Arkansas HOA EV Charging

Quick-Reference EV Charging Table

Note: The Arkansas Horizontal Property Act applies only to condominiums organized as horizontal property regimes. Verify the enactment year and amendment history, and confirm whether a given community was actually created under the Act before relying on it.

Section 1: Overview — How EV charging is regulated for HOAs in Arkansas

Arkansas has written no statute that specifically governs electric vehicle charging stations in community associations.¹ Search the Arkansas Horizontal Property Act, at Ark. Code § 18-13-101 et seq., Title 18 generally, and Title 23's public-utilities provisions, and you'll find no electric-vehicle, EV-charging, or charging-station provision that applies to condominiums or homeowners associations. The result follows directly: no Arkansas statute overrides the recorded declaration or CC&Rs on EV charging, sets a statutory approval timeline, or caps the conditions an association may impose.

Arkansas runs a split governance structure. Condominiums organized as horizontal property regimes operate under the Horizontal Property Act plus the recorded master deed, or declaration.² Planned communities that aren't condominiums have no dedicated statute at all — they operate under recorded CC&Rs, with the Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993 supplying corporate formalities where the association incorporates as a nonprofit.³ For a condominium, the practical question that controls everything is where the charging station would sit and who controls that space: the owner's unit, a limited common element such as assigned parking, or a general common element. Nationally, Arkansas sits with the majority of states that haven't enacted EV-charging-station mandates — a different path from states like California and Colorado, which limit or void HOA prohibitions.⁴ The sections that follow work through the framework, the operational rules, and recent activity in detail.

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

2A. EV-charging-specific law in Arkansas

Arkansas has no EV-charging-specific statute for community associations. The Horizontal Property Act, which governs condominiums, contains no electric-vehicle or charging-station provision, and no separate statute in Title 18 or Title 23 imposes EV-charging obligations on associations.¹ The consequence follows directly: no statutory override of the declaration or CC&Rs, no statutory deadline by which an association must act on an owner's application, and no statutory ceiling on the conditions an association may attach to an approval.

That places Arkansas in the majority of states that haven't enacted EV-charging-station legislation for community associations. Plug In America identifies the strongest owner-and-renter "right to charge" frameworks as those in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Oregon, and the District of Columbia, and its policy tracker states that it "especially commends the strong right-to-charge policies in Colorado, Illinois, California, D.C., and Connecticut, and encourages other states to adopt similar policies." Arkansas isn't among them.⁴ No EV-charging bill directed at community associations has been enacted in Arkansas, and none turned up in the 2025 regular session or the 2026 fiscal session — Section 4 covers what did move.

2B. Condominiums: how the Horizontal Property Act's general provisions bear on EV charging

The Arkansas Horizontal Property Act, at Ark. Code § 18-13-101 et seq., is a traditional horizontal-property-regime statute, enacted as Act 60 of the First Extraordinary Session of 1961 and patterned on the Puerto Rican model.⁵ Arkansas has never adopted the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act. The Act contains nothing EV-specific, but several general provisions still shape the analysis.

Start with ownership: it's divided between the individual apartment, or unit, and the common elements. An apartment owner holds exclusive ownership of the apartment and a common right to a share in the common elements.⁶ The 2025 amendments — Act 516 of 2025, formerly SB 323, effective for regimes established on or after September 1, 2025 — modernized the definitions of "apartment," "general common elements," and "limited common elements." They clarify that fixtures and improvements within the boundaries of a unit belong to the unit, while items serving a single unit but sitting outside its boundaries count as limited common elements allocated to that unit.⁷

Second, the common elements, general and limited alike, stay undivided, and each co-owner may use them according to their intended purpose without hindering or encroaching on the rights of other co-owners.⁸ Since most parking in a condominium counts as a common element — general or limited — rather than part of the unit, a charging installation that requires attaching to or altering a common element generally falls under the control of the council of co-owners or the association, as the master deed structures it.

The upshot: the Horizontal Property Act neither compels an association to permit EV charging nor prohibits it. The declaration decides whether, where, and on what terms a station may go in.

2C. Planned communities and the role of CC&Rs and corporate law

For planned communities that aren't condominiums, EV charging comes down purely to the recorded CC&Rs. No Arkansas statute imposes substantive EV obligations on planned communities.³ The architectural or design-review provisions in the CC&Rs are the tool most associations reach for to evaluate a charging-station request, treating it like any other exterior modification.

In the order of precedence for a dispute — state law, then CC&Rs, then bylaws, then rules — there's no applicable state EV statute for planned communities, so the CC&Rs sit at the top of that practical hierarchy. Where an association incorporates as a nonprofit, the Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993, at Ark. Code § 4-33-101 et seq., supplies corporate-formality scaffolding only: board action, meeting and notice requirements, voting, and records at the corporate level.³ It's a corporate governance statute, not an HOA statute or an EV statute, and it creates no EV-charging authority or right. Where the CC&Rs stay silent, common law contract and property doctrine governs, and Arkansas courts construe restrictive covenants strictly, resolving ambiguities in favor of the free use of land.⁹

Section 3: What HOAs can and cannot do regarding EV charging

A. Installation rights and prohibitions

In a no-statute state, whether an association may prohibit installation outright comes down entirely to the declaration or CC&Rs, not to any Arkansas statute.¹ No Arkansas statutory limit constrains a prohibition, so an association isn't barred from denying a request if its governing documents supply the authority — true for both. The practical distinction is between prohibiting installation and conditioning it: most Arkansas associations, lacking an explicit EV provision, evaluate requests through existing architectural-review or common-element-alteration authority rather than through an outright ban. For condominiums, alterations affecting common elements fall under the control of the council of co-owners or association, per the master deed and § 18-13-114. For planned communities, the authority is whatever the CC&Rs provide.

B. Conditions an association may impose

An association may require architectural approval of the method, the equipment, and the routing of the installation — sourced from the declaration for condominiums, the CC&Rs for planned communities, true for both. It may require professional or licensed installation and code compliance; Arkansas has no EV-specific statutory installation standard, though the 2026 National Electrical Code, adopted in some jurisdictions, requires qualified installers for permanently installed EV equipment, true for both, per governing documents and applicable building codes. It may require insurance, indemnification, and an allocation of liability to the owner — again a matter of the declaration or CC&Rs rather than statute, true for both. And it may impose aesthetic and location standards, true for both. In a no-statute state, the ceiling on these conditions is whatever the declaration or CC&Rs permit, read together with general reasonableness principles that Arkansas courts apply — not a statutory cap.⁹

C. Cost, metering, and maintenance allocation

Absent an EV statute, the declaration or CC&Rs set who bears installation cost, electricity cost, and metering — and in practice, that's the owner, true for both. Maintenance, repair, and damage responsibility works the same way, a matter of the declaration or CC&Rs, true for both. On metering and utility-resale questions, an owner charging a personal vehicle on the owner's own meter isn't a public utility. Under Ark. Code § 23-1-101(9)(I), the term "public utility" "does not include a person or corporation that: (i) Purchases electricity from an electric public utility or a municipal electric utility; (ii) Furnishes electricity exclusively to charge battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to or for the public for compensation" and is not otherwise a public utility. Ordinary owner-side residential charging on a private meter doesn't implicate Arkansas Public Service Commission jurisdiction, true for both.¹⁰

D. Where the station may be installed

For condominiums, location decides who controls the decision. A separate interest — the unit, including an attached garage defined as part of the unit — stays owner-controlled, while a limited common element, such as assigned parking, or a general common element falls to the council of co-owners or association, which generally controls alterations to common elements under § 18-13-114 and the master deed.⁸ For planned communities, the station may go on the owner's lot, driveway, or assigned space, as the CC&Rs define and limit it.³

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No Arkansas bill enacted in the 2025 regular session or filed in the 2026 fiscal session creates or amends EV-charging rules for community associations. The one measure that amended the governing condominium statute in this window, Act 516 of 2025, doesn't address EV charging.

B. Recent appellate rulings

No Arkansas appellate opinion in the past 36 months touches EV charging, common-element alterations relevant to charging, or CC&R-based limits on owner charging equipment. No published Arkansas Court of Appeals or Arkansas Supreme Court decision on EV charging in community associations exists at all. Trial-level disputes run through the Arkansas Circuit Courts, with appeals to the Arkansas Court of Appeals and discretionary review by the Arkansas Supreme Court.¹¹

C. Active legislative debates

No active proposal to create EV-charging rights or restrictions for Arkansas community associations turned up as of July 2026.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Arkansas sits in the largest of three national groups on EV charging. The first group comprises states with EV-charging-station mandates that void or limit HOA prohibitions, such as California, under Civil Code § 4745, and Colorado, under C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.8, both of which bar outright bans and impose approval timelines and cost-allocation rules.⁴ A second, smaller group addresses EV charging more narrowly within a condominium or HOA act, often limited to condominium owners or to a designated parking space. The majority of states, Arkansas included, have no EV-charging-specific statute, so the declaration or CC&Rs control. For a multi-state operator arriving in Arkansas from a mandate state, the owner-protective rules they're used to — deemed-approval deadlines, void-and-unenforceable prohibitions, mandatory approval subject to conditions — simply don't apply. The governing documents govern instead. Since this remains a fast-moving area, Arkansas's status is worth rechecking every quarter.

HOA Weekly's Arkansas EV Charging coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and courts act, and we re-verify the threshold question — whether a statute exists — each cycle. Federal incentives may affect installation economics, but no federal law mandates HOA EV charging access.

Footnotes

1. Arkansas Code Title 18, Subtitle 2, Chapter 13, Horizontal Property Act (§§ 18-13-101 to 18-13-120), full section list showing no EV or charging-station provision ↩
2. Ark. Code § 18-13-103, Establishment of horizontal property regimes (master deed recordation) ↩
3. Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993, Ark. Code § 4-33-101 et seq. ↩
4. Plug In America, Right-to-Charge Policies (owner-and-renter protections in CA, CO, CT, IL, OR, and DC; commends CO, IL, CA, DC, CT) ↩
5. Arkansas General Assembly, reference to the Horizontal Property Act as established under Act 60 of the First Extraordinary Session of 1961 ↩
6. Ark. Code § 18-13-112, Ownership and valuation of separate units and common elements ↩
7. Act 516 of 2025 (SB 323), To Amend the Horizontal Property Act, amended definitions; Section 9 applicability September 1, 2025 ↩
8. Ark. Code § 18-13-114, Common elements (undivided; use per intended purpose) ↩
9. Homeowners Protection Bureau, Arkansas HOA law overview (courts uphold reasonable architectural restrictions within the association's documentary and statutory authority) ↩
10. Ark. Code § 23-1-101, Definitions (EV-charging supplier exclusion from "public utility") ↩
11. Arkansas Judiciary, Arkansas Court of Appeals (intermediate appellate court; discretionary review by the Supreme Court) ↩