The EV charging clauses missing from your lease
Six clauses: who owns the equipment at lease end, how much electrical capacity the tenant is allocated, how the energy cost is passed through, whether charging is exclusive to anyone, who controls stall designation and signage, and who removes and restores. Most commercial leases address none of them, and the sentence that stands in their place — tenant may use the parking area — is the one that produces litigation three years later, because parking, electrical capacity and roof-to-transformer infrastructure are three different assets and that sentence conveys rights in all of them by implication.
Updated 2026-08-20
Silence is a decision, and it is decided against the landlord
When a lease says nothing about charging, the tenant installs, and every question you did not answer gets answered by default rules you did not choose.
Clause one: equipment ownership at lease end
Say explicitly whether the chargers are the tenant's removable property or become the landlord's on surrender, and say it separately for the equipment and for the infrastructure feeding it.
Clause two: allocated electrical capacity
This is the clause with the most money in it and the one most often absent. Spare service capacity is a finite shared asset, and in a multi-tenant building the first tenant to install charging can consume all of it.
Clause three: how the energy cost passes through
Name the method. There are only four, and picking one in the lease prevents the argument that otherwise arrives with the first bill.
Clause four: exclusivity, in both directions
Decide whether anyone gets an exclusive right to charging on the property, and write it down even when the answer is nobody.
Clause five: stall designation, signage and enforcement
Charging stalls generate parking disputes, not electrical ones, and the lease should say who resolves them.
Clause six: removal and restoration
Define the surrender condition for charging equipment specifically, because the general restoration clause was written for partitions and carpet.
Why tenant may use the parking area produces litigation
Because it grants a right of use over a surface without saying anything about what may be built into it, or about the electrical service beneath it.
What the numbers look like, so the clauses have context
Networked Level 2 for a workplace or retail site typically runs $4,500 to $9,500 per port installed, and DC fast starts around $50,000 per port.
Can we just add an EV charging amendment to existing leases?
For a cooperative tenant, yes, and it is often easier than it sounds because the tenant usually wants the certainty too. Lead with the capacity allocation rather than with restrictions: a tenant who is told how much capacity they have and what it costs to get more will generally sign, because they were going to ask for it anyway. The clauses that are hard to add mid-term are exclusivity and restoration, since both take something away.
Who pays for a service upgrade if the tenant's charging exceeds the allocation?
Whoever the lease says, and if the lease is silent it becomes a negotiation with no anchor. The usual settlement is that the tenant pays for capacity beyond its allocation, the landlord retains the upgraded infrastructure at surrender, and the tenant gets some recognition of that — a rent credit, an amortisation, or a first call on the new capacity. Decide the principle now and the arithmetic later.
Are the chargers a trade fixture the tenant can remove?
That is exactly the question your lease should answer instead of leaving it to fixture law, which varies by state and turns on facts like how the equipment is attached and what the parties intended. The commercially normal split — equipment removable, infrastructure stays — is easy to agree at signing and expensive to argue at surrender.
Does charging load affect our building's utility rate schedule?
It can, and this is worth knowing before you allocate capacity. Adding charging to a meter can move the account onto a demand-billed schedule, which reprices every other load on that meter. Ask the serving utility what the load does to the schedule, with a specific kilowatt figure, before the conduit route is drawn. Our house-meter versus separate-meter article covers the decision in full.
What if the tenant wants to sell charging to the public?
That is a different deal and it needs its own terms: revenue sharing, insurance, hours, signage, and the question of whether selling electricity by the kilowatt-hour raises a utility-status issue in your state. Many states have clarified that providing charging service does not make the provider a regulated utility. Not all have. Ask counsel before you consent.
How long does the physical work take?
The electrical work is usually weeks. The utility interconnection is usually months, and a project needing a new transformer or service can run considerably longer. Start the utility conversation before hardware selection, because what they tell you about capacity and timeline changes what hardware makes sense.
- US Access Board — Design Recommendations for Accessible Electric Vehicle Charging Stations
- CPUC Decision 11-07-029 — whether a seller of EV charging services is a public utility (California)
- Recharged — How much does a commercial EV charging station cost (per-port installed cost baseline)
- GreenLancer — Guide to commercial electric vehicle charging stations (DC fast per-port baseline)
- IRS — Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit (§30C status)
Put a capacity number in the clause
A capacity allocation is only useful if you know what it buys. Tell us the port count you expect, the distance from the service and whether the run crosses paving, and you get an installed-cost range for the build behind the clause.