences later.

Remote working gives flexibility. It does not erase borders.
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Samuel Mather-Holgate
Managing Director & IFA at Mather and Murray Financial
This case proves what many employers have been too nervous to say: working from home does not mean working from anywhere. There has been a cultural drift since the pandemic where some workers treat remote work as a blank cheque to operate from a café, gym, car, holiday home or another country. That is not a serious interpretation of a job. Employers are not being petty by setting boundaries; they are protecting the business from tax, legal, data and performance risks. Home working should mean an agreed, appropriate place of work where the employee can actually do the job properly — not a moving target, and not a playground with a laptop open in the corner. Flexibility works only when there is trust, clarity and common sense on both sides.
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Scott Gallacher
Director at Rowley Turton
There are clearly legal, tax and compliance issues if remote workers relocate overseas without informing their employer.

If someone on a shop floor moved to France, you would notice. With WFH, that is much harder, so the employee must disclose it, although employers should probably carry out an annual check.

I can see the attraction of moving to sunnier climes while keeping a UK salary. But there may be a sting in the tail.

If someone can work permanently overseas for a UK company, employers may reasonably ask: why not recruit overseas in the first place?

That could put downward pressure on salaries for fully remote roles, with UK workers competing against equally capable people in lower-cost countries. I already know of UK professional services firms using remote South African staff at around half the cost of equivalent UK hires.

“Work from anywhere” may ultimately have consequences for UK wages too.
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Harvey Dhillon
Founder & CEO at Zmartly
The risk that lands first is payroll, and it sits with the employer. Social security follows the desk. Under the UK and EU deal, a permanent move to France puts the employee under the French system from day one, and your liability follows theirs. Staff should flag it early, but sorting it out is the employer's job. Whether a rep abroad creates a taxable presence turns on the tax treaty with France, and its agent test asks whether the rep can commit the company to a contract, not just talk terms. Most owners I talk to haven't heard of it. None of that is settled by your UK contract: it follows where the person sits. Contractor or employer of record is a costing job, and providers' claims need testing. Whether the dismissal was right, what a fairer exit looks like, and what a contract should say are HR and employment law calls, not mine. The judgment says she was actually dismissed for what the law calls some other substantial reason. I wouldn't refuse these requests. I'd price them.