Subject to certain conditions, AB 2565 would compel a lessor in an association to permit a lessee to install an electric vehicle charging station, provided the lessee agress in writing to various requirements related to costs, insurance, and potential damages.
Update: This bill was signed by the Governor on 9/21.
What AB 2565 Says
Subject to certain conditions, AB 2565 would compel a lessor in an association to permit a lessee to install an electric vehicle charging station, provided the lessee agress in writing to various requirements related to costs, insurance, and potential damages.
From the Legislative Cousel’s Digest:
This bill would, for any lease executed, renewed, or extended on and after July 1, 2015, require a lessor of a dwelling to approve a written request of a lessee to install an electric vehicle charging station at a parking space allotted for the lessee in accordance with specified requirements and that complies with the lessor’s approval process for modification to the property. The bill would except from its provisions specified residential property, including a residential rental property with fewer than 5 parking spaces and one subject to rent control. The bill would require the electric vehicle charging station and all modifications and improvements made to the property comply with federal, state, and local law, and all applicable zoning requirements, land use requirements, and covenants, conditions, and restrictions.The bill would also require a lessee’s written request to make a modification to the property in order to install and use an electric vehicle charging station include his or her consent to enter into a written agreement including specified provisions, including compliance with the lessor’s requirements for the installation, use, maintenance, and removal of the charging station and installation of the infrastructure for the charging station. The bill would also require the lessee to maintain in full force and effect a $1,000,000 lessee’s general liability insurance policy, as specified.
AB 2565 Effects on HOAs
We believe AB 2565 is intended to apply only to apartment complexes and to the relationship between the complex’s owner and that owner’s tenants, but we must warn you that HOA groups were unable to obtain clarification on this issue. We have to look to the legislative history and the various policy committee analyses for assurance that this bill will not place indirect requirements on HOAs when tenants of owners want to install charging stations, and that the provisions for charging stations in the Davis-Stirling Act will remain in control. If a tenant or landlord owner argues otherwise, the association will have to determine which body of law is in fact applicable.
As written, AB 2565 only expressly exempts residential property where there are already electric vehicle charging stations installed in at least 10% of designated parking spaces, where parking is not part of the lease, where the property contains less than five parking spaces, or where rent control is in effect. We also see that AB 2565 will require a tenant to comply with all “covenants, conditions and restrictions” of the HOA.