Tenants Could Get a 28 Day Answer on EV Chargers Under DfT Plan

• The Department for Transport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government propose that landlords and freeholders answer an EV charger request in writing, with 28 calendar days given as the example deadline.
• Six listed grounds, from a looped electricity connection to a block-wide charging scheme, could still let a landlord refuse, and the resident would be expected to pay the up-front cost.
• Nothing is law yet: the England-only consultation closes at 11:59pm on 16 December 2026, and a legal right would need future primary legislation.

Some Landlords Reject Charger Requests Without a Clear Reason and DfT Wants That to Stop

A tenant or leaseholder with a parking space who asks for a home EV charger could one day expect a written answer, with reasons if it is no. The Department for Transport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published the plan on 21 October 2026 under the name ability to charge, and the example deadline it gives for a formal reply is 28 calendar days.

Nothing has changed for anyone yet. The plan is an open consultation that closes at 11:59pm on 16 December 2026. A binding deadline on landlords would need future primary legislation and parliamentary time, and the document names no date for either. The gap the department wants to close is permission that is sometimes rejected without a clear reason.

The numbers show who is waiting. The consultation document counts an estimated 4.8 million leasehold dwellings in 2023 to 2024. The English Housing Survey 2022 to 2023 puts 4.6 million households in the private rented sector and 4 million in the social rented sector, which makes 8.6 million rented households, or 35% of all households. The plan is aimed at the share of them with an off-street parking space, the place a charger can go. Housing is devolved, so the consultation covers England only. Residents without a home charger rely on public points, where slower public charger prices are a cost of their own.

Guidance Landlords Could Ignore or a Law They Would Have to Follow

The consultation sets out two routes and asks which works better. The first is non-statutory guidance on how to make and handle a request. Under guidance alone a landlord or freeholder would have no obligation to agree to an installation. Landlords would be encouraged to explain, and to provide evidence, when they judge a request unreasonable. The document names the limit of this route: it would be voluntary, with no requirement to follow a process or to give reasons for a refusal.

The second route is legislation. It would require freeholders and landlords to give timely decisions on charge point requests and would stop them refusing a request unreasonably. The document says policies of this type, with differing scope, already exist in France and Norway.

The process the document sketches has a few steps. A private tenant would send a written request to the landlord. If that landlord is itself a leaseholder, the request would go up to the freeholder. Leaseholders and shared owners would write to their landlord, and so would social tenants. The landlord would acknowledge the request, then give a formal written reply within a set period, with 28 calendar days as the example, and explain any refusal. Disputes might need an escalation route, and the consultation asks what it should be.

If permission is granted, the two sides would agree terms before work starts. Those terms would cover where costs fall and who handles maintenance and decommissioning.

The department gives its reasons in the document: home charging is often the cheapest and most convenient option for drivers, the government has committed to phasing out sales of new cars that rely solely on internal combustion engines by 2030, and recent global energy market disruption has raised the stakes on energy security. For owner-occupied houses with a driveway or garage the document calls an installation usually easy, and it lists extra challenges for other tenures and parking set-ups.

The Six Grounds That Would Still Let a Landlord Say No

A right to an answer could still leave landlords room to refuse. The consultation lists six circumstances in which a refusal could be reasonable, and asks whether each should stand, whether others should join them and whether the list belongs in legislation or only in guidance. The document says engagement to date suggests a published list would help a resident understand, before asking, whether a request is likely to succeed.

The first ground is a request that breaches an existing lease term or another statutory obligation. Read your lease or tenancy agreement first, as the document says parking rights are often set out there. The second is a requirement for local electricity network upgrades, including where a property has a looped connection. That ground turns on the supply to the building, so ask the installer who quotes the work whether the property would need an upgrade.

The third is that no off-street parking is available to the resident at the property. The plan starts from an off-street parking space, and drivers who park on the street sit in a different part of the rules, such as the planning rules for street parkers. The fourth applies in blocks of flats where the freeholder or landlord is adopting a building-wide charge point approach. A resident who wants a private wall unit in a block should ask the managing agent whether a block-wide scheme is planned.

The fifth is an installation that does not comply with BS 7671, the national standard for electrical installations. An installation that meets that standard would not fall under this ground. The sixth is insufficient parking space at the building.

Which Residents and Which Parking Spaces Would Be Covered

The department expects the ability to charge to apply to residential leaseholders and tenants, including people on mixed tenure estates, in mixed-use developments and in shared ownership homes. It asks for views on people in shorter-term arrangements, such as supported or temporary accommodation.

Parking comes in three ownership types, and which one you hold decides your position. Demised parking is owned by the leaseholder or tenant. Allocated parking belongs to the freeholder or landlord but is assigned to the resident. Communal parking is owned by the freeholder or landlord, with the right to use it identified in the lease or tenancy agreement. A space can be a driveway next to the home, a separate space away from it or a bay in a multi-home car park.

The department proposes that the right cover as many parking types as possible, demised and allocated included. It recognises that communal parking brings extra charges and asks for views, so a driver who uses a shared communal car park falls in the group it has not settled.

What You Would Pay and What Help Exists Today

Under the legislation route, the leaseholder or tenant would be expected to arrange and pay the up-front cost of the charge point, including installation works and any fee the landlord charges for permission to alter the property. That would apply across all types of parking space. The consultation leaves open who pays for maintenance, usage and any removal costs after installation, and it also asks who should carry the up-front cost, with the charge point operator, the landlord or freeholder, the tenant or leaseholder and other as the answers on offer.

Two measures already exist and neither depends on the consultation. Government charge point grants of up to £500 are available to people in flats, including leaseholders and tenants, to people in rented accommodation and to residential landlords. From 2022 the grants have supported 26,504 sockets installed by people in flats and rented accommodation and a further 5,564 through residential landlord grants, which makes 32,068 in all. The renters and flat owners grant pays 75% of the cost to buy and install a socket, up to £500, and its funding is confirmed until 31 March 2027. The grant rules also require any third-party permission, such as from a landlord, freeholder or managing agent, to be in hand before you apply, so a landlord’s answer decides whether the money is available at all. The property needs its own private off-street parking space, and the charger must not be installed before the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles confirms you are eligible.

Part S of the building regulations, which the grant rules date to 15 June 2022, already requires charge points in all new buildings and those undergoing major renovation. Its charge point requirements do not apply to enclosed or open-sided car parks. A second consultation from the same two departments, published the same day and closing at the same hour on 16 December 2026, proposes extending the requirement to covered car parks. It also proposes reviewing the £3,600 cap on installation in light of price rises from 2021 and floats wider changes to Part S, subject to the responses it receives. That cap and those car parks belong to new and renovated buildings. They are a separate decision from the right of a tenant to ask a landlord for a charger.

What to Do Before 16 December

Start with the lease. Find out whether the space you use is demised, allocated or communal, and check what the agreement says about alterations. Then write to your landlord or freeholder asking for permission to install a charger, and keep a dated copy and any reply. Nothing in the consultation is binding yet, but a dated record of the request and the reply gives you something concrete to cite when you respond, as the department asks about the barriers tenants and leaseholders face. Get a quote from an installer who works to BS 7671 and ask whether the property would need a network upgrade.

Then respond. The online form is the easiest route and lets you save and continue if you cannot finish in one sitting. You can email [email protected] or post a response to the Charging Infrastructure Deployment team, Department for Transport, Great Minster House, 33 Horseferry Road, London SW1P 4DR. Responses must arrive before 11:59pm on 16 December 2026, and the department says it will accept nothing later. Say whether you respond as an individual or for an organisation. Email responses get an acknowledgement, and if nothing arrives within 15 minutes, check your junk folder, then email the same address with missing receipt in the subject line.

The questions ask for experience and opinion: the challenges in getting permission, whether you back guidance or legislation, who should pay for the charger and its upkeep and removal, which parking types and residents should be covered, and what route a dispute should take. Landlords, freeholders, managing agents and local authorities can respond too, and the form asks each to say which of them they are, so a resident who was refused and a landlord who refused for a stated reason both feed the evidence.

Keep personal details out of the answers unless a question asks for them. The department says responses, including personal information, could be published or disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The Part S consultation takes responses at its own address, [email protected], so a view on covered car parks or the £3,600 cap goes there. The department says the responses will inform its decisions on how to deliver the plan, and the document gives no date for what comes next. Drivers who rent or lease should watch for the government’s response to the consultation, and until then can read what public charging costs per mile.

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