Colorado HOA EV Charging

Quick-Reference EV Charging Table

The EV provision applies to all CCIOA residential communities regardless of creation date, reaching pre-1992 communities through § 38-33.3-117(1)(c), which extends §§ 38-33.3-104 to 38-33.3-111 to communities created before July 1, 1992. Colorado's mechanics are its own; it does not use California's 60-day deemed-approval clock, and it fixes no insurance dollar figure. Where Colorado is silent, the row reads "Not specified by statute."

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

Colorado is a mandate state. A provision in a declaration, bylaws, or rules that prohibits or effectively prohibits the installation or use of a Level 1 or Level 2 electric vehicle charging system in a residential common interest community gets overridden by statute and can't be enforced.¹ The controlling provision is C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.8, "Unreasonable restrictions on electric vehicle charging systems and electric vehicle parking," which sits inside the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act, or CCIOA, enacted in 2013 and amended in 2023.¹

The mandate isn't unconditional. An association may still adopt bona fide safety requirements, require registration of the system within 30 days after installation, and impose reasonable aesthetic provisions. It may also require the owner to bear installation costs, use a licensed electrical contractor, and carry insurance.¹ The owner, not the association, pays for installation and electricity.¹

Colorado's approach differs from California's. Colorado imposes no statutory deadline for an association to act on a request and creates no deemed-approval remedy, whereas California's Civil Code § 4745(e) deems an application approved if it isn't denied in writing within 60 days.² The two mandate states aren't interchangeable, and a California compliance process doesn't transfer to Colorado without modification. The sections that follow work through the statutory text, how the rest of CCIOA bears on charging requests, and the operational limits on association authority. Because the EV provision falls within the range of sections that § 38-33.3-117 extends to communities created before July 1, 1992, the rules below reach essentially every residential CCIOA community in the state.³

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

2A. The CCIOA electric vehicle charging provision

The operative statute is C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.8, titled "Unreasonable restrictions on electric vehicle charging systems and electric vehicle parking." Senate Bill 13-126 added it to CCIOA in 2013, and House Bill 23-1233 amended it in 2023.⁴ The section applies only to residential units.¹

The core rule preempts contrary governing documents. Notwithstanding any provision in the declaration, bylaws, or rules to the contrary, an association "shall not" prohibit a unit owner from using, or installing at the owner's expense for the owner's own use, a Level 1 or Level 2 charging system on or in a unit, in an assigned or deeded parking space that's part of or assigned to a unit, or in a parking space accessible to both the owner and other owners.¹ The association also can't charge a fee for the placement or use of a system in the owner's unit, beyond reimbursement for the actual cost of electricity or a reasonable access fee, plus any network fee, and it can't restrict parking based on a vehicle being a plug-in hybrid or electric vehicle.¹

Those prohibitions carry three carve-outs. The association may still enforce bona fide safety requirements consistent with an applicable building code or recognized safety standard, require that the system be registered with the association within 30 days after installation, and adopt reasonable aesthetic provisions governing the dimensions, placement, or external appearance of the system.¹

For an installation on a limited common element — a parking space, carport, or garage owned by or assigned to the owner — the statute gets more prescriptive. The association must consent if the system complies with the governing documents and the owner agrees in writing to comply with the association's design specifications, engage a duly licensed and registered electrical contractor, bear the expense of installation including restoration of disturbed common elements, and provide a certificate of insurance naming the association as an additional insured — or, if the system sits on a common element, reimburse the association for the actual cost of any increased insurance premium.¹ The certificate of insurance is due within 14 days after the owner receives consent, and premium reimbursement is due within 14 days after the owner receives the association's invoice.¹ Notably, the statute sets no dollar amount for coverage and no deadline by which the association must respond to a request. Where practitioners might expect a deemed-approval clock or a coverage figure, Colorado stays silent — treat those parameters as not specified rather than borrowed from another state.

The EV provision reaches communities created before July 1, 1992. CCIOA applies in full only to communities created on or after that date, but § 38-33.3-117(1)(c) extends §§ 38-33.3-104 to 38-33.3-111 to pre-1992 communities, and § 38-33.3-106.8 falls within that range.³

2B. How the rest of CCIOA bears on EV charging

The EV provision doesn't operate in isolation. It expressly overrides conflicting declarations, bylaws, and rules, so a governing document that bans charging equipment yields to the statute to the extent of the conflict.¹ At the same time, the statute preserves association authority to regulate: the aesthetic, safety, and design-specification hooks in subsections (3) and (4) are the vehicles through which architectural or design standards keep applying to charging installations.¹

CCIOA's general governance rules also matter when an association enforces its charging conditions. Section 38-33.3-209.5 requires every association to adopt and follow written policies, including a covenant-enforcement policy with notice-and-hearing procedures, before imposing fines for an alleged violation.⁵ An association enforcing an aesthetic or registration rule against an owner's charging system must go through that policy rather than act summarily.

It matters not to conflate the EV provision with the renewable-energy and solar provisions. Section 38-33.3-106.5 addresses renewable-energy generation devices, flags, political and religious expression, and drought-tolerant landscaping — a separate section with separate mechanics that doesn't govern EV charging.⁶ Rules for solar collectors and rules for charging stations should cite their own sections.

2C. The role of governing documents and corporate law

Governing documents remain in force, but they operate subject to the EV provision. Reasonable restrictions on placement, appearance, safety, and design are permitted; a restriction that prohibits or effectively prohibits charging isn't.¹ The order of precedence runs from CCIOA's non-variable provisions, to governing documents consistent with the statute, to board-adopted rules. CCIOA provides that, except as expressly allowed, its provisions may not be varied by agreement, and the rights it confers may not be waived.¹

Most Colorado associations organize as nonprofit corporations, which puts them under the Colorado Revised Nonprofit Corporation Act, C.R.S. § 7-121-101 et seq., as well.⁷ That statute supplies corporate-formality scaffolding — board authority, meetings, officer duties — but it grants no EV-specific authority and doesn't alter the charging rights set by § 38-33.3-106.8. Where both the statute and the governing documents stay silent, general principles of Colorado contract and property law fill the gap; CCIOA itself states that the law of real property, contracts, and corporations supplements the article except where inconsistent with it.¹

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

Because CCIOA treats condominiums and planned communities alike as common interest communities, the obligations below apply across residential community types unless the statute distinguishes them.

A. Installation rights and prohibitions

An association may not prohibit a unit owner from using or installing, at the owner's own expense, a Level 1 or Level 2 charging system — any contrary provision in the governing documents gets overridden, per C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.8(2)(a).¹ The statute grants location-specific rights: the owner may install in a unit, in an assigned or deeded parking space, or in a parking space accessible to both the owner and others, and on a limited common element parking space, carport, or garage with the association's consent, per § 38-33.3-106.8(2)(a) and (4).¹ The line between a permitted reasonable rule and a prohibited effective prohibition is the operative test: a rule regulating appearance or safety is allowed, while conditions that make charging impossible aren't.

B. Conditions an association may impose

An association may adopt bona fide safety requirements consistent with a building code or recognized safety standard, may require registration of the system within 30 days after installation, and may impose reasonable aesthetic provisions on dimensions, placement, and appearance, per § 38-33.3-106.8(3).¹ For limited-common-element installations, it may require compliance with its design specifications, use of a licensed and registered electrical contractor, and a certificate of insurance naming the association as additional insured, per § 38-33.3-106.8(4)(b).¹ Insurance and indemnification stay limited to what the statute specifies: a certificate of insurance or reimbursement of an actual increased premium, with no dollar figure set, per § 38-33.3-106.8(4)(b)(IV).¹ On the approval process, the statute stays silent — it sets no deadline for the association to act and creates no deemed-approval remedy, so treat those mechanics as not specified by statute.

C. Cost, metering, and maintenance allocation

The owner bears the cost of installation, including restoration of disturbed common elements, and the cost of electricity, per § 38-33.3-106.8(4)(b)(III), (2)(b).¹ The association may recover the actual cost of electricity it provides or charge a reasonable access fee, plus any applicable network fee, per § 38-33.3-106.8(2)(b).¹ The owner and each successive owner with exclusive rights to the limited common element carry responsibility for maintenance, repair, damage, and removal, per § 38-33.3-106.8(5).¹ The statute doesn't mandate a specific submetering method. On the utility side, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission regulates utilities; an owner charging a personal vehicle on the owner's own service is generally a retail end user rather than a reseller of utility service, and nothing in the statute converts individual home charging into a regulated utility resale.¹

D. Dispute resolution and enforcement

CCIOA gets enforced through private legal action rather than by an agency. Trial-level disputes proceed in Colorado District Courts, with appeals to the Colorado Court of Appeals and discretionary review by the Colorado Supreme Court.⁸ When an association enforces a charging condition through fines, it must follow its covenant-enforcement policy, including notice and hearing, under § 38-33.3-209.5.⁵ Associations must register annually with the HOA Information and Resource Center within DORA's Division of Real Estate. That office collects registrations and complaints and provides information and education, but it doesn't adjudicate disputes, regulate ongoing operations in a binding way, or administer EV-charging disputes.⁸

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

The current operative version of § 38-33.3-106.8 comes from House Bill 23-1233 — more than 24 months old now, but still the controlling amendment. No bill in the 2024, 2025, or 2026 sessions amended the CCIOA EV-charging provision.

One 2024 measure addressed EV charging in Colorado but didn't touch the CCIOA provision: HB24-1173 concerned county and municipal permitting of charging systems, not association authority.⁴ That distinction matters, because the CCIOA charging rights for owners in common interest communities remain governed solely by § 38-33.3-106.8 as amended in 2023.

B. Recent appellate rulings

No published opinion from the Colorado Court of Appeals or the Colorado Supreme Court has interpreted C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.8 as of July 18, 2026 — a negative finding based on a search of available primary and secondary sources; a definitive citing-references check would require a paid legal database. With no EV-specific appellate authority on the books, disputes get resolved by applying the statutory text and general CCIOA covenant-enforcement principles in the District Courts.

C. Active legislative debates

As of mid-2026, no active proposal to amend § 38-33.3-106.8 has turned up. Recent EV-related legislative activity has focused on local-government permitting and retail charging, not the CCIOA owner-installation right.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Colorado sits in the highest protection tier nationally, alongside California, whose Civil Code § 4745 similarly voids restrictions on residential EV charging.² The mechanics differ: California deems an application approved if the association doesn't deny it in writing within 60 days, while Colorado imposes no such clock, and although neither state fixes an insurance dollar amount, their certificate-of-insurance requirements are structured differently.² Nationally, three broad categories exist: mandate states such as Colorado and California that void effective prohibitions; states that address charging more narrowly or only for certain community types; and states with no EV-charging-specific statute, where the declaration controls. For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is that Colorado grants installation rights but on its own terms, so a California approval workflow, insurance template, and timeline don't map directly onto Colorado. CCIOA gets amended periodically, and this page is re-verified against current statutory text each quarter.

HOA Weekly's Colorado EV Charging coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and courts act, and we re-verify the CCIOA EV provision against current text each cycle. Federal incentives may affect installation economics, but no federal law mandates HOA EV charging access. The federal Section 30C credit is available only for property placed in service on or before June 30, 2026, a termination date the One Big Beautiful Bill Act set when it was enacted July 4, 2025.¹⁰

Footnotes

1. C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.8, Colorado Revised Statutes, Title 38 (current text via leg.colorado.gov) ↩
2. California Civil Code § 4745, including subsection (e) 60-day deemed-approval provision (California Legislative Information) ↩
3. C.R.S. § 38-33.3-117, Applicability to preexisting common interest communities (via leg.colorado.gov) ↩
4. Colorado General Assembly, HB23-1233, Electric Vehicle Charging and Parking Requirements ↩
5. C.R.S. § 38-33.3-209.5, Responsible governance policies (via leg.colorado.gov) ↩
6. C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.5, Prohibitions contrary to public policy (via leg.colorado.gov) ↩
7. Colorado Revised Nonprofit Corporation Act, C.R.S. § 7-121-101 et seq. (referenced by DORA Division of Real Estate) ↩
8. Colorado Division of Real Estate, HOA Information and Resource Center, and C.R.S. § 38-33.3-401 (annual registration) ↩
9. Colorado General Assembly, HB23-1233 signed act (Ch. 245, Session Laws of Colorado 2023) ↩
10. IRS, Instructions for Form 8911 (Rev. December 2025), Section 30C termination date under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21) ↩