A charging point is a permanent electrical installation attached to someone's property and drawing power on someone's account. Most disputes about them are property and contract disputes, not energy disputes. These are the questions to settle before the equipment is ordered.
A charging point looks like an appliance and is treated like one, which is where the problems start. It is a permanent electrical installation, fixed to a structure that someone owns, drawing power through a connection held in someone's name, used by drivers who may be neither of those people. Almost every dispute we see about charging infrastructure in Cyprus is a property or contract dispute rather than an energy one, and almost all of it could have been settled in writing before the equipment was ordered.
Who owns the space, and who owns the wiring
The first question is what the installer has the right to do. A parking space in a Cyprus development may be registered as part of the unit, may be held under the contract of sale as an allocated space without a separate title, or may form part of the common property with an exclusive right of use attached to a unit. These three positions look identical when you stand in the car park and produce very different answers.
The second question is the route the cable takes. A charging point serving one unit is usually fed from a riser, a meter room or a duct that forms part of the common structure even where the space itself is privately held. Fixing equipment to common property, or running new cable through it, is not something a single owner can authorise on their own.
Charging points in a jointly owned building
Where the building is jointly owned, the installation engages the management committee and the other owners. The points to resolve before work begins are:
- Consent. Who has to agree, in what form, and at what majority. A verbal indication from a committee member is worth nothing when the building is sold or the committee changes.
- The electrical capacity of the building. The existing supply was sized for the building as designed. Several charging points added independently can exceed it, and the owner who installs the one that trips the building has a problem that is not purely technical.
- Metering. The power must be measured to the user, not absorbed into the common expenses. A charging point wired into the common supply transfers the cost of one owner's motoring to every other owner in the building, and that is a dispute waiting to be brought.
- Reinstatement. What happens to the equipment and the cabling when the unit is sold or the owner leaves.
- Maintenance and insurance. Who maintains the unit, who insures it, and whether the building's policy has been told about it.
These are the same questions that arise on any alteration affecting common property, and the framework is set out in Common Expenses and Communal Areas in Cyprus.
New builds and major renovations
Requirements for charging infrastructure and pre-cabling in new buildings and in buildings undergoing major renovation derive from the EU rules on the energy performance of buildings. Those rules were recast by Directive (EU) 2024/1275 of 24 April 2024, which repeals Directive 2010/31/EU with effect from 30 May 2026 and which Member States had to transpose in part by 1 January 2025 and in the remainder by 29 May 2026. The directive requires recharging points for electric vehicles in new and renovated buildings, and the obligations differ between residential and non-residential buildings and by the number of parking spaces.
The practical advice for a developer is narrow and does not depend on the detail: establish which version of the requirements applies to the permit you are seeking, before the design is fixed. Retrofitting ducting into a completed structure is expensive, and a certificate of final approval that is held up over an infrastructure requirement holds up delivery of every unit behind it.
A charging point is a permanent electrical installation attached to someone's property and drawing power on someone's account.
The electricity, and whether you are selling it
There is a difference between allowing a driver to use your electricity and selling electricity to the public. A workplace charger used by employees, a hotel charger recovered through the room rate, and a publicly accessible charger with a payment terminal are not the same arrangement.
Where a charge is made for the electricity itself, the question whether the operator requires authorisation should be put to the Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority before the tariff is set. It is a question we ask on every one of these instructions, and it is not one to answer by analogy with what another operator appears to be doing.
On the tax side there is at least a settled starting point. In Case C-282/22 Dyrektor Krajowej Informacji Skarbowej, decided on 20 April 2023, the Court of Justice held that a single complex supply consisting of access to recharging equipment, the transfer of electricity to the vehicle battery, technical support and an application for reservation and payment is a supply of goods within Article 14(1) of the VAT Directive, because the transfer of electricity is the characteristic and predominant element and the remaining elements are ancillary to it. How that classification works out on a particular tariff, and what it means for place of supply and invoicing, still needs to be taken to a tax adviser.
If you are at this point
The contract decides who owns the point and who pays when something fails. Tell us about the draft or write to office@kleanthousplatis.com.
Since December 2025 there is a statute that answers part of this directly. The Organisation of the Recharging Infrastructure Market Law, Law 229(I)/2025, published on 19 December 2025 to apply Articles 2, 5, 20 and 21 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1804, regulates the market in publicly accessible recharging points. Section 2 confines the term recharging point, for the purposes of that Law, to a publicly accessible one, so a charger in the parking space of a jointly owned building, used by the residents, sits outside it. Open the same charger to the public and the Law attaches, with everything below.
Registration comes before operation, not after. Section 13(4)(a) provides that nobody may provide the services of an owner, an operator or a mobility service provider, and that no recharging point may be put into normal operation, unless it has first been entered on the register of electric vehicle recharging infrastructure kept by the competent authority, which section 2 defines as the Director of the Electromechanical Services Department of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works. Registration costs 55 euro for each capacity a person holds, opening a recharging station costs 114 euro, the annual fee is 10 euro for each registered person and a further 10 euro for each point an operator manages, and a change in the registered particulars must be declared within ten days against a further 55 euro.
Two operating duties matter to an owner who is not in the business. Under section 12 an operator must take over the running of every publicly accessible point within one year of its installation, and until that happens the owner carries the operator's obligations personally. Under section 11 the operator must offer ad hoc recharging, billed directly and without any contract with a mobility service provider, as well as access through e-roaming to drivers contracted to other providers.
One provision helps rather than burdens. Section 14(2) allows the supply contract for a recharging point or station to be made with a supplier other than the supplier of the household or the premises where it is installed, aggregators included, so the charger need not sit on the building's own tariff. Where the network operator refuses a connection, section 14(3) requires it to notify CERA and the competent authority within thirty days and to file its network improvement plans within three months.
Enforcement is real. The competent authority may enter premises and inspect under section 18(1), must first serve a compliance notice under section 18(2), and may then suspend the infrastructure until compliance, or remove a person or a point from the register permanently for repeated non-compliance. Section 19 allows an administrative fine of up to 20,000 euro, or 40,000 euro for a similar breach within a year, subject to thirty days to make representations, with hierarchical recourse to the Minister under section 20 decided within sixty days. Section 21 makes a breach of any provision a criminal offence carrying up to one year's imprisonment, a fine of up to 50,000 euro, or both.
So the earlier question, whether the person charging for the electricity needs an authorisation, now has two halves. Supply of electricity remains a matter for CERA under the Electricity Market Regulation Law. Operating a publicly accessible recharging point is a matter for the Electromechanical Services Department under Law 229(I)/2025, and the answer there is that the register comes first.
The installation contract
The contract with the supplier or installer is where liability is allocated, and standard terms in this market are usually written for the supplier.
Settle the scope, including whether the supplier is responsible for the electrical works up to the unit or only for the unit itself. Settle who obtains any permits and who certifies the installation. Settle the warranty: its length, whether it covers labour as well as parts, and whether it survives a change of ownership of the property. Settle what happens if the charging point is unavailable, particularly where the operator takes revenue from it. And settle the data position, because a charging point that identifies users, records sessions and takes payment is processing personal data, and the contract has to say who is responsible for it.
Liability when something goes wrong
Liability for a defective installation is contractual against the installer and may also lie in negligence against whoever carried out or certified the work. Liability to a third party injured by the installation, or whose vehicle is damaged by it, is a separate matter and is the one most often uninsured. Anyone operating a charging point accessible to people other than themselves should confirm in writing that their policy covers it.
What to send us
The title or contract of sale for the parking space, the building's registered regulations and any committee minutes or consents, the installer's quotation and terms, and, for a development, the drawings and the permit position. If the installation has already been made and a dispute has started, send the correspondence.
Charging infrastructure work sits within our construction practice, and the property title questions within our property practice. For the wider sequence on energy projects, see Developing a Solar Project in Cyprus: The Legal Sequence.
Discuss your own situation with us
Questions we are asked
What exactly is the parking space?
Before the cable comes the question of who owns what. The space may be registered as part of the unit, held under the contract of sale as an allocated space with no separate title, or form part of the common property with an exclusive right of use attached to a unit. The three are hard to tell apart from the keys alone and they lead to different answers.
Why are charging point disputes usually property disputes?
Because a charging point looks like an appliance and is not one. It is a permanent electrical installation, fixed to a structure that someone owns, drawing power through a connection held in someone's name, and used by drivers who may be neither of those people. Almost every dispute the firm sees about charging infrastructure in Cyprus is a property or contract dispute rather than an energy one, and almost all of it could have been settled in writing before the equipment was ordered.
Can I install a charger in my own parking space?
Rarely on your own. Section 38D of Cap. 224 allows the owner of a unit to carry out alterations, additions or repairs to that unit on three conditions: that they do not prejudice the rights of the owner of any other unit or interfere with that owner's enjoyment of it; that they do not affect the common property, its proper functioning or its enjoyment in any way; and that they do not affect the walls supporting the building, its external walls or any part of its frame, endanger safety, or alter the external appearance of the building as the Regulations provide. The second condition is the one that bites, because a charging point serving one unit is usually fed from a riser, a meter room or a duct forming part of the common structure even where the space itself is privately held. Fixing equipment to common property, or running new cable through it, is not something a single owner can authorise alone.
What has to be agreed in a jointly owned building?
Five things, before work begins. Who has to consent, in what form and at what majority, because a verbal indication from a committee member is worth nothing when the building is sold or the committee changes. The electrical capacity of the building, since the supply was sized for the building as designed and several independently added points can exceed it. Metering, because power must be measured to the user rather than absorbed into the common expenses. Reinstatement, meaning what happens to the equipment and cabling when the unit is sold or the owner leaves. And maintenance and insurance, including whether the building's policy has been told about the installation.
What happens if a charger is wired into the common supply?
It transfers the cost of one owner's motoring to every other owner in the building, which is a dispute waiting to be brought. The power has to be measured to the user.
What do the rules require in new buildings?
Requirements for charging infrastructure and pre-cabling in new buildings and in buildings undergoing major renovation derive from the EU rules on the energy performance of buildings, recast by Directive (EU) 2024/1275 of 24 April 2024, which repeals Directive 2010/31/EU with effect from 30 May 2026 and which Member States had to transpose in part by 1 January 2025 and in the remainder by 29 May 2026. The directive requires recharging points in new and renovated buildings, with obligations differing between residential and non-residential buildings and by the number of parking spaces, so the position for a particular project has to be established from the transposing measures in force when it is designed.
Related Reading
This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Laws and their application can change, and individual circumstances differ. For advice on your own matter, contact Klitos Platis at klitos@kleanthousplatis.com or telephone +357 22 680 330.
Klitos Platis
Advocate, Partner
Kleanthous & Platis LLC, Nicosia · Revised 4 August 2026
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