In much of Twickenham, the first conversation about a home charger is not with an installer. It is with a freeholder, a landlord or a managing agent. Across Richmond upon Thames, 28.2% of households live in purpose-built flats and another 8.8% in converted or shared houses (Census 2021), and the Victorian conversions of St Margarets are part of that picture. If you own your house and park on your own drive, our page on EV charger installation in Twickenham covers the job; this guide is for everyone else.
Tenure matters as much as building type. We read the borough’s Census tenure figures on 19 October 2026: of 80,704 households, 30.4% own outright, 32.0% own with a mortgage or loan, 0.7% are in shared ownership, 12.1% rent from a social landlord and 24.7% rent privately. More than a third of the borough’s households, 36.8%, rent their home (our arithmetic), and every one of them needs someone else’s agreement before a charger is fixed to a wall, before counting leaseholders who own their flat.
Here is what that looks like, depending on who you are.
You own a flat in a purpose-built block
Owning a leasehold flat rarely means owning the car park, the outside walls or the route between them. A charger on an allocated bay needs a cable from your own meter, which in many blocks sits in a communal cupboard, to the space. That run crosses common parts, so the freeholder or managing agent has to agree in writing, and the lease may set out how such requests are made.
Things to have ready before you ask:
- the bay number and whether it is allocated to you in the lease;
- where your meter is, and roughly where a cable would run;
- whether anyone else in the block has already asked, because a shared approach can be simpler for the freeholder to approve.
If you have private off-street or allocated parking, people who own and live in flats can get 75% of the purchase and installation cost, up to £500 per socket. GOV.UK says residents can apply for one socket.
You own a flat in a converted house
Conversions are the Twickenham special case. The house may have one front garden, one side passage and two or three flats, each with its own meter. A charger for the ground-floor flat may need a cable along a wall belonging to the freeholder, past windows of another flat, to a space in a shared front garden. The freeholder must agree, and in practice the other leaseholders often have a say over the route. Agreeing in writing who can use the space saves trouble later.
You rent privately
A quarter of Richmond households rent privately. For a renter, the charger goes on someone else’s property, so the landlord’s written agreement comes first, and it is worth agreeing in writing what happens to the charger when you leave. Renters with private off-street or allocated parking qualify for the same grant as flat owners: 75% of the cost, up to £500 per socket.
You rent from a housing association or the council
12.1% of the borough’s households rent socially (Census 2021): 9.8% from housing associations and other social landlords, and 2.3% from the council. The landlord decides, so ask how it handles chargepoint requests before booking a survey; the grant rules for renters still apply if they agree and you have a private or allocated space.
You are the landlord
Residential landlords can claim up to £500 per socket, for up to 200 sockets across their sites a year, under the residential landlord chargepoint grant, which runs to 31 March 2027. The separate residential landlord infrastructure grant closed to customer applications on 31 March 2026.
Where there is no parking
The flats and renters grant needs private off-street or allocated parking. A household that parks on the street outside a house can look at Richmond Council’s footway channel scheme and the separate OZEV help for on-street households, up to £500 towards a chargepoint installed with an approved cross-pavement solution, subject to the council’s rules. The council warns that many addresses are not suitable.
The technical side, briefly
A 7.4 kW charger draws 32 A continuously; most homes have a 60 A, 80 A or 100 A main fuse, and load management usually avoids an upgrade. In older Twickenham houses we also check for a looped supply shared with next door, which UK Power Networks says has to be re-planned with both households and may carry a charge. Twickenham’s town centre is on UK Power Networks’ South Eastern Power Networks, but SSEN’s Southern Electric Power Distribution area begins about 1.2 km away, so check your postcode with UK Power Networks’ area checker. Your installer makes the notification either way. A home charger installation is standard-rated at 20% VAT.
Some conservation-area streets carry Article 4 Directions, such as 24 to 33 First Cross Road, so ask the council before a charger goes on a front elevation there.
Claiming the grant
Whether you are a leaseholder in a St Margarets conversion, a renter near Twickenham Green or a landlord with flats in TW1 or TW2, the claim must be made through an OZEV-authorised installer; tell us your situation at the quote stage, and we will say plainly whether a grant applies. Our guide to who qualifies for the chargepoint grant sets out each scheme. For costs, see EV charger installation cost. If you are also weighing up a battery in a flat or conversion, our page on battery storage in Twickenham covers where one can go and who must agree.
Sources: ONS Census 2021, TS044 accommodation type and TS054 tenure, Richmond upon Thames (E09000027), Nomis API, read 19 October 2026; GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/changes-to-electric-vehicle-chargepoint-grant-schemes-from-1-april-2026, updated 7 July 2026), read 19 October 2026; London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Electric vehicle footway channels (updated 13 July 2026), read 19 October 2026; UK Power Networks licence boundaries (UKPN Open Data, December 2024), fuse upgrades and looped supplies; NESO GB DNO licence areas (May 2024); HMRC VAT Notice 708/6; London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Article 4 Directions. Shares combined are our arithmetic.