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Is charging electric car at holiday house "theft"?
(www.express.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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It’s not theft unless the owner specified in the conditions of the rental that car’s couldn’t be charged at the property. (Even then “Theft” is a strong word!)
That being said - there is obviously a big difference in charging your phone and charging a car and really we are at a point where this should be clear in all holiday rental agreements one way or another.
I don’t think the owner would be happy if someone just turned on all the taps in the house and left them running for the entirety of their stay. There is a sort of “fair use” which is assumed (if not actually in writing)
Question comes if car charging should always be assumed “fair use” or is that above and beyond? Or is it a gray area that just “depends”.. Much better for everyone if all this is made as clear as possible in the agreement right at the beginning.
I'm sure the courts would agree it's not theft, but it really is taking the piss: a typical UK home uses on the order of 10kWh per day - and an electric car can easily take 60kWh to charge. This isn't like charging a mobile phone which is basically noise - it can mean someone staying for 5 days can easily end up using twice what the reasonable expectation for electricity use was.
Having said that, if I were the owner of a holiday home, I'd probably install a proper electric car charger as a selling point and I'm sure it would be possible to set the daily rate for the property to cover the cost of charging a car.
Turning all the taps and leaving them running actually cost more...