Your HOA's EV Charging Rules May Already Be Out of Date

A California association that still asks an EV owner to name it as an additional insured is enforcing a requirement the Legislature deleted on January 1, 2026. Colorado and Florida associations may still ask for exactly that.

An owner submits an architectural application to install a charger in their own parking space. The board pulls out the form it has used for years, checks the boxes, and asks for the certificate of insurance naming the association as an additional insured. The form came from a management company, or from a template, or from a manual written when the statute said something different.

The recorded declaration usually gets blamed when this goes wrong, and the declaration is the slower-moving half of the problem. The faster-moving half is the statute the declaration is being read against. Governing documents are amended on a timeline measured in years. A legislature can move in a single session, and when it does, a clause that was accurate on the day it was drafted starts producing a wrong answer without a single word of it changing.

That happened in California this year. What follows is what the three statutes actually say, pulled from the code and the chaptered bills rather than from summaries, and what specifically goes stale in an association's paperwork. It is background for reading documents, not legal advice about any particular association.

1. What Changed on January 1, 2026

SB 770 amended California Civil Code §4745 on January 1, 2026, dropping the rule that an EV owner's policy name the association as additional insured.

SB 770 (Allen) was approved by the Governor and filed with the Secretary of State on October 10, 2025, and took effect January 1, 2026 as Chapter 525 of the Statutes of 2025. It amends Civil Code §4745, which sits inside the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act. It made one change to one section, and the Legislative Counsel's Digest states it plainly: the bill "would delete the requirement that the insurance policy name the association as an additional insured party, and would correct an erroneous cross-reference regarding the amount of that insurance."

The change is visible in a single subparagraph. From January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2025, Civil Code §4745(f)(1)(C) required an owner installing a charging station in a common area or exclusive use common area to:

"Within 14 days of approval, provide a certificate of insurance that names the association as an additional insured under the owner's insurance policy in the amount set forth in paragraph (3)."

Since January 1, 2026, the same subparagraph reads:

"Within 14 days of approval, provide a certificate of insurance as required by paragraph (3)."

The insurance requirement itself survived. Only the additional-insured status and the amount reference were removed. This distinction is the one most likely to get lost in a board meeting summary. Civil Code §4745(f)(3) still requires the owner of the charging station, whether it sits inside a separate unit or in the common area or exclusive use common area, to "at all times, maintain a liability coverage policy." The owner who submitted the installation application provides the corresponding certificate within 14 days of approval, and that owner and each successor owner "provide the association with the certificate of insurance annually thereafter." An association that reads SB 770 as ending the insurance obligation has the rule backwards.

2. The Cross-Reference That Pointed at Nothing for Seven Years

The deleted phrase pointed at an insurance amount removed from the statute in 2018, so the cross-reference dangled for seven years.

The second half of SB 770 is the more interesting half, because it shows how long a defect can sit inside a statute that everyone involved believes they are reading correctly.

The old subparagraph pointed at "the amount set forth in paragraph (3)." Paragraph (3) sets no amount. It requires a liability coverage policy and a certificate, with no dollar figure anywhere in it.

It used to carry one. The Legislative Counsel's Digest for SB 1016, Chapter 376 of the Statutes of 2018, describes the law as it stood before that bill: "Existing law requires the owner and each successive owner of the charging station to, at all times, maintain a homeowner liability coverage policy in the amount of $1,000,000 and name the association as a named additional insured."

SB 1016 removed the $1,000,000 figure from paragraph (3) and left subparagraph (C) pointing at it. From January 1, 2019 until December 31, 2025, associations, managers and owners were administering a cross-reference to an amount the Legislature had already deleted. SB 770 closed the dangling reference and the additional-insured requirement in the same sentence.

The lesson for a board is that a statute cited correctly by section number can still be read wrongly. The text worth pulling is the current text, not the version that made it into a form, a manual or a memo.

3. Whether an Association Can Say No at All

All three states void document provisions that prohibit EV charging, but each draws the protected parking area differently.

Each statute starts from the same place. A provision in a declaration or rule that blocks installation is unenforceable. Where they part company is the question of which piece of ground the owner is protected on, and a board reading one state's rule into another will get this wrong in both directions.

California's §4745(a) voids any governing-document provision that "either effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts" installation or use. Colorado's §38-33.3-106.8(2)(a), part of the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act, says an association shall not prohibit a unit owner from using or installing a level 1 or level 2 system at the owner's own expense and for the owner's own use. Florida's §718.113(8)(a) says a declaration or restrictive covenant "may not prohibit or be enforced so as to prohibit" installation, and adds that the board may not prohibit it either.

Colorado also carries a parking rule that has nothing to do with charging. Subsection (2)(c), added by HB 23-1233 in 2023, bars an association from restricting parking "based on a vehicle being a plug-in hybrid vehicle or plug-in electric vehicle." A rule written against a vehicle type rather than against an installation is a separate exposure, and it is the newest operative language in the Colorado section.

4. The Clocks That Run Against the Board

In California an application not denied in writing within 60 days is deemed approved. Colorado and Florida run 14-day and 30-day clocks of their own.

The deadline most likely to catch a board is California's. Under §4745(e), an application to install a charging station is processed "in the same manner as an application for approval of an architectural modification," must not be "willfully avoided or delayed," and approval or denial must be in writing. Then:

"If an application is not denied in writing within 60 days from the date of receipt of the application, the application shall be deemed approved, unless that delay is the result of a reasonable request for additional information."

A board that lets an EV application sit through a summer of cancelled meetings has approved it. The same 60-day structure appears in Civil Code §4745.1, which covers EV-dedicated time-of-use meters and was added by the same 2018 bill.

The other clocks are shorter and easier to miss. The subsections below sit in Civil Code §4745, C.R.S. §38-33.3-106.8 and Fla. Stat. §718.113:

• California, 14 days plus annually. The certificate of insurance is due within 14 days of approval, and that owner and each successor owner provide one annually thereafter under §4745(f)(3).
• Colorado, 14 days. Under §38-33.3-106.8(4)(b)(IV)(B), the certificate is due within 14 days after the owner receives the association's consent, and any premium reimbursement is due within 14 days after the owner receives the association's invoice.
• Colorado, 30 days. An association may require that the system be registered with it "within thirty days after installation" under §38-33.3-106.8(3)(b). This is a registration requirement rather than a pre-approval, and a document that converts it into a permit is describing something the statute does not.
• Florida, 14 days twice. Under §718.113(8)(h), the association may require the certificate within 14 days after the owner receives approval or notice, and reimbursement of any attributable premium increase within 14 days after receiving the association's invoice.

5. What an Association Can Still Require

All three statutes preserve safety compliance, licensed installation, appearance standards, and the owner's responsibility for cost and damage.

None of these statutes hands an owner an unconditional right to install whatever they like wherever they like. The carve-outs are substantial and they survive in every version, in Civil Code §4745, C.R.S. §38-33.3-106.8 and Fla. Stat. §718.113:

• Safety. Colorado preserves "bona fide safety requirements, consistent with an applicable building code or recognized safety standard." Florida uses nearly identical language at §718.113(8)(h)1. California requires at §4745(c) that a station meet health and safety standards and applicable zoning, land use and permit requirements.
• Appearance. Colorado preserves "reasonable aesthetic provisions that govern the dimensions, placement, or external appearance." Florida allows reasonable architectural standards governing dimensions, placement or external appearance, with an explicit limit: they "may not prohibit the installation of such charging or fuel station or substantially increase the cost thereof."
• Qualified installation. Colorado requires a "duly licensed and registered electrical contractor," Florida a "licensed and registered firm," California a licensed contractor.
• Equipment standards. Colorado requires certification "by underwriters laboratories or an equivalent certification" and compliance with "the current version of article 625 of the national electrical code."
• Cost and metering. The installing owner pays. Florida requires that the electricity "be separately metered or metered by an embedded meter" and payable by the owner or a successor, and lets the association enforce those costs under §718.116, the assessment collection provision. Colorado bars a fee for the placement or use of a system on or in the owner's unit, while allowing reimbursement for the actual cost of electricity the association supplied, or a reasonable access fee.

Two more provisions matter to a buyer rather than a board. Under California §4745(f)(2)(D), an owner with a station must disclose to prospective buyers both its existence and the related responsibilities that come with it. Under Colorado §38-33.3-106.8(6), a system installed at the owner's cost is the owner's property, and on sale a removable system may be removed or sold to the buyer or the association at an agreed price, with nothing requiring the buyer or the association to buy it. A charger visible during a showing is not necessarily conveying with the unit.

6. Florida Homeowners' Associations Have No EV Statute

Florida's EV protection sits in Chapter 718, the condominium act. Chapter 720, which governs homeowners' associations, has no EV provision.

This one is easy to get wrong, because Florida is routinely listed alongside California and Colorado as a state with an HOA EV law.

Chapter 720, the Florida homeowners' association act, contains no electric vehicle provision. The section that comes closest by title is §720.3045, "Installation, display, and storage of items," which bars an association from restricting owners from installing, displaying or storing items not visible from the frontage, an adjacent parcel, adjacent common area or a community golf course. Its illustrative list is artificial turf, boats, flags, vegetable gardens, clotheslines and recreational vehicles. Charging equipment is not in it.

The consequence is a split inside one state. A Florida condominium unit owner has §718.113(8), including the implied easement across the common elements at §718.113(8)(i) and the lien carve-out at §718.121(2), under which installation labor and materials cannot ground a Chapter 713 lien against the association, though such a lien may be filed against the unit owner. An owner in a Florida planned community has none of that, and whatever the recorded declaration says about alterations, parking surfaces and electrical work governs on its own terms.

The dates are worth holding onto too, because the popular framing that several states have just passed EV charging laws is not what the record shows. Florida's §718.113(8) was added by chapter 2018-96, which added a new subsection (8) to that section. Colorado's section was added by SB 13-126 effective May 3, 2013, and the most recent amendment recorded in the current published code is HB 23-1233, effective May 23, 2023. California is the only one of the three with a 2026 change. The other two have been settled law long enough that a declaration drafted after them has no excuse for conflicting with them, and long enough that plenty of declarations drafted before them never caught up.

7. What This Looks Like in Your Documents

The clauses that go stale are parking, alteration, submetering and architectural-approval provisions, not sections labeled EV.

A declaration almost never contains a section called electric vehicle charging. The friction comes from general provisions doing work nobody anticipated when they were drafted. The specific things worth locating:

• Blanket alteration bans on limited common elements. Language prohibiting any modification to a limited common element or assigned parking space is the most common collision point, because that is exactly where all three statutes place the protected installation.
• Additional-insured conditions in the architectural form. In California the statutory basis for this one is gone as of January 1, 2026. Whether a condition that outlived its statute amounts to an unreasonable restriction under §4745(a) is a question for counsel, and the statute does not answer it.
• Fixed insurance amounts carried over from old forms. A $1,000,000 figure in a California packet is tracking a number that left the statute in 2018.
• Submetering and utility prohibitions. Rules barring separate meters or owner-specific utility connections run against Florida's separate-metering requirement and against California's §4745.1, which voids provisions that prohibit or unreasonably restrict an EV-dedicated time-of-use meter.
• Parking rules written against vehicle types. A rule aimed at a category of vehicle rather than at conduct is the specific target of Colorado's 2023 addition.
• Approval processes with no deadline. A California architectural procedure that does not track a 60-day clock and does not produce a written denial is set up to approve applications by default.

Locating these is a document-reading exercise before it is a legal one. If the association is considering changing them, the mechanics of getting an amendment recorded are covered separately in the CC&R amendment process and in how to read a CC&R amendment before voting on it.