Opening a small home based business is hard and complicated!!

[CandiceM]

I have been investigating opening a small home based business here in Perth and WOW but it's complicated!

Part of the business involves hiring out of small (kids) furniture and part of it is providing baked goods. In order to do this I need to apply for a home business license and to operate a food business from a residential premises, and then have to have my kitchen inspected. Not allowed to use any high risk foods like cream...and she didn't sound too keen on the butter either, but they will let me know once I submit my application and $250 fee

Added to that according to the council regulations I can not have a home business that hires out anything, or that retails anything , which I have to be honest is limiting me quite a bit here. Now don't get me wrong it's not like I would be estactic if my neighbour started hiring out industrial machinery next door to me, but a table cloth, don't think that would phase me too much. In addition I need signed consent from the landlord (reasonable) and from neighbours next to me, behind me and across the road!!

All my licenses and fees is going to cost me in the region of $600 and that doesn't guarantee me I will get a license for any of it, feeling quite sick at the thought of the money sliding down the drain must be honest.

Now my question is this...do you think that every food business is doing this? I am talking about the ouma who bakes batches of koeksusters, the biltong guy, not to mention the hundreds of cake decorators, cupcake makers and various other food stuffs I see advertised weekly. Also I have come across a few businesses hiring and retailing from homes. Or do people just do it and hope they don't get caught?

Ironically in a country that is starting to stress about the welfare system burdened by the elderly, the suggestions of families limiting their kids to two and the perpetual moaning of refugees draining the welfare coffers, they make it DAMN hard to start your own business and contribute to the economy! I swear it's easier to just sit back and wait for centrelink to take care of me

Candice

[Mara]

It does seem strange that they make it so difficult. I knew someone in Victoria doing the research to open a homebake shop...she was stopped dead in her tracks when she was told that any food for public sale had to be prepared in an industrial kitchen, ie., cannot be made in a home kitchen. If you wished to add a separate kitchen to your home, where only the food for sale was prepared, then that would be OK! Mmm, obviously her idea went nowhere, so she just did it by word of mouth from home...of course, if she was caught, I guess she would have been in for the high jump. This was a number of years ago, I used to get the most delightful rusks from her, don't know if the rules are still the same.