California Right to Charge Law: HOAs, Renters, and Penalties

California’s right to charge law gives condo owners and most renters the right to install an electric vehicle charging station in their own parking space, and any HOA rule, CC&R, or lease term that blocks the installation is unenforceable. Two statutes do the work: Civil Code section 4745 covers owners in HOA-governed communities, and Civil Code section 1947.6 covers residential tenants. The protections overlap in spirit but differ in the details, so the first step is knowing which one applies to you.

If You Own a Condo in an HOA Community

Your HOA cannot enforce any governing document provision that effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts installation or use of an EV charging station in your unit, your deeded space, or an exclusive-use common area space assigned to you. The association can impose “reasonable restrictions,” but the statute defines that narrowly: a restriction is unreasonable if it significantly increases the cost of the station or significantly decreases its efficiency or performance.¹

Your application goes through the HOA’s standard architectural modification process. The board has 60 days to deny it in writing. Miss that deadline and the application is deemed approved. The only thing that pauses the clock is a reasonable request from the HOA for additional information.¹

When the station will be installed in common area or exclusive-use common area, the HOA must approve it once you agree in writing to four things:

The installation complies with the HOA’s architectural standards for similar modifications.
A licensed contractor performs the work.
You provide a certificate of insurance naming the HOA as an additional insured within 14 days of approval, and renew it annually.
You pay the cost of installation and the ongoing electricity the station uses.

You also take on responsibility for damage the station causes to common areas, for maintenance and repairs, and for restoring the area if the station is ever removed. If you sell the unit, you have to disclose the station and these obligations to the buyer.¹

The insurance requirement does not apply if you’re using a standard household outlet rather than a dedicated station. If a basic NEMA plug meets your needs, you can skip the liability policy.¹

If You Rent

Your landlord must approve a written request to install a charging station in your allotted parking space, as long as you follow the landlord’s normal process for property modifications. The rule applies to any lease signed, renewed, or extended on or after July 1, 2015.²

Your written request has to include your agreement to comply with the landlord’s installation, maintenance, and removal terms; a financial analysis and scope of work; and a description of the proposed work consistent with the state’s permitting checklist. The station and all related electrical work must comply with federal, state, and local law, including zoning and building codes.²

If the station effectively gives you a reserved parking space you didn’t previously have, the landlord may charge monthly rent for it. The landlord is not required to carve out a new space to accommodate your charger.

Insurance for Renters

A landlord may require you to carry a liability policy, but the coverage cap is 10 times your annual rent. If you pay $2,000 a month, the maximum policy the landlord can demand is $240,000.²

The insurance requirement drops out entirely when two things are true: the station is certified by a nationally recognized testing laboratory approved by OSHA, and a licensed electrician performs the installation and any related electrical work. Most name-brand Level 2 stations carry the necessary certification, so the exemption is in reach for most renters who hire out the work rather than attempting it themselves.²

When a Landlord Can Still Say No

Section 1947.6 has carve-outs that catch tenants off guard. A landlord does not have to approve your request if any of these apply:

The property already has EV charging available to tenants in at least 10 percent of its designated parking spaces.
Your lease does not include parking.
The property has fewer than five parking spaces total.

A separate exemption for rent-controlled units expired for any lease signed, renewed, or extended on or after January 1, 2019. If a rent-controlled lease predates that cutoff and has never been renewed, the exemption could still apply, but that’s an increasingly rare situation.²

Section 4745 does not include a parallel list of carve-outs for condo owners. The HOA can impose reasonable restrictions and insist on compliance with health, safety, and building codes, but there is no blanket exception based on how many chargers already exist in the complex or how many parking spaces the property has.¹

What a Legitimate Denial Looks Like

For HOAs, a station must meet applicable health and safety standards and local building codes. A proposal that would violate fire code, obstruct emergency access, or demand electrical capacity the building cannot safely provide can be denied on those grounds. The HOA can also deny an application if the owner refuses to agree in writing to the four conditions covering architectural standards, licensed contractor, insurance, and costs.¹

What an HOA cannot do is dress a preference up as a safety concern. A blanket ban on chargers, an architectural rule that effectively requires the station to be invisible, or a demand that the owner pay for building-wide electrical upgrades all fail the statutory test, which asks whether the restriction significantly raises the cost or significantly cuts the station’s performance.

For a rental, outside the statutory carve-outs, the landlord’s leverage is procedural. An incomplete request, a missing financial analysis, or proposed work that doesn’t comply with building codes can all be sent back for completion before the landlord acts on them.²

Penalties and Enforcement

Section 4745(j) is where the HOA statute has its teeth. An association that willfully violates the law is liable for actual damages and a civil penalty of up to $1,000. A homeowner who prevails in an enforcement action is entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees. That fee-shifting provision is the real financial exposure for a board, because an unjustified denial can mean paying both sides’ legal bills.¹

The $1,000 civil penalty cap is modest on its own. Actual damages are a separate category, and a homeowner who can document the cost of alternative charging, lost time, or a delayed vehicle purchase caused by a stalled application can push the total well past the statutory penalty.

Section 1947.6 does not spell out a specific civil penalty. A tenant whose request is wrongfully denied can still seek a court order compelling approval and may recover damages caused by the denial under standard civil remedies.

Commercial Tenants

If you lease commercial rather than residential space, Civil Code section 1952.7 provides a similar right. A commercial lease term that prohibits or unreasonably restricts installation of a charging station is void. The exceptions differ: the right does not apply to commercial properties with charging already available in at least 2 percent of parking spaces, or to properties with fewer than 50 parking spaces. Commercial tenants must carry a $1 million liability policy and name the landlord as an additional insured.²

Local Permitting Should Not Be the Bottleneck

Separate from the right-to-charge statutes, California requires every city and county to adopt a streamlined permitting process for EV charging stations. Local jurisdictions must publish a checklist of requirements and approve applications that meet it, issuing permits without unnecessary delay once a complete application is submitted. If permitting in your city feels slow or opaque after your HOA or landlord has signed off, the local process may not be complying with that mandate.

Federal Tax Credit at Your Primary Residence

If you install a station at your primary residence, you may qualify for a federal tax credit of 30 percent of equipment and installation cost, capped at $1,000 per charging port. The credit is available for property placed in service through June 30, 2026, and comes with a geographic condition: your home must be in either a low-income or non-urban census tract.³

The IRS directs taxpayers to identify their property using the 2020 Census Tract Identifier to get an 11-digit geographic code, then check it against the IRS’s published list of eligible tracts. If your tract isn’t on the list, you don’t qualify, though the list is updated periodically.³

1
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 4745
2
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1947.6
3
Internal Revenue Service. Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit