Indiana EV Charging and HOAs: No Install Right, but a 2026 Ban on Fuel Source Rules

The direct answer first: search the Indiana Code for charging station and you find nothing. There is no Indiana counterpart to the statutes in California, Colorado or Florida that force an association to approve an owner installed charger, set an approval deadline, or fix who pays for the electricity, the insurance rider, the metering and the removal at sale. An Indiana association that requires architectural approval for exterior electrical work can require it for a charger, and can turn down a particular design, on the same footing as any other exterior modification.

What did change is the fuel source rule. P.L.26-2026 added Chapter 3.6 to the homeowners association article. IC 32-25.5-3.6-3 provides that an association's governing documents may not include a covenant, policy or similar measure that prohibits or restricts the use of a motor vehicle or outdoor equipment, that distinguishes between types of motor vehicles or types of outdoor equipment, or that results in differing standards for different types, based on the fuel source that powers the motor vehicle or outdoor equipment. The rule runs in both directions: a covenant banning electric vehicles from the subdivision and a covenant banning gasoline mowers are equally void.

Both defined terms are narrower than they look. IC 32-25.5-3.6-1 defines a motor vehicle as one that is self-propelled, is designed for transporting people or property on a street or highway, and is certified by the vehicle's maker under all applicable federal safety and emissions standards and requirements for distribution and sale in the United States. A low speed neighborhood vehicle or a golf cart that never received that federal certification is outside the definition, so a covenant restricting golf carts is untouched. Outdoor equipment takes its meaning from IC 36-1-3-1.8: a mechanical device powered by a motor, designed for outdoor use to facilitate or assist tasks associated with home or lawn maintenance or construction, and, if self propelled, not permitted under IC 9 to be driven on an interstate highway. The section names lawn mowers, powered lawn trimmers and leaf blowers. A clothesline, a rain barrel and a charging pedestal are none of those things.

IC 32-25.5-3.6-0.5 removes the grandfathering defense: the chapter applies to all governing documents established, adopted, enacted or enforced before, on or after July 1, 2026. That addresses the age of the document, not the age of the association, and the association side still runs through IC 32-25.5-1-1. The article reaches a homeowners association established after June 30, 2009 that may impose mandatory dues, and an association formed before July 1, 2009 only if its members elected to be governed by the article. Subsection (b) lists the provisions that bind every Indiana association regardless of that election, and Chapter 3.6 is not among them. A condominium association under IC 32-25 is outside it as well.

The argument an Indiana owner actually has, if a board refuses a charger outright, is an effects argument. A blanket prohibition on charging equipment restricts the use of an electric motor vehicle, and it does so because of the fuel source that powers the vehicle, which is what section 3 forbids. The chapter never mentions charging equipment, so the argument depends on the practical effect of the rule rather than its wording, and it is far weaker against a rule that merely regulates where conduit may run, what color a wall unit may be, or whether a pedestal may stand in a front driveway. Design around the aesthetics and the fuel source point stays available; fight the aesthetics and it does not.

Local government is fenced off by the matching provision. IC 36-1-3-13(a)(4) denies an Indiana unit the power to adopt an ordinance, order, regulation, resolution, policy or similar measure that prohibits or restricts the purchase or use of vehicles or machines other than vehicles, distinguishes between types of either, or results in differing regulatory standards for different types, based upon the type of energy that powers the vehicle or machine. IC 36-1-3-1.6 folds outdoor equipment into the word machine for that chapter. Subdivision (a)(6) also bars a unit from enacting or enforcing an ordinance purporting to exercise the denied power, and subdivision (a)(5) separately protects the sale, installation and use of natural gas home heating equipment, natural gas home appliances, outdoor grills, stoves and other outdoor food preparation appliances, and natural gas outdoor heating appliances, torches, lamps and decorative features. Subsection (b) leaves a unit free to write energy provisions into bid specifications for its own public works. The upshot is that neither an Indiana municipality nor an Indiana homeowners association may use fuel type as the reason for a rule, while both may still regulate the equipment on neutral grounds.

6 works by voiding the covenant rather than by penalising the association, so there is no fine, no civil penalty and no attorney fee provision behind it. 5-3-12, which requires a previously adopted schedule of fines stating the covenant violations subject to a fine, the amount for each, whether the fine recurs and how it is calculated, and a maximum aggregate amount for a single violation. 5-1-1(b)(8) applies to every Indiana homeowners association. 5-5-13 opens the courthouse only after that. Against a city or county rather than an association, the remedy is different: an ordinance that exercises a power denied by IC 36-1-3-13 is void under subdivision (a)(6), and the challenge is a declaratory judgment action rather than a grievance filing. 5-4-1 confines state enforcement to misappropriation, board fraud, proxy violations and budget violations.