Not everyone in Horsham who wants a home charger can simply book one. In Horsham district, 15.6% of the 62,371 households live in purpose-built flats (Census 2021), and the 27.7% who do not own their home outright or with a mortgage (our arithmetic on the Census tenure figures) rent, part-own or live in a home they do not pay rent on. For those households the first conversation is with a freeholder, a management company or a landlord, not with an installer. This guide sets out who has to agree, in what order, and which grants apply.
Our Horsham EV charger installation page covers the job itself: the driveways of Roffey and Holbrook, the cable route and the fuse. This post is about permission. If you already have a car on the drive and are weighing up panels and a battery as well, our earlier post on how solar and a battery pair with an EV in Horsham covers that question.
Who this applies to in Horsham district
Horsham is a district of houses: 37.2% of households live in detached homes and 26.9% in semis, and 72.3% own their home, 39.3% outright and 33.0% with a mortgage. Most of those owners decide for themselves. Our arithmetic on the same Census figures puts the purpose-built flats at about 9,700 households. Add the households who rent a house, and a sizeable minority of the district cannot fit a charger on their own say-so.
The car numbers are moving all the same. DVLA records 5,228 privately kept plug-in vehicles across Horsham district at the end of June 2026, against 3,924 a year earlier. Some of those 1,304 extra vehicles belong to people in flats and rented homes, and the questions below are the ones those households face.
Leasehold flats: the freeholder’s written consent
If you own a leasehold flat, the walls, the car park and the ground between them usually belong to the freeholder, or are run by a management company on its behalf. A charger in your allocated bay needs their written consent, and that consent should cover two things: the charger itself, and the route the cable takes from your own meter to the bay. In a block near Horsham town centre that route can run along a communal corridor, through a bin store or under shared tarmac, and it is the route, more than the charger, that a freeholder will want to see.
In a Horsham block, ask for consent before you pay for anything. A useful request names the bay, says where the charger will be mounted, and describes the cable route; we can write that description at survey so you have something concrete to send.
New-build estates: Mowbray, Highwood and Kilnwood Vale
Horsham’s new-build belt is large: Mowbray’s 2,750 homes north of the A264, Highwood Village, and Kilnwood Vale’s 2,500 homes at Faygate. Where the home is a house with its own drive, the owner decides, but check two things first. The deeds or the estate management company may have rules on equipment fixed to the front elevation, and the developer may already have fitted a charger. If one is there, the useful questions are whether it is smart, which the law has required of new home chargepoints since 30 June 2022, and whether it suits your car.
Flats at Mowbray, Highwood and Kilnwood Vale follow the leasehold route above, with the estate’s management company often acting for the freeholder.
Renting: the tenant asks, the landlord decides
A tenant in Horsham needs the landlord’s written agreement before a charger is fixed to the house, whether it is a terrace near the Carfax or a semi in Southwater. Because the charger becomes part of the property, the landlord will reasonably want to know where it goes, how the cable is run and who pays. Put the request in writing and keep the reply.
In a rented Horsham home there is a choice of who claims the grant. A tenant with private off-street parking can claim from OZEV as a renter; a landlord can claim under the landlord scheme instead. Agree which of you is claiming before the quote, so the claim is not attempted twice.
What the OZEV grants pay in Horsham district
The grants are national, so the rules are the same in Horsham as anywhere in England. Renters and people who own and live in a flat can claim 75% of the purchase and installation cost, up to £500 per socket, if they have private off-street or allocated parking. Residential landlords can claim up to £500 per socket, up to 200 sockets a year. Owner-occupiers of houses, which in Horsham district means most households, get no grant; that scheme closed in April 2022. The live schemes run to 31 March 2027.
Whichever applies in Horsham district, a claim must be made through an OZEV-authorised installer, so tell us your situation at the quote stage and we will be clear about how it would be handled. Our guide to the EV chargepoint grant and who still qualifies explains the scheme rules in full. Note too that a home charger installation carries 20% VAT, unlike the 0% currently on residential panels and batteries.
For a Horsham terrace with on-street parking only, a separate OZEV grant of up to £500 needs an approved cross-pavement solution, and the footway is West Sussex County Council’s to manage. Its electric vehicles page describes an on-street public network with Connected Kerb rather than a cross-pavement scheme for residents, so ask the county council before budgeting.
The order to do things in
- Confirm whose consent you need: freeholder, management company, landlord, or more than one.
- Get a survey of the Horsham property, so the request can name the charger position and cable route.
- Send the request in writing and keep the reply.
- Agree who is claiming any grant, then take the written quote.
The installer then notifies UK Power Networks of the new chargepoint; Horsham’s town centre is in its South Eastern Power Networks area, about 2.9 km from SSEN’s network, so outlying addresses should check their operator by postcode. For the kit itself, see our home EV charger installation guide, and if you are in a house and thinking about storage too, our page on battery storage in Horsham.
Sources: ONS Census 2021, tables TS044 (accommodation type) and TS054 (tenure), Horsham district, via Nomis; DfT and DVLA, VEH0142 licensed plug-in vehicles by local authority, privately kept, end of June 2026 and end of June 2025 (published 23 September 2026); GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 (updated 7 July 2026); Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021; HMRC, VAT Notice 708/6; West Sussex County Council, Electric vehicles (page updated 16 October 2026, read 19 October 2026); Sussex Express and Crest Nicholson on Mowbray and Kilnwood Vale (as cited on our Horsham solar page); UK Power Networks, licence boundaries (Open Data Portal, December 2024); NESO, GIS boundaries for GB DNO licence areas (May 2024).