EV charging infrastructure: What building surveyors and their clients need to know

A question the profession has not yet fully answered

EV charging infrastructure is no longer a future consideration for the built environment. It is already embedded in Building Regulations, already present in commercial buildings, and already creating questions that surveyors are being asked to answer, without always having the tools to answer them well.

This article does not claim to resolve that. In several areas, the guidance simply does not yet exist. What it does aim to do is name the questions clearly, consider what good professional practice looks like in the absence of a definitive framework, and flag where the profession needs to move faster than the regulatory bodies have so far managed.

What Part S of the Building Regulations requires

Part S of the Building Regulations, which came into force in June 2022, introduced minimum EV charging requirements for new residential and non-residential buildings in England. For commercial developments, the requirement is that at least one in every seven parking spaces must be fitted with an EV charge point, with cable routes provided for a further portion of the remaining spaces to enable future installation.

In practice, the 7 per cent figure often cited relates to a specific threshold calculation within the regulations. The precise requirement depends on the number of spaces, the type of development, and whether the building is new or undergoing a material change of use. Surveyors and developers should read the regulation directly rather than rely on a single headline figure.

Less clear is what surveyors should ask for in documentation, certificates, and third-party sign-off when inspecting or reporting on a building where Part S applies. Electrical installation certificates are standard, but the specific competency required to assess EV charging infrastructure, such as load capacity, network compatibility, and future-proofing of cable routes, goes beyond what a standard building survey would typically cover.

The gap between what the regulations require and what practical inspection guidance exists for surveyors to act on is a real one.

Not all EV chargers are equal: Should surveyors be reporting on specification?

The EV charging market is not standardised in the way that many clients assume. Charging speeds, connector types, network compatibility, and build quality vary significantly between manufacturers and between price points. There is a legitimate concern that developers, under cost pressure, will specify the minimum compliant product rather than the most appropriate one for the building's likely occupier profile and long-term use.

This creates a reporting question for surveyors. Should a building survey comment on the specification and quality of EV charging infrastructure in the same way it might comment on the specification of M&E systems or the quality of a roof covering?

The answer, in our view, is yes, but the profession is not yet consistently doing so, partly because the knowledge base to do it well is not uniformly distributed across the surveying community.

Clients acquiring or leasing buildings with EV charging infrastructure deserve to understand what they are getting. A charger that meets the minimum regulatory requirement may not meet the operational needs of an occupier with a large fleet, or the investment requirements of a landlord seeking to attract quality tenants. Flagging that distinction is part of sound professional advice.

The emerging challenge of EV infrastructure and dilapidations

The dilapidations implications of EV charging infrastructure are among the most practically significant questions the profession is currently navigating, and most leases have not yet caught up with them.

When EV charging equipment is installed by a tenant, the position at lease end raises a series of questions that most leases do not currently answer clearly. Is the charger a fixture or a fitting? Does the tenant have the right to remove it, or an obligation to do so? If the infrastructure has been embedded into the fabric of the building, what is the reinstatement obligation, and who bears the cost?

The position is further complicated where the charging equipment is leased rather than owned by the tenant. In those cases, the contractual relationship between the tenant and the equipment provider may override the repairing and reinstatement obligations in the lease, creating a triangular liability position that landlords are not always aware of when granting consent for installation.

A schedule of condition prepared at the point of installation, recording the pre-existing state of the relevant areas and the specification of what has been installed, is a practical step that protects both parties. At lease end, the dilapidations assessment needs to address EV infrastructure explicitly, not treat it as outside the scope of the schedule.

Both landlords and tenants should be raising these questions at heads of terms stage rather than discovering them at lease expiry.

Should surveyors be building EV competency?

The honest answer is that the profession is currently variable in its knowledge of EV charging infrastructure, and that variability is becoming a problem as the technology becomes more prevalent in the buildings we are surveying and advising on.

Clients are beginning to ask specific questions about charging capacity, network compatibility, and future-proofing. They are asking whether the infrastructure installed in a building they are acquiring will meet their operational needs. They are asking what their maintenance obligations are and what the implications are at lease end. These are not unreasonable questions, and the expectation that a building surveyor should be able to engage with them is not unreasonable either.

The case for CPD provision specifically addressing EV infrastructure, covering regulatory requirements, specification standards, inspection methodology, and lease implications, is clear. This is not a niche topic. It is embedded in Building Regulations and present in a growing proportion of the commercial buildings our profession works with. Treating it as a specialist area that only some surveyors need to understand is no longer a sustainable position.

What does current guidance say, and where does it fall short?

RICS guidance on EV charging in the context of building surveying, dilapidations, and lease advisory is currently limited. NHBC standards address EV charging for new residential development but do not provide the kind of granular inspection and reporting guidance that would help surveyors advise commercial clients with confidence. The result is that surveyors are, in many cases, exercising professional judgement in an area where the standards bodies have not yet provided the framework to support that judgement.

That is not an unusual position for the profession. Building surveying has always required practitioners to apply expertise in areas where codified guidance lags behind practice. But it does place greater responsibility on individual surveyors to be transparent with clients about the limits of current standards, to seek specialist input where the complexity warrants it, and to document clearly the basis on which their advice has been given.

RICS accreditation provides the professional framework within which that judgement is exercised. It does not, in this case, provide the specific EV guidance that the profession needs. We would welcome clearer standards from RICS and from government. This is not to remove professional discretion but to provide the foundations on which sound advice can be built consistently across the profession.

Speak to our building consultancy team

EV charging infrastructure raises questions that cut across building surveys, dilapidations, lease advisory, and development compliance. Our building consultancy team works with commercial property owners, occupiers, developers, and their advisers across all of these areas.

If you have questions about EV charging in the context of a survey instruction, a dilapidations dispute, or a development project, we would be glad to discuss them. Please complete the form below to get the conversation started.