Montana HOA EV Charging

Quick-Reference EV Charging Table

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

Montana has no statute that grants owners a right to install an electric vehicle charging station in a common interest community, and none that overrides the recorded declaration on the question. The threshold answer is no statute, confirmed by a review of the Montana Unit Ownership Act, Title 70, Chapter 23,¹ and Title 70, Chapter 17, Part 9.² In the absence of an access statute, the recorded declaration controls, backed by the Montana Unit Ownership Act for condominiums and by recorded covenants enforced under Title 70, Chapter 17 for planned communities.³ The controlling practical question is therefore not statutory but spatial: where the station would be installed and who controls that space — an owner's separate interest, a limited common element such as an assigned parking stall, a general common element, or a lot or assigned space defined by covenants.

Montana does tax public EV charging under House Bill 55, enacted in 2023, but that law is a tax-and-metering statute that exempts charging at private residences and homeowners' associations.⁴ It creates no installation right and requires no association to permit charging. This places Montana among the majority of states that haven't enacted EV-charging installation legislation for community associations, in contrast to mandate states such as California, whose Civil Code § 4745 renders void and unenforceable any governing-document provision that effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts installation in an owner's space,⁵ and Colorado, whose C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.8 bars associations from prohibiting an owner's Level 1 or Level 2 charging system.⁶ The sections that follow set out the framework, the operational rules for boards and managers, and recent legislative activity.

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

2A. EV-charging-specific law in Montana

Montana has no statute governing the installation of EV charging stations in common interest communities. A review of the Montana Unit Ownership Act, Title 70, Chapter 23,¹ and of Title 70, Chapter 17, Part 9, the homeowners'-association-restrictions provisions,² locates no EV-charging installation provision. The consequence follows directly: there's no statutory override of the recorded declaration, no statutory approval timeline, no deemed-approval rule, and no statutory cap on the conditions an association may impose. Any owner right to install derives from the declaration and, for condominiums, from the general common-element provisions of the Unit Ownership Act, not from an EV-specific mandate.

House Bill 55, enacted in 2023, is the one Montana statute that addresses EV charging directly, and it's a tax law. It provides, at Mont. Code Ann. § 15-70-802(1), that "effective July 1, 2023, there is a tax of 3 cents a kilowatt hour or its equivalent in addition to the public utility's approved rate on the electric current used to charge or recharge the battery or batteries of an electric vehicle at public charging stations installed after July 1, 2023."⁷ The definition of a taxable "charging station" in § 15-70-801 expressly excludes equipment that "is not installed at a residence or owned by an association of real property owners including a homeowners' association as defined in 70-17-901," so residential and HOA charging falls outside the taxed category entirely.⁸ HB 55 grants and protects no installation right — it's treated more fully in Section 4. No EV-charging access bill has been introduced in a recent Montana session, which places Montana in the majority of states that haven't enacted EV-charging installation legislation for community associations.

2B. How the Montana Unit Ownership Act and covenant law bear on EV charging

The Montana Unit Ownership Act governs condominiums and predates electric vehicles. It contains no EV-specific provision, but its general provisions structure the analysis. A unit owner may make improvements within the unit, subject to the limit in § 70-23-502, which bars a unit owner from work that would jeopardize the soundness or safety of the property, reduce its value, or impair an easement, unless the consent of all affected unit owners is obtained first.⁹ Because a charging station almost always requires electrical routing through, or attachment to, areas outside the unit, this limit is frequently in play.

Association authority over common elements is the second hook. Under § 70-23-102, common elements include both general common elements, whose default definition lists parking areas, and limited common elements reserved for the use of particular units, such as assigned parking.¹⁰ Maintenance, repair, replacement, and improvement of common elements proceed only as the bylaws provide under § 70-23-504, which places alterations to common elements, including assigned ones, under association control absent contrary declaration language.¹¹ The declaration itself defines the units, the general common elements, and the limited common elements under § 70-23-301.¹²

For planned communities, recorded covenants enforced under Title 70, Chapter 17 govern. Part 9, § 70-17-901, limits an association's power to adopt, amend, or enforce a covenant that imposes more onerous restrictions on a member's use than existed when the member acquired the property, absent the member's written consent, for actions taken after May 9, 2019.² That's a general property-rights protection, not an EV-charging right, and it creates no entitlement to install a charger. Neither the Unit Ownership Act nor covenant law compels an association to permit EV charging or prohibits it — the declaration controls.

2C. The role of CC&Rs, architectural review, and corporate law

In the absence of a statute, the recorded declaration is the operative rulebook for EV charging in Montana. Architectural or design-review provisions in the declaration are the mechanism most associations use to evaluate a charging-station request, covering the method, equipment, routing, and appearance. The order of precedence runs from any non-variable statutory provisions — the Unit Ownership Act for condominiums — to statutory defaults as modified by the declaration, to the declaration, to the bylaws, and then to board-adopted rules.

Most Montana associations are incorporated as nonprofit corporations under the Montana Nonprofit Corporation Act, Title 35, Chapter 2.¹³ That act supplies corporate-formality scaffolding, including board-action, meeting, and notice requirements at the corporate level, but it confers no EV-specific authority and no owner right to charge. Where the declaration is silent, common law contract and property doctrine fills the gap; Montana courts treat CC&Rs as binding contracts and construe restrictive covenants strictly.¹⁴

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

A. Installation rights and prohibitions

An association may prohibit or condition installation to the extent the declaration permits, because no Montana statute limits that authority for either condominiums or planned communities. There's no statutory prohibition on bans and no statutory reasonableness ceiling; § 70-17-901 limits new, more onerous use restrictions but isn't an EV-installation right,² true for planned communities and condominium associations alike. The operational distinction that matters is between prohibiting installation outright and conditioning it: a declaration silent on EV charging typically still reaches the request through its architectural-review and common-element-alteration provisions, governed by the declaration and, for condominiums, by Unit Ownership Act §§ 70-23-502 and 70-23-504.⁹¹¹

B. Conditions an association may impose

Where the declaration allows, an association may require architectural approval of the method, equipment, and routing, true for both condominiums and planned communities. It may require professional or licensed installation and code compliance, true for both. It may require the owner to carry insurance, indemnify the association, and accept liability for the equipment and any resulting damage, true for both. It may impose aesthetic and location standards, true for both. In a no-statute state, the ceiling on these conditions is whatever the declaration permits and general reasonableness principles applied by Montana courts, not a statutory cap.

C. Cost, metering, and maintenance allocation

Absent a statute, the declaration allocates who bears installation cost, electricity cost, and metering, true for both. The declaration likewise allocates maintenance, repair, and damage responsibility, true for both. On the utility-resale question, an owner charging a vehicle on the owner's own meter generally isn't reselling utility service; Montana law provides that "entities operating electric vehicle charging stations are not public utilities" under § 69-8-803,¹⁵ and the HB 55 tax exempts private-residence and HOA charging under § 15-70-801.⁸ Where an association resells power to owners through submetering, it should confirm its arrangement against the Public Service Commission's utility rules before proceeding.

D. Where the station may be installed

For condominiums, the analysis turns on the space. Within a separate interest, such as an attached garage defined as part of the unit, the owner has the most latitude, subject to § 70-23-502.⁹ In a limited common element such as an assigned parking stall, or in a general common element, the association generally controls alterations, including to assigned spaces, absent declaration language to the contrary, under §§ 70-23-102 and 70-23-504.¹⁰¹¹ For planned communities, the station's placement on the owner's lot, driveway, or assigned space is defined and limited by the recorded covenants.³

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

B. Recent Montana Supreme Court rulings

No Montana Supreme Court decision in the past 36 months addresses EV charging or common-element alterations specific to charging in a common interest community. HOA civil disputes proceed through the Montana District Courts, and because Montana has no intermediate appellate court, civil appeals go directly from the District Court to the Montana Supreme Court.¹⁹

C. Active legislative debates

There's no active proposal that would create EV-charging installation rights or restrictions for Montana associations. Legislative attention to association law in the 2025 session ran to covenant reform generally — House Bill 761, which would have revised residential covenant law, died before passage — rather than to EV charging.²⁰

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Montana sits in the largest of three national groups. The first group comprises states with EV-charging-station mandates that void or limit association prohibitions, such as California, where Civil Code § 4745(a) provides that any governing-document provision "that either effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts the installation or use of an electric vehicle charging station within an owner's unit or in a designated parking space ... is void and unenforceable,"⁵ and Colorado, where C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.8(2)(a) provides that an association shall not "prohibit a unit owner from using, or installing at the unit owner's expense for the unit owner's own use, a level 1 or level 2 electric vehicle charging system on or in a unit."⁶ A second group addresses EV charging more narrowly within a condominium or HOA act. The third and largest group, which includes Montana, has no EV-charging installation statute, and the declaration controls. For a multi-state operator entering Montana from a mandate state, the owner-protective rules and deemed-approval timelines familiar from California or Colorado don't apply here — the declaration governs the request. Because this is a fast-moving area, Montana's status should be re-checked each quarter.

HOA Weekly's Montana EV Charging coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and the Montana Supreme Court act, and the threshold question of whether a statute exists is re-verified each cycle. Federal incentives may affect installation economics, but no federal law mandates HOA EV-charging access; the Section 30C Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit, for example, is scheduled to terminate for property placed in service after June 30, 2026 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.²¹

Footnotes

1. Mont. Code Ann. Title 70, Ch. 23, Unit Ownership Act (Condominiums), table of contents, Montana Code Annotated ↩ ↩
2. Mont. Code Ann. § 70-17-901 (Homeowners' association restrictions — real property rights), Montana Code Annotated ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
3. Mont. Code Ann. Title 70, Ch. 17 (Servitudes, Easements, and Covenants Running With the Land), Part 9, § 70-17-901, Montana Code Annotated ↩ ↩
4. Mont. Code Ann. § 15-70-801 (Definitions), Montana Code Annotated ↩
5. Cal. Civ. Code § 4745 (Electric Vehicle Charging Station Restrictions), via FindLaw ↩ ↩
6. Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-33.3-106.8 (Unreasonable restrictions on electric vehicle charging systems), as amended by HB 23-1233, Colorado General Assembly ↩ ↩
7. Mont. Code Ann. § 15-70-802(1) (Public charging station tax), Montana Code Annotated ↩
8. Mont. Code Ann. § 15-70-801(1) (definition of "charging station," excluding residence and homeowners'-association equipment), Montana Code Annotated ↩ ↩
9. Mont. Code Ann. § 70-23-502 (Certain work on unit by owner prohibited), Montana Code Annotated ↩ ↩ ↩
10. Mont. Code Ann. § 70-23-102 (Definitions — general and limited common elements), Montana Code Annotated ↩ ↩
11. Mont. Code Ann. § 70-23-504 (Maintenance and improvement of common elements), Montana Code Annotated ↩ ↩ ↩
12. Mont. Code Ann. § 70-23-301 (Contents of declaration), Montana Code Annotated ↩
13. Mont. Code Ann. Title 35, Ch. 2 (Nonprofit Corporations), table of contents, Montana Code Annotated ↩
14. Craig Tracts Homeowners' Ass'n v. Brown Drake, LLC, Montana Supreme Court (restrictive covenants strictly construed as binding contracts), courts.mt.gov document service ↩
15. Mont. Code Ann. § 69-8-803(3) (Electric vehicle charging stations — entities not public utilities), Montana Code Annotated ↩ ↩
16. Mont. Code Ann. § 15-70-802 (Public charging station tax — reduction of additional electric vehicle registration fees), enacted by HB 55 (Ch. 619, L. 2023), Montana Code Annotated ↩
17. Montana Laws and Incentives (SB 228, 2025; Mont. Code Ann. §§ 15-70-801 to 805), U.S. DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center ↩
18. Senate Bill 228 (2025), status and actions, official bill page linked at bills.legmt.gov via Montana Free Press Capitol Tracker ↩
19. Montana Judicial Branch, "About us" (Montana has no intermediate appellate court; the Supreme Court hears direct appeals from the District Courts), courts.mt.gov ↩
20. Montana 2025 Regular Session covenant legislation (HB 761 revising residential covenant law; related covenant bills), LegiScan (official bill pages at bills.legmt.gov) ↩
21. IRS, Instructions for Form 8911 (Rev. December 2025), Section 30C Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit termination date (June 30, 2026) under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act ↩