South Dakota HOA EV Charging

Quick-Reference EV Charging Table

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

South Dakota has no statute that specifically governs electric vehicle charging stations in community associations, and no South Dakota law overrides the recorded declaration or covenants on the question.¹ For condominiums that elected coverage, authority flows from the general common-area provisions of the South Dakota Condominium Act, SDCL ch. 43-15A, together with the recorded master deed; for non-condominium planned communities and homeowners associations, it flows from the recorded covenants and the South Dakota Nonprofit Corporation Act, SDCL Title 47.² The controlling practical question is where the proposed station would be installed and who controls that space, since alterations to common areas generally require association approval. South Dakota has enacted EV legislation, but it's utility-side: SDCL 49-34A-116 provides that a charging-station operator isn't a public utility merely for reselling electricity to charge vehicles, and it grants no owner any right to install equipment against an association.³ This places South Dakota among the roughly 35 states without an EV-charging right-to-charge law, in contrast to the 15 states and the District of Columbia that have passed one, such as California and Colorado, which void or limit association prohibitions.⁴ The sections below detail the statutory framework, what associations can and cannot do, and recent legislative and judicial activity.

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

2A. EV-charging-specific law in South Dakota

South Dakota has no statute that specifically addresses electric vehicle charging stations in community associations. A review of the South Dakota Condominium Act, SDCL ch. 43-15A, and Title 43, Property, locates no EV-charging provision, and South Dakota doesn't appear on national right-to-charge trackers that catalog states with HOA or condominium EV statutes.¹ The consequence follows directly: there's no statutory override of the declaration or covenants, no statutory approval timeline, no statutory deemed-approval rule, and no statutory cap on the conditions an association may impose. South Dakota's enacted EV statutes are utility-regulation measures, not access rules. SDCL 49-34A-116, adopted in the 2022 session, places charging-station resale outside the public-utility definition.³ Senate Bill 23 of the 2024 session amended SDCL 49-34-14 to provide that the overcharging civil-fine statute doesn't apply to an electric vehicle charging station selling or providing electricity pursuant to SDCL 49-34A-116.⁵ Neither provision grants an owner a right to install charging equipment, and neither limits association authority. This places South Dakota in the majority of states that haven't enacted EV-charging-station access legislation for community associations. No EV-charging bill affecting associations was introduced in the 2025 or 2026 legislative sessions.⁶

2B. How the South Dakota Condominium Act bears on EV charging

The South Dakota Condominium Act, SDCL ch. 43-15A, enacted by SL 1975, ch. 270, contains no EV-specific provision, but its general provisions structure the condominium analysis.² The act is a 1975 condominium-regime statute, not the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, and it predates electric vehicle charging entirely. It applies only to condominium projects that expressly elect coverage by recording a master deed that sets out the required particulars, including a description of the common areas.⁷ The act defines common areas broadly to include, unless the master deed provides otherwise, the land, foundations, and, of particular relevance here, yards and parking areas and the installations for central services such as power.⁸ Each condominium owner holds an exclusive right to the owner's condominium and a common right to a share in the common areas.⁹ Because a charging station typically requires work in or affecting these common areas, including electrical service and parking surfaces, the association generally controls the alteration, even where a stall is assigned to a single owner, absent master-deed language to the contrary. The act neither compels an association to permit EV charging nor prohibits it; the master deed controls. The act also validates vertical and horizontal property regimes and condominiums recorded before January 1, 1992 that complied with the former chapter 43-15 or chapter 43-15A.¹⁰

2C. Non-condominium HOAs, covenants, and corporate law

For non-condominium planned communities, South Dakota has no comprehensive planned-community or homeowners-association act. SDCL ch. 43-15B is the Time-Share Estates chapter, not a planned-community statute.¹¹ The recorded covenants are the operative rulebook for EV charging, and the architectural or design-control provisions within them are the mechanism most associations use to evaluate a charging-station request. Where an association is incorporated as a nonprofit, the South Dakota Nonprofit Corporation Act, SDCL Title 47, ch. 47-22 and following, supplies corporate-formality scaffolding, including board action and meeting, notice, and records requirements at the corporate level; it grants no EV-specific authority.¹² The order of precedence for condominiums runs from the act's non-variable provisions, to the act's defaults as modified by the master deed, to the master deed, then bylaws, then rules; for non-condominium HOAs it runs from the covenants, to bylaws, then rules. Where the documents are silent, common law contract and property doctrine governs, and South Dakota courts interpret restrictive covenants according to those principles.¹³

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

A. Installation rights and prohibitions

In this no-statute state, whether an association may prohibit installation outright turns on the declaration or covenants, not on statute. For condominiums, the association's control over common areas under SDCL ch. 43-15A and the master deed supplies the authority to condition or refuse alterations.⁸ For non-condominium HOAs, the recorded covenants govern.¹³ No South Dakota statute constrains a prohibition on EV charging.¹ The operative distinction is between prohibiting installation and merely conditioning it; both derive from the governing documents rather than from an EV-specific mandate.

B. Conditions an association may impose

Architectural approval of the method, equipment, and routing is governed by the declaration or covenants and any architectural-control provision.¹³ Requirements for professional or licensed installation and code compliance are likewise a matter of the governing documents rather than statute; South Dakota separately licenses electrical work through the State Electrical Commission as a general matter.¹⁴ Insurance, indemnification, and liability allocation to the owner are set by the declaration or covenants, not by an EV statute.¹ Aesthetic and location standards similarly derive from the documents. In a no-statute state, the ceiling on conditions is whatever the declaration or covenants permit, together with general reasonableness principles applied by the courts, not a statutory cap.¹³

C. Cost, metering, and maintenance allocation

Who bears installation cost, electricity cost, and metering is determined by the declaration or covenants; no South Dakota statute assigns these costs for association EV charging.¹ Maintenance, repair, and damage responsibility is likewise a matter of the governing documents. On separate metering or submetering and any utility-resale question, SDCL 49-34A-116 places charging-station resale outside the public-utility definition, so an owner or association charging arrangement is generally not regulated as a utility, and the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission has stated it has no authority to mandate or regulate the placement of charging stations.³¹⁵

D. Where the station may be installed

For condominiums, the analysis depends on whether the station sits within the owner's separate interest, a unit, including an attached garage defined as part of the unit, in a limited common area such as an assigned parking stall, or in a general common area; because the act's definition of common areas reaches yards, parking areas, and power installations, the association generally controls alterations to common areas, including assigned ones, absent master-deed language to the contrary.⁸ For non-condominium HOAs, the owner's lot, driveway, or assigned space is governed and limited by the recorded covenants.¹³

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No bill introduced in the South Dakota Legislature during the 2025 (100th) or 2026 (101st) regular sessions would create or amend EV-charging rules for community associations, and no bill in either session amended the South Dakota Condominium Act, SDCL ch. 43-15A.⁶ The most recent covenant-related enactment of general relevance is from the 2024 session, noted here for continuity.

B. Recent South Dakota Supreme Court rulings

No South Dakota Supreme Court decision in the past 36 months addresses electric vehicle charging in a community association. Two recent decisions address the enforceability of restrictive covenants and are instructive for how South Dakota courts treat covenant-based limits on owner improvements. HOA civil cases are appealed directly to the South Dakota Supreme Court; South Dakota has no intermediate appellate court.

C. Active legislative debates

No active proposal to create EV-charging rights or restrictions for South Dakota associations was identified in the 2025 or 2026 sessions. The state's small community-association base, roughly 75,000 residents across more than 1,000 condos, HOAs, and co-ops, with only about 10 percent of South Dakota households paying HOA or condo fees, means no such measure appears imminent.⁶¹⁹

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

South Dakota sits in the largest of three national groups on EV charging in community associations. The first group comprises the 15 states and the District of Columbia with EV-charging right-to-charge laws, including states whose statutes void or limit association prohibitions: California, whose Civil Code § 4745(a) makes governing-document provisions that effectively prohibit or unreasonably restrict a charging station void and unenforceable and whose § 4745(e) requires an association to process approval in the same manner as an application for an architectural modification, and Colorado, whose C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.8 bars associations from prohibiting an owner's charging system.⁴ A second group addresses EV charging more narrowly within a condominium or HOA act. The third and largest group, including South Dakota, has no EV-charging-specific statute for associations, so the declaration or covenants control; South Dakota falls outside even the narrowest right-to-charge protections, which in only five states and the District of Columbia extend to both owners and renters. For a multi-state operator entering South Dakota from a mandate state, the practical implication is significant: the owner-protective rules, deemed-approval timelines, and capped conditions those operators are accustomed to don't apply, and the governing documents govern. This is a fast-moving area, and South Dakota's status should be re-checked each quarter.

HOA Weekly's South Dakota EV Charging coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and the South Dakota 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.

Footnotes

1. South Dakota Codified Laws ch. 43-15A (Condominiums); no EV-charging provision located in ch. 43-15A or Title 43 ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
2. South Dakota Codified Laws ch. 43-15A (Condominium Act), SL 1975, ch. 270 ↩ ↩
3. SDCL 49-34A-116 (charging-station operator not a public utility) ↩ ↩ ↩
4. California Civil Code § 4745; Colorado Revised Statutes § 38-33.3-106.8 ↩ ↩
5. 2024 South Dakota Senate Bill 23 (enrolled), amending SDCL 49-34-14 ↩
6. South Dakota Legislature, 2025 and 2026 session bill lists (no EV-association or ch. 43-15A bill) ↩ ↩ ↩
7. SDCL 43-15A-3 (establishment of condominium project) and 43-15A-4 (particulars required in master deed) ↩
8. SDCL 43-15A-5 (common areas defined) ↩ ↩ ↩
9. SDCL 43-15A-7 (exclusive and common rights of owners) ↩
10. SDCL 43-15A-28 (validation of previously established regimes) ↩
11. SDCL ch. 43-15B (Time-Share Estates) ↩
12. SDCL Title 47 (Nonprofit Corporation Act, ch. 47-22 et seq.) ↩
13. Hood v. Straatmeyer, 2025 S.D. 12 (restrictive covenant interpretation and enforcement) ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
14. SDCL ch. 36-16 (State Electrical Commission; electrical licensing) ↩
15. South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, Electric Vehicle Charging FAQ ↩
16. 2024 South Dakota House Bill 1240 (covenant modification) ↩
17. Hood v. Straatmeyer, 2025 S.D. 12 (S.D. Mar. 5, 2025) ↩
18. Spring Canyon Properties, LLC v. Cal SD, LLC, 2024 S.D. 68 (S.D. Nov. 20, 2024) ↩
19. iPropertyManagement, HOA Statistics (2026); Community Associations Institute data on South Dakota community associations ↩