Hawaii Voids HOA Bans on EV Chargers at Multi-Family Parking Stalls

Hawaii enacted the charging-system right in 2010 (L 2010, c 186) and placed it in the energy chapter, HRS chapter 196, alongside the state's solar-device and clothesline protections rather than in the condominium act. It applies to a "private entity," defined in subsection (e) as any association of homeowners, community association, condominium association, cooperative, or other nongovernmental entity whose covenants, bylaws and administrative provisions a homeowner must obey. That definition is what pulls Hawaii condominium AOAOs, Oahu townhouse associations and planned-community boards under the statute at once.

The scope is deliberately narrower than it first looks, and it runs opposite to the solar statute next door. HRS section 196-7.5 reaches parking stalls of a multi-family residential dwelling or townhouse. HRS section 196-7, the solar provision, reaches a single-family residential dwelling or townhouse. So a detached single-family home on a fee lot in a Hawaii subdivision gets the solar protection but not the charging-system protection, while an owner in a Honolulu or Kailua condominium tower gets the charging-system protection.

Subsection (c) sets three conditions on the owner. The system must comply with any rules and specifications the association adopted under subsection (b); it must be registered with the private entity of record within thirty days of installation; and if it sits on a common element or limited common element as defined by the project's declaration, the owner must first get the association's consent. That consent is not discretionary. Subsection (c)(3) says consent shall be given if the owner agrees in writing to comply with the association's design specification, to engage a duly licensed contractor, and within fourteen days of approval to provide a certificate of insurance naming the private entity as an additional insured on the owner's policy.

Subsection (d) allocates the long-term burden to the stall owner and to every owner after them. The owner and each successive owner of the stall is responsible for costs of damage to the system, to the common elements, to limited common elements and to any adjacent units arising from installation, maintenance, repair, removal or replacement, and must keep insurance covering those obligations with the association named as an additional insured, for as long as the equipment stays on the common element. The same owners must remove the charging system whenever removal is reasonably necessary or convenient for repair, maintenance or replacement of the common elements.

Subsection (e) defines the equipment covered: a system designed in compliance with Article 625 of the National Electrical Code that delivers electricity from a source outside an electric vehicle into one or more electric vehicles, and it may include several charge points connecting several vehicles at once. That definition matters in practice because it lets a Hawaii board insist on NEC Article 625 compliance and on its own design specification, while giving an owner room to install shared multi-port equipment rather than a single dedicated station.

5 carries no fine and no administrative penalty. Its enforcement mechanism is nullification: subsection (a) makes any lease, instrument or contract provision contrary to the section void and unenforceable, so a house rule, bylaw or declaration clause banning chargers simply has no legal effect and an owner can raise it as a defense if the association tries to enforce it or bill for the installation. A board that demands a placement fee is acting outside subsection (b), which forbids assessing or charging any homeowner a fee for placement while expressly allowing the association to require reimbursement for electricity the system uses.

The owner's exposure runs the other way: under subsection (d) the owner and each successive owner of the stall carry the cost of any damage to the system, the common elements, limited common elements and adjacent units, and must keep the association named as an additional insured. Failing to register the system with the private entity within thirty days, using an unlicensed installer, or missing the fourteen-day deadline for the certificate of insurance puts the owner outside the safe harbor in subsection (c), and at that point the installation is no longer protected by the statute.