2026-09-10 · Florida · Courts

What happened. Florida's Second District Court of Appeal has issued the most significant practical qualification yet on the condominium “right to charge.” It affirmed a temporary injunction requiring two unit owners to remove an electric-vehicle charging station they installed after their association denied the application.

Persechino and Teixeira v. Station Square Condominium Association, Inc., No. 2D2025-2610, was decided on 14 August 2026 (Sleet, J., with Villanti and Black, JJ., concurring), on nonfinal appeal from the County Court for Pinellas County.¹

Two holdings, and the second is the sharper one

First: the statutory conditions are a floor, not a ceiling. Section 718.113(8) bars an association from prohibiting an owner's EV charging station, and sets out conditions at subsection (8)(h)1–5. The owners argued that those five items exhaust what an association may require. The court disagreed:

“Contrary to Persechino and Teixera's argument on appeal, the statute does not say that an association cannot put limits or requirements on that installation, and the statute itself includes limits beyond those found in subsection (8)(h)1-5.”

Second: an owner's installation can be a material alteration of the common elements. The court drew a negative inference from subsection (9), which provides that an association's own charger installation “does not constitute a material alteration or substantial addition” — language conspicuously absent from subsection (8), which governs owner installations:

“we must conclude that the legislature intends that although installation by an association of an EV charging station cannot constitute material alteration or substantial addition, installation by a unit owner of an EV charging station may amount to such.”

That matters because a material alteration or substantial addition to the common elements triggers the 75 percent owner-approval requirement under s. 718.113(2)(a). The declaration in this case carried a matching 75 percent provision.

The facts that made this installation an alteration

The board president testified that the owners “ran approximately 145 feet of electrical conduit from the charging station to the Association's electrical box, made holes in the locked electrical box to gain access to it, and drilled screws into the garage wall and ceiling to attach the conduit.” The trial court also found the installation “was not separately metered and did not allow for [them] to be properly billed.”

Those facts are the holding's centre of gravity. This was not a charger installed within the owner's own space on the owner's own meter.

1. Persechino v. Station Square Condominium Association, Inc., No. 2D2025-2610 (Fla. 2d DCA 14 August 2026) — slip opinion ↩
2. Sable Pass Community Association, Inc. v. Call, No. 4D2024-3084 (Fla. 4th DCA 25 March 2026) ↩
3. s. 718.113, Fla. Stat. (2026) — material alterations and electric vehicle charging stations ↩