Powering Up: What commercial landlords need to know before granting an EVCP lease 

Granting an EVCP (Electric Vehicle Charging Point) lease can appear to be an easy commercial win. A specialist operator funds the infrastructure, the site becomes more attractive to occupiers, and the landlord secures an additional income stream with relatively little capital investment. On the surface, it looks like a straightforward way of future-proofing a commercial asset. 

The difficulty is that an EVCP lease is not a straightforward occupational lease. It can commit part of a site for twenty years or more, require substantial electricity infrastructure, and in some cases restrict future redevelopment long after the commercial terms have been forgotten. The opportunity is real, but so is the need to ensure today’s agreement does not compromise tomorrow’s asset management strategy.

That balance is becoming increasingly important as EV charging shifts from a competitive advantage to an expected feature of commercial property. Department for Transport figures show over 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles licensed on UK roads by March 2025, a rise of 38% in a single year, against a policy backdrop that continues to point toward the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel car sales and the wider commitment to net zero by 2050. Charging is no longer a question of if. For landlords, the real question is how to grant that access on terms that protect the value of the asset once the initial deal has settled into a long-term commitment.

What the rent actually promises

EVCP leases are typically long, often running to twenty years or more, and the commercial terms on offer tend to improve the longer a landlord is willing to commit. That length suits the operator, who needs time to recover a significant capital outlay. Whether it suits the landlord depends heavily on how the site fits into their own plans. A property earmarked for redevelopment or disposal within the next decade is a poor candidate for a long, inflexible charging lease, however attractive the headline terms look on paper.

The headline rent itself deserves a second look before it is taken at face value. Many operators offer a revenue share model on top of a fixed fee per bay, and this can look considerably more lucrative than a flat rent, right up until a landlord tries to work out how that income is actually measured and reported. Without proper audit rights built into the lease, there is little way of checking whether the figures being paid reflect what the chargers are genuinely earning. What appears to be an upside can end up delivering far less than expected, simply because nobody thought to ask how the numbers would be verified. Worked examples at the outset are always a good idea.

Power capacity often dictates the deal

For landlords, the commercial picture here is more nuanced than it first appears. Installing the physical chargers is often the easy part of the project. Finding enough electrical capacity to run them, particularly for rapid chargers, is the harder one. A new substation frequently becomes necessary, and this can quietly turn into the most consequential decision in the entire scheme, since substation infrastructure is not something a landlord can simply move later if plans change.

Where a substation is required, it usually involves either transferring part of the freehold or granting a very long lease, often ninety-nine years or more, to an electricity operator. This sits outside the EVCP lease itself, but its implications run just as deep, potentially fixing the layout and future use of that part of the site for a generation. Early conversations about available power capacity, before heads of terms are agreed, often determine whether a scheme is commercially viable at all, and whether it can be delivered without compromising supply to existing tenants elsewhere on site. Delivery by the electrical company can also be a real issue.

Judging the tenant behind the technology

Charging technology is maturing fast, but the businesses operating it are often still young, and frequently funded through debt rather than substantial reserves. That is simply the nature of a fast-growing sector, and it means the usual assumptions a landlord might make about tenant covenant strength do not automatically transfer from a national retailer or established office occupier.

A guarantee from a better-capitalised parent company offers one layer of protection. Where that is not available, step-in rights for the operator’s funder can achieve something similar, allowing the funder to keep the chargers running on a short-term basis while a replacement operator is found if the original one fails. Funders do not always embrace this readily, since running charging infrastructure is not their core business, so it is often a point that needs genuine negotiation rather than a clause a landlord can simply insist upon.

Don’t let today’s deal frustrate tomorrow’s development

Perhaps the most significant risk in any long EVCP lease is the one landlords feel only years later, when redevelopment plans meet an installation fixed rigidly in place. The question is not really whether charging makes sense today. It is whether today’s layout still works if the site is reconfigured or redeveloped in ten years’ time.

The answer lies in building flexibility into the lease from the outset. A right requiring the operator to relocate its equipment elsewhere on site, commonly known as a lift and shift provision, is standard practice in substation leases and well worth pursuing in the EVCP lease itself. The cost of that relocation will usually fall to the landlord, and depending on the equipment involved, it is not a trivial sum, so this is a protection worth having rather than a cost worth avoiding. Where no alternative location can be agreed, a landlord-only break right offers a further safeguard, typically on payment of a break fee, though care is needed where the lease falls within the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, since the statutory process for termination must be followed precisely for the break to bite as intended. If landlord break rights are required, the lease should be excluded from the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954.

The details that shape day-to-day use

Charging infrastructure brings its own commercial habits, and a handful of provisions tend to surface in negotiations that would look unusual in a conventional retail or office lease. Operators often want their chargers visible from the public highway, since visibility drives passing custom, and this can lead to negotiation over signage and sightlines that simply would not arise elsewhere. Requests to display advertising on charging screens are common too, and while there is nothing inherently wrong with this, a landlord sharing the site with other tenants needs proper control over what that advertising says and how it sits alongside everyone else’s business.

Then there is the queue. Charging takes considerably longer than refuelling, and a busy site with limited capacity can quickly see vehicles backing up across access roads or blocking other tenants’ parking. It is a small point on paper, easy to overlook at heads of terms stage, and disproportionately disruptive if it is left out of the lease entirely.

Charging as strategy, not just amenity

As EV charging shifts from novelty to expectation, the landlords who benefit most will be those who treat it as part of their wider asset management strategy rather than a bolt-on amenity agreed in isolation. The infrastructure should support the long-term direction of the estate, not quietly dictate it. Approached that way, a well-structured EVCP lease can genuinely enhance both rental appeal and the underlying value of the asset for years to come.

Newmanor Law’s commercial property team advises landlords on infrastructure leases of this kind across a range of sectors and would welcome the opportunity to discuss any of the issues raised here in relation to a specific site.