Massachusetts Right to Install an EV Charger in a Condo or HOA Parking Space

Section 10A was written to reach far more than condominiums. Its definition of ''Association'' covers a condominium association, homeowners' association, community association, cooperative, trust or other nongovernmental entity whose covenants, by-laws and administrative provisions a homeowner or unit owner must follow. The same section binds historic district commissions operating under M.G.L. c. 40C and the boards of neighborhood conservation districts, which are the two bodies that had most often blocked visible chargers on older Massachusetts housing stock. Subsection (b) opens with the phrase "Notwithstanding chapters 21, 40C and 183A or any other general or special law to the contrary," so a recorded master deed or a historic district guideline cannot be used to defeat the right.

The protected location is defined precisely. A "Dedicated parking space" is a space located within an owner's separate interest, or a space in a common area that is subject to an owner's exclusive use rights, and the statute names deeded parking spaces, garage spaces, carports and spaces specifically designated for use by a particular owner. A "Separate interest" is a separate lot, unit or interest to which the owner has exclusive rights of ownership. That means a Massachusetts owner with an assigned or deeded space is inside the statute, while an owner asking to install on general common area open to everyone is not; that second situation falls under subsection (f), which lets the association install shared equipment and requires it to develop appropriate terms of use.

Boards keep real but bounded authority. Subsection (b) preserves the power to set reasonable restrictions, and then adds a direction found in very few state statutes: in setting those restrictions the commission, board, manager or organization "shall give substantial weight to threats posed by climate change and the commonwealth's obligation to meet the statewide greenhouse gas emission limits and sublimits established under chapter 21N." A Massachusetts board weighing an aesthetic objection is therefore required to weigh the Commonwealth's c. 21N emission limits on the other side of the scale.

The approval mechanics run on a fixed clock. Under subsection (d) the association, historic district commission or conservation district board may require an application first. Where the body also runs an architectural modification process, the charger application must be handled and approved in the same manner as an architectural modification application, and in either case the application "shall not be willfully avoided or delayed." The body must approve the application if the owner complies with § 10A and with the architectural standards, if any, of the association or district. Approval or denial must be in writing, and an application not denied in writing within 60 days of receipt is deemed approved, unless the delay results from a reasonable request for additional information. No fee may be charged for placement of the equipment beyond a reasonable application processing fee, and only where such a fee already exists for all architectural modification applications.

The cost side is entirely the owner's. Subsection (c) requires the equipment to be installed at the owner's expense, by a licensed contractor or electrician, and in conformity with all applicable health and safety standards imposed by national, state and local authorities plus all applicable zoning, land use ordinances and land use permits. Subsection (e) then attaches six continuing duties to the owner and to each successive owner: disclosing the equipment, its owner and the related responsibilities to prospective buyers; disclosing whether the equipment is removable and whether the owner intends to remove it; paying maintenance, repair and replacement costs until it is removed and the common area restored; paying for any damage to the equipment, the common area, the exclusive common area or a separate interest arising from installation, maintenance, repair, removal or replacement; paying the cost of the electricity; and removing the equipment at the owner's expense if that is reasonably necessary for repair, maintenance or replacement of association, district or separate interest property.

Metering is handled explicitly. The owner must connect the charger to the owner's own electric utility account unless the licensed contractor performing the installation deems that impossible. Where the contractor makes that finding, the association or district must allow the owner to connect to the common electricity account, but may require equitable reimbursement from the owner for the electricity used. That reverses the usual Massachusetts default in c. 183A, § 10(b)(6), under which electric vehicle supply equipment may be required only in the common areas and facilities of a condominium and its cost is a common expense assessable to all unit owners.

A separate track exists when the board itself wants to electrify the property. Section 10(b)(6) provides that common area charging equipment installed with the approval of a majority of unit owners in attendance at a duly noticed meeting held for that purpose is not treated as an "improvement" for purposes of M.G.L. c. 183A, § 18, which would otherwise require agreement of 50 per cent of unit owners for a self funded improvement and 75 per cent to assess the cost to everyone. Section 10A(g) authorizes the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities to promulgate regulations implementing the owner's installation right.

Section 10A carries no fine and creates no administrative complaint route, so the enforcement design is structural rather than punitive. The primary remedy is the 60 day deemed approval in subsection (d): a board that simply sits on a charger application loses, because the application becomes approved by operation of law once 60 days pass without a written denial, and a request for additional information tolls that clock only if the request is reasonable. The statute's separate command that an application "shall not be willfully avoided or delayed" gives an owner a concrete allegation to plead where a board repeatedly reopens the file.

Because the right sits in c. 183A, an owner whose board still refuses brings the dispute in Superior Court, typically as a declaratory judgment action seeking a ruling that the restriction is not a reasonable restriction as § 10A defines the term, plus injunctive relief; c. 183A, § 10(b)(4) confirms the organization of unit owners may sue and be sued on claims arising out of enforcement of the by-laws, administrative rules or master deed restrictions. Fee overcharging is its own violation: the association or district may not assess any placement fee above a reasonable processing fee, and only where such a fee applies to every architectural modification application.

On the owner's side, the enforceable duties are the disclosure obligations to buyers, the maintenance, repair, replacement and damage costs, and the obligation to remove the equipment at the owner's own expense when removal is reasonably necessary for repair, maintenance or replacement of association or district property. Those duties run with the parking space and bind each successive owner, so a buyer inherits them.