Solar, EV Charging, and Federal Law in HOAs

Section 1: Overview — There is no federal right to install

No federal statute gives a homeowner the right to install solar panels or electric vehicle charging equipment over a community association's objection. Whatever right an owner holds to install either one comes from a state statute or from the association's recorded governing documents, not from federal law. Readers looking for the right itself should consult their state's Solar Rights and EV Charging columns in the state matrix, which is where that analysis lives. A common misconception holds that the Federal Communications Commission's Over-the-Air Reception Devices (OTARD) rule protects solar installations. It does not, because the rule reaches antennas and reception devices only, a point the OTARD topic page addresses in full.¹

What federal law does supply is money, not a mandate: tax credits for owners and businesses, and infrastructure grant funding routed through the states. That financial layer changed materially in 2025. The reconciliation act enacted July 4, 2025 (Pub. L. 119-21, commonly called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act) terminated several clean energy credits ahead of their prior schedules, so guidance published before mid-2025 states expired answers with confidence.² Every credit figure on this page was verified against irs.gov and the current statutory text on July 28, 2026, and carries that verification date. Installations on common elements remain association decisions, and nothing in federal law overrides that authority. The sections that follow set out what federal law provides, what it does not, and how the 2025 changes affect the requests boards receive.

Section 2: What federal law does and does not provide

The absence of a federal right

There is no federal solar-access statute and no federal right-to-charge statute reaching community associations. Federal law neither compels an association to approve an installation nor sets a standard by which it must judge such requests.

The FCC's OTARD rule, codified at 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000, prohibits restrictions that impair the installation, maintenance, or use of certain antennas and reception devices, specifically direct broadcast satellite dishes one meter or less in diameter, broadband radio service antennas, television broadcast antennas, and certain fixed wireless antennas.¹ It does not reach solar panels or EV chargers. The Commission has not adopted petitions to extend OTARD-style protection to solar, and as verified on July 28, 2026 no such petition is pending before it.³ The OTARD topic page covers the rule and its boundaries; this page does not restate them.

Net metering, interconnection standards, and utility rate tariffs fall to state public utility commission jurisdiction, not federal law. The federal role stays narrow: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has declined to assert jurisdiction over retail net metering, treating those transactions as retail sales that the states regulate under the framework of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA).⁴

The right to install, where it exists, comes from a state solar access or right-to-charge statute and from the recorded declaration, both covered in the 51-state matrix. The misconception that a federal right exists persists in part because OTARD does protect satellite dishes against association restrictions, and observers extend that protection to solar by analogy, which the rule's text does not support.

Federal incentives for solar

The Internal Revenue Code § 25D residential clean energy credit allowed an individual to claim 30 percent of qualified expenditures for residential solar electric property and similar equipment.⁵ Pub. L. 119-21, § 70506(a), amended the termination provision so that the credit "shall not apply with respect to any expenditures made after December 31, 2025," replacing the prior placed-in-service date of December 31, 2034.⁵ Under § 25D(e)(8)(A), an expenditure counts as made when the original installation of the item is completed, so a system whose installation finishes after December 31, 2025 does not qualify, regardless of when the owner ordered or paid for it.² IRS Fact Sheet FS-2025-05 states that "if installation is completed after December 31, 2025, the expenditure will be treated as made after December 31, 2025, which will prevent the taxpayer from claiming the section 25D credit," and the fact sheet provides no transition or grandfather rule for late-completed residential installations.² These points were verified against irs.gov and the statutory text on July 28, 2026.

For an owner-installed rooftop system, the practical effect is that the residential purchase credit is gone for systems completed in 2026 and later. Because the credit turned on completing installation by December 31, 2025, that date, not the association's approval decision, set the deadline that mattered to owners, and it changes the calculus for owners weighing whether to proceed at all.

Business-side credits under §§ 48E and 45Y remain available for community-scale or association-owned systems and for third-party-owned residential systems, but they terminate for solar facilities placed in service after December 31, 2027 unless construction begins within twelve months of enactment, and they carry phase-down and foreign-entity sourcing restrictions.⁶ These are business credits with their own rules, and they are not the same as the residential § 25D credit. An individual homeowner claiming a credit for a system the owner purchased looked to § 25D, while a business that owns a system looks to §§ 48E and 45Y. The federal taxation page addresses how an association's own tax posture affects any credit or income question.

Federal incentives and funding for EV charging

The Internal Revenue Code § 30C alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit covered EV charging equipment. For property placed in service at a main home, the credit equaled 30 percent of cost up to a maximum of $1,000 per item; for depreciable business property, the rate was 6 percent (or 30 percent if the taxpayer met prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements) up to $100,000 per item.⁷ The credit reached only property placed in service in an eligible census tract, meaning a low-income community under § 45D(e) or a non-urban census tract.⁸ Pub. L. 119-21 amended § 30C(i) so that the section "shall not apply to any property placed in service after June 30, 2026," replacing the prior date of December 31, 2032.⁹ These points were verified against irs.gov and the statutory text on July 28, 2026.

The statute distinguishes property by whether it is subject to depreciation. An association installing chargers on common elements, if it claimed the credit at all, would generally look to the depreciable-property (business) side of § 30C at the 6 percent rate and $100,000 cap rather than the residential 30 percent rate and $1,000 cap, and the census tract limit applied in either case.⁷

The consumer clean vehicle credits under §§ 30D and 25E, which subsidized vehicle purchases rather than charging equipment, terminated for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025; they bear on individual buyers rather than on association infrastructure decisions.²

The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program, a $5 billion program created by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, funds state buildout of charging stations along designated Alternative Fuel Corridors, not private residential property, so its direct relevance to associations stays limited.¹⁰ On February 6, 2025 the Federal Highway Administration issued a memorandum providing that "no new obligations may occur under the NEVI Formula Program until the updated final NEVI Formula Program Guidance is issued and new State plans are submitted and approved," rescinding prior guidance and suspending approval of state plans; litigation followed.¹⁰ In State of Washington v. U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. District Judge Tana Lin granted summary judgment for 20 states and the District of Columbia on January 23, 2026, ruling that the suspension was arbitrary and capricious and violated the Administrative Procedure Act, and enjoining the agencies from withholding funds on grounds not authorized by statute.¹¹ That ruling describes the posture as verified on July 28, 2026, not any final resolution on appeal.

Utility rebates and charging incentives that individual utilities offer are a matter of state and utility programs, not federal law.

Section 3: What associations can and cannot do about solar and EV requests under federal law

Solar requests

Federal law imposes no duty on an association to approve a solar request and supplies no standard governing that decision; there is no federal source to cite because no such federal rule exists. The governing framework is the applicable state solar access statute and the recorded declaration, both covered in the state Solar Rights column. Federal law leaves an association's architectural review authority under its documents untouched. The one genuine federal consideration is economic and temporal: the termination of the § 25D credit for expenditures made after December 31, 2025 changed the timing and financial logic of owner requests.⁵

EV charging requests

Federal law likewise imposes no mandate that an association permit EV charging equipment; again there is no federal source to cite because none exists. State right-to-charge statutes, covered in the state EV Charging column, are the operative law where they apply. Questions of electrical capacity, sub-metering, and allocation of installation and energy costs are contractual and state-law questions that the declaration and state statute resolve, not any federal standard.

Common elements, exclusive-use areas, and assigned parking

The association and the applicable state statute decide whether an installation may proceed on a common roof, an exclusive-use balcony or patio, or an assigned or deeded parking space. Federal law supplies no rule on the point. The location of the proposed installation drives the analysis because state solar and right-to-charge statutes frequently treat exclusive-use areas differently from shared common elements, and the state columns set out that variation.

Documentation and economics

A board may properly request the documentation its own governing documents and applicable state statute authorize, such as installer certifications, insurance, and specifications; federal law adds no documentation requirement and no approval timeline. The expiration of the residential and charging credits under Pub. L. 119-21 affects the volume and timing of requests rather than their legal standard, and the federal taxation page addresses the tax treatment of an association-owned system.²

Section 4: Recent tax, regulatory, and program activity

Tax law changes

Program and regulatory activity

Legislation and active debates

Bills in the 119th Congress touch clean energy and charging themes without creating any federal right against associations. H.R. 4162, the Community Solar Consumer Choice Act of 2025, would direct the Department of Energy to establish a program to increase participation in community solar programs.¹² No bill identified would create a federal right to install solar or charging equipment over an association's objection or preempt association authority.

Section 5: Interaction with state law and related coverage

State law does all of the legal work on these questions. Solar access statutes, right-to-charge statutes, and the recorded declaration determine whether an association may restrict, condition, or deny an installation, and they vary widely on scope, on whether they reach common elements and assigned parking, on cost allocation, and on what restrictions count as reasonable. That variation is why the applicable state column, not this federal page, is the operative reference for the right itself. The federal layer changes only project economics and timing, through tax credits and infrastructure funding, and after the 2025 reconciliation act it changes them substantially. Readers deciding a specific request should turn next to their state's Solar Rights, EV Charging, and Architectural Review columns.

HOA Weekly's coverage of federal solar and EV incentives updates quarterly, and every credit statement on this page carries the date it was verified against irs.gov and the statutory text. The state rights that actually govern these requests appear throughout the state matrix, in the Solar Rights, EV Charging, and Architectural Review columns for each jurisdiction.

Footnotes

1. 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000, Restrictions impairing reception of television broadcast signals, direct broadcast satellite services, or multichannel multipoint distribution services (OTARD rule) (eCFR) ↩
2. IRS Fact Sheet FS-2025-05 (Aug. 21, 2025), FAQs on §§ 25C, 25D, 25E, 30C, 30D, 45L, 45W, 179D under Pub. L. 119-21 (IRS) ↩
3. FCC, Over-the-Air Reception Devices Rule (scope limited to covered antennas and reception devices) ↩
4. FERC materials on PURPA and net metering as matters of state retail jurisdiction (ferc.gov) ↩
5. 26 U.S.C. § 25D, Residential clean energy credit (subsec. (h) Termination, as amended by Pub. L. 119-21, § 70506(a)) (Office of the Law Revision Counsel, uscode.house.gov) ↩
6. 26 U.S.C. § 45Y, Clean electricity production credit, and 26 U.S.C. § 48E, Clean electricity investment credit (as amended by Pub. L. 119-21) (Office of the Law Revision Counsel, uscode.house.gov) ↩
7. IRS, Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit (rates and per-item caps) (IRS) ↩
8. IRS, FAQs regarding eligible census tracts for purposes of the alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit under § 30C (IRS) ↩
9. 26 U.S.C. § 30C, Alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit (subsec. (i) Termination, as amended by Pub. L. 119-21) (Office of the Law Revision Counsel, uscode.house.gov) ↩
10. Congressional Research Service, Status of Federal Implementation of EV Charging Infrastructure, IN12556 (NEVI program, $5 billion, and February 2025 FHWA suspension) (congress.gov) ↩
11. State of Washington v. U.S. Department of Transportation, No. 2:25-cv-00848 (W.D. Wash.), summary judgment Jan. 23, 2026, as reported in Congressional Research Service, IN12556 (congress.gov) ↩
12. H.R. 4162, Community Solar Consumer Choice Act of 2025, 119th Cong. (congress.gov) ↩