Product Review: EV Chargers for Flats & HMOs — Compliance, Cost and Tenant Experience (2026)

Hook: Flats present more legal and logistical friction than houses — your product choice must solve for fairness.

Communal charging in multi‑occupancy dwellings is now a mainstream brief. This review looks beyond kW and into arbitration, meter partitioning and packaging that simplifies installs.

What landlords and management companies care about

• Fairness by usage and transparent billing.
• Minimal communal works and protected listed‑building processes.
• Tenant experience: predictable booking and reliable charge windows.

For examples of how micro‑retail and microfactory approaches speed customised mount production, see How Microfactories Are Rewriting the Rules.

Test methodology

We evaluated five chargers across these axes: metering options, software fairness controls, space and ducting needs, and ease of service.

Top pick: Charger C (Multi‑tenant Billing Focus)

Charger C integrates with third‑party meters and supports per‑socket billing. The vendor also offered packaging and returns guidance that echoes best practices in the sustainable packaging literature at eyeware.store — practical because communal installs often require protected, reusable packaging for corridors and lifts.

Runner up: Charger A (Plug & Play, Fast Install)

Charger A shipped with pre‑configured load management and proved quickest to install in retrofit stairwells. For field documentation we used mobile scanning workflows from docscan.cloud to log serial numbers and commissioning forms.

Compliance notes

New guidance in 2026 emphasises meter separation where possible and transparent charging rates. If you're preparing tenders, include an escalation clause for billing disputes and consult the CRM selection guide at go-to.biz for contract management templates.

Tenant experience — software matters

Tenants care about ease and fairness, not tech specs. Solutions that provide simple booking apps and automatic billing win acceptance and reduce complaints.

Field service & security

Remote diagnostics should be hardened with zero‑trust approaches. We used recommendations from the zero‑trust toolkit (anyconnect.uk) to outline a secure remote troubleshoot policy for installers.

Pros & cons — practical summary

• Pros: Reduced tenant friction, modular billing, improved acceptance.
• Cons: Initial metering cost; tenant education required.

Checklist for specifying chargers for flats

1. Confirm landlord permissions and protected building requirements.
2. Design meter topology and billing — test software UX with a small tenant cohort.
3. Ensure secure OTA updates and remote diag per zero‑trust guidance.
4. Standardise packaging returns and takeback plans — see eyeware.store.

Further reading

• Zero‑trust for field engineers: anyconnect.uk
• Document OCR & mobile devices: docscan.cloud
• CRM guide for contract management: go-to.biz
• Microfactory mounting options: discovers.site

Installers who spec software and metering as part of the hardware solution will have fewer disputes and stronger recurring revenue in 2026.