North Dakota Condominium EV Charging Station Right, N.D.C.C. 47-04.1-16

The right runs to condominiums, not to every association. North Dakota never adopted a common interest ownership act, so the only association statute that reaches architectural control is chapter 47-04.1, the Condominium Ownership of Real Property chapter, which applies to a project whose declaration was recorded with the county recorder under section 47-04.1-02. If you live in a platted subdivision governed by a homeowners association incorporated under chapter 10-33, the Nonprofit Corporations chapter, section 47-04.1-16 does not reach your covenants and your remedy is the language of the declaration itself.

What the statute voids is broad. Subsection 2 reaches a covenant, restriction or condition in any deed, contract, security instrument or other instrument affecting the transfer or sale of an interest in the property, and any bylaw, that either effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts installation or use. It expressly covers three kinds of space beyond the unit itself: a deeded parking space, a parking space in the owner's limited common area, and a parking space specifically designated for use by a particular owner. What survives is a bylaw imposing reasonable restrictions, and the statute defines that term rather than leaving it open: restrictions on the number, size, location and manner of placement or installation on the common or limited common area that do not significantly increase the cost of the station or significantly decrease its efficiency or specified performance.

The approval clock is sixty days. Subsection 3 requires that an application be processed in the manner the administrative body prescribes, forbids willful avoidance or delay, requires any approval or denial to be in writing, and deems the application approved if it is not denied in writing within sixty days of receipt. The only stop on that clock is a delay caused by a reasonable request for additional information.

For a station in a limited common area, subsection 4 lists five written commitments the board must accept if the owner makes them: comply with the association's architectural standards, engage a licensed contractor, provide within fourteen days of approval a certificate of insurance naming the administrative body as an additional insured, pay the installation and electricity costs, and comply with other reasonable regulations on number, size, location and manner of placement. The owner and every successive owner then carries the cost of damage to the station, the common area, the limited common area or any unit arising from installation, maintenance, repair, removal or replacement; the cost of maintaining, repairing and replacing the station until removal and of restoring the common area afterward; the electricity; any other costs that arise; and the duty to disclose the station and these responsibilities to prospective buyers. The liability policy the owner must carry is capped by statute at a level not to exceed the value of a typical condominium owner's policy, and the certificate must be furnished to the board each year. No homeowners liability policy may be demanded for an existing national electrical manufacturers association standard alternating current power plug, which is the ordinary 120 volt outlet used for Level 1 charging.

The board keeps three defenses and two extra powers. It may deny installation on bona fide safety requirements consistent with an applicable building code or recognized safety standard. Where installing in the owner's own designated space is impossible or unreasonably expensive, subsection 5 lets the board authorize a station for that owner's exclusive use in general common area under a license agreement, and lets it deny the request if no reasonable area is available or the area cannot be reasonably accessed by the owner. Subsections 6 and 7 let the board install a shared station for all members on its own terms of use, and let it create a new parking space where none previously existed to accommodate a station.

Enforcement is private and runs through the North Dakota district court for the county where the project sits; no state agency polices this section. An owner whose application is stonewalled can treat silence as approval once sixty days pass without a written denial, because subsection 3 deems the application approved. Where the administrative body willfully violates the section, subsection 8 makes it liable for actual damages and requires it to pay a civil penalty to the applicant or other party in an amount not to exceed one thousand dollars.

Running the other way, subsection 9 requires any unit owner who installs a station to indemnify and hold the administrative body harmless from all liability, including reasonable attorney's fees the body incurs, on a claim arising out of the installation, maintenance, operation or use of the station. An owner who lets the annual certificate of insurance lapse, or who never delivers it within fourteen days of approval, has broken a condition the statute itself imposes and loses the protection subsection 4 gave the installation.