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

California’s right-to-charge law makes any HOA rule, CC&R, or lease term unenforceable if it blocks you from installing an electric vehicle charging station in your own parking space. Two statutes do the work. Civil Code section 4745 covers condo owners in common interest developments. Civil Code section 1947.6 covers residential tenants. The protections overlap, but the conditions, exceptions, and penalties differ enough that you need to know which one applies before you submit a request.

If You Own in an HOA

Own a unit in a common interest development, and your HOA cannot enforce any rule, CC&R provision, or deed restriction that effectively blocks you from installing or using an EV charger in your unit or designated parking space. That covers deeded spaces, exclusive-use common area spaces, and any space assigned to you.¹ The HOA 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.

Your HOA must process the application the same way it handles any architectural modification request. The strongest procedural protection is the automatic-approval rule. If the HOA does not deny your application in writing within 60 days, it is deemed approved. The clock pauses only if the HOA makes a reasonable request for additional information.¹

When the station will sit in common area or exclusive-use common area, the HOA has to approve the installation as long as you agree in writing to four conditions:

The installation matches whatever design and placement standards the HOA applies to other 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 for the installation and for the electricity the station uses.

You also stay on the hook for any damage the station causes to common areas, all maintenance and repair costs, and restoring the area if the station is later removed. If you sell the unit, you must disclose the station and these responsibilities to the buyer.¹

One useful carve-out: the insurance requirement does not apply to a standard household outlet. If a basic NEMA-standard AC plug will do the job, you can skip the liability policy.¹

If You Rent Your Home

Rent, and your landlord must approve a written request to install a charger in your allotted parking space, provided you follow the landlord’s normal process for property modifications. This applies to any lease signed, renewed, or extended on or after July 1, 2015.²

Your written request must include your agreement to comply with the landlord’s installation, maintenance, and removal requirements; a financial analysis and scope of work for the project; and a description of the proposed modifications 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 installing the station effectively gives you a reserved parking space that you did not have before, the landlord can charge a monthly rental amount for that space. The landlord does not have to create a new parking space just to accommodate the charger.

The Insurance Rules for Renters

The original statute required tenants to carry a $1 million liability policy, which shut most renters out. SB 638 fixed this in 2019 by capping required coverage at 10 times your annual rent. Pay $2,000 a month and the maximum coverage a landlord can demand is $240,000.²

The insurance requirement drops away entirely when two conditions are met: the charging 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 that certification, so the exemption is available to most renters who hire an electrician instead of attempting the wiring themselves.²

When a Landlord Can Legitimately Say No

Section 1947.6 has three carve-outs that catch renters off guard. A landlord is not required to approve your request if:

The property already has EV charging stations 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.

There was also an exemption for rent-controlled units, but it expired for any lease signed, renewed, or extended on or after January 1, 2019. A rent-controlled tenant whose lease predates that cutoff and has never been renewed could theoretically still fall under the old exception, but that scenario is increasingly rare.²

Section 4745 does not include the same list of blanket exceptions for HOAs. The HOA can impose reasonable restrictions, and the station has to meet applicable health and safety standards and local building codes. But there is no property-size or existing-charger-ratio carve-out for condo owners.¹

Legitimate Grounds for Denial

Neither statute lets an HOA or landlord deny a request out of inconvenience, but both leave room for real objections.

Under section 4745, the station must meet applicable health and safety standards and local building codes. An installation that would violate fire code, obstruct emergency access, or exceed what the building’s electrical infrastructure can safely support presents a valid concern. The HOA can also deny an application when the owner refuses to agree in writing to the four conditions above.¹

What the HOA cannot do is dress a preference up as a safety concern. A blanket ban on chargers, an architectural rule that requires the charger to be invisible, or a demand that the owner fund building-wide electrical upgrades all cross into unreasonable restrictions the statute makes void. The test is whether the restriction significantly increases the station’s cost or significantly decreases its efficiency.

For rentals, a landlord can point to the statutory exceptions. Outside those, the main leverage is procedural. An incomplete request, a missing financial analysis, or proposed work that doesn’t comply with building codes gives the landlord a reasonable basis to require the gaps be filled before moving forward.²

Penalties for Violations

For HOAs, the enforcement mechanism sits in section 4745(j). An association that willfully violates the statute is liable for actual damages and a civil penalty of up to $1,000. A homeowner who prevails in an enforcement action is also entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees. That fee-shifting provision does real work in practice, because an HOA that blocks a valid request risks paying both sides’ legal bills.¹

Section 1947.6 does not spell out a specific civil penalty. A landlord who violates the statute still faces standard civil remedies. A tenant can seek a court order compelling approval of the installation and may recover damages caused by a wrongful denial.

Commercial Tenants

California extends a comparable right to commercial tenants through Civil Code section 1952.7. Any lease term that prohibits or unreasonably restricts a commercial tenant’s installation of a charging station is void. The exceptions run differently: the law does not apply to commercial properties where at least 2 percent of parking spaces already have charging, or to properties with fewer than 50 parking spaces. Commercial tenants must carry a $1 million liability policy naming the landlord as an additional insured.²

1
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 4745
2
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1947.6