Tennessee HOA EV Charging

Quick-Reference EV Charging Table

Public Chapter 914 (2026), effective July 1, 2026, added the condominium provision to Title 66, Chapter 27, Part 4 and created new Part 9, § 66-27-901 to -902, for homeowners' associations; the two tracks are parallel but separate, and EV-charging values must be drawn from the correct track for each column.

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

Tennessee now has an EV-charging statute. Public Chapter 914 (2026), effective July 1, 2026, bars a community association from prohibiting an owner from installing an electric vehicle charging station for the owner's personal use on property the owner owns, including the owner's designated parking location.¹ The prohibition on bans reaches restrictions in the declaration and in rules and regulations alike.¹

The statute runs on two parallel tracks within Title 66, Chapter 27. Condominiums are covered by a new section added to the Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008, Title 66, Ch. 27, Part 4, which uses the "unit owner" and "common element" vocabulary, while homeowners' associations are covered by new Part 9, § 66-27-901 to -902, which uses the "property owner" and "common area maintained by the homeowners' association" vocabulary.¹

An association retains meaningful authority. It may set reasonable restrictions on the number, size, placement, and manner of placement or installation of a station; it may prohibit or restrict installation on common elements or common areas, except where the owner's designated parking sits within that shared space; and it may require the installing owner to indemnify the association and to carry insurance naming the association as an insured.¹

Nationally, Tennessee's law is a narrower owner-protective statute than California's Civil Code § 4745, which adds an approval clock, a deemed-approval rule, and detailed insurance and cost standards that Tennessee didn't enact.² It's more protective of owners than a no-statute state, where the declaration alone controls. The sections that follow set out the statutory framework, the operational rules for boards and managers, recent legislative activity, and Tennessee's national position.

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

2A. The EV-charging statute in Tennessee

Public Chapter 914 (2026) originated as Senate Bill 1787, Reeves, and House Bill 1875, G. Martin, in the 114th General Assembly.³ The House bill passed on April 13, 2026, the Governor approved it in May 2026, and it took effect July 1, 2026, applying to actions taken, and declarations entered into, renewed, or amended, on or after that date.¹ The act carried a caption referencing Title 48, nonprofit corporations, as well as Title 66, but the operative EV provisions are placed only in Title 66, Chapter 27; the enacted sections don't amend Title 48, so the Title 48 reference functioned as caption-broadening.¹

The core rule is a prohibition on bans paired with a reservation of reasonable-restrictions power. For condominiums, "an association shall not prohibit, including through the association's declaration or rules and regulations, a unit owner from installing an electric vehicle charging station for the unit owner's personal use on property owned by the unit owner, including the owner's designated parking location," while the association "may establish reasonable restrictions concerning the number, size, placement, and manner of placement or installation" on the exterior of the owner's property.¹ The homeowners'-association track carries the same rule in § 66-27-902 using "property owner" language.¹

What the statute doesn't contain matters as much as what it does. There's no approval deadline, no deemed-approval clock, no efficiency-or-cost standard governing what counts as a reasonable restriction, no dollar insurance figure, and no separate-metering or time-of-use provision. None of those features may be attributed to Tennessee.¹

2B. Condominiums: the Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008 track

The condominium EV rule sits inside Title 66, Chapter 27, Part 4, the Unit Owners' Association part of the Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008. Public Chapter 914, SECTION 1, added it "as a new section" without printing a section number; the codified number hadn't yet appeared in a published Tennessee Code compilation as of July 2026, so this page cites the enacted act by section rather than assign a number.¹ Part 4 as previously codified runs from § 66-27-401 to § 66-27-418.⁴

The new section interacts with the general Condominium Act framework. The 2008 act, § 66-27-201 et seq., uses the vocabulary of the uniform condominium acts, defining the unit, the common elements and limited common elements, the declarant, and the declaration, and it vests the unit owners' association with authority over the common elements.⁴ The EV section controls the prohibition question, while the declaration continues to govern matters the statute leaves open, such as architectural detail beyond the statutory reasonable restrictions.

Applicability turns on § 66-27-202. The 2008 act applies to condominiums created on or after January 1, 2009, while a list of enumerated sections applies to condominiums created before that date, but only with respect to events and circumstances occurring after January 1, 2009, and generally without invalidating existing declaration provisions.⁴ The Tennessee Court of Appeals has applied that structure to older condominiums, holding in a deck-maintenance dispute that enumerated 2008 Act sections reached a condominium created in 1984 for post-2009 events.⁵ Because the new EV section was added to Part 4 rather than to the § 66-27-202 list of provisions that reach pre-2009 condominiums, whether it governs a condominium created before January 1, 2009 that hasn't opted in isn't settled by the statute's text, and pre-2009 regimes remain partly under the older Horizontal Property Act, § 66-27-101 et seq., Part 1.⁴

2C. Planned communities: new Part 9 and the role of CC&Rs and corporate law

For homeowners' associations, Public Chapter 914, SECTION 2, created a new part with two numbered sections. Section 66-27-901 supplies definitions, defining "declaration," "homeowners' association," "prohibit," and "rules and regulations," and § 66-27-902 sets the EV-charger rule.¹ These numbers are printed in the enacted act, though the new Part 9 hadn't yet appeared in online code compilations as of July 2026.¹

Outside these two sections, Tennessee has no comprehensive planned-community HOA act. General governance flows from the recorded declaration and, for incorporated associations, from the Tennessee Nonprofit Corporation Act, § 48-51-101 et seq.; as the Homeowners Protection Bureau summarizes Tennessee practice, "if an association is organized as a non-profit, as is the case with most Tennessee associations, it will be governed by the Tennessee Nonprofit Corporation Act."⁶ That act supplies corporate scaffolding such as board authority, meetings, and records, not EV-specific authority. New Part 9 is a single-subject statute; it reaches these associations only on EV charging and isn't a broad planned-community code.

The order of precedence follows from that structure. The EV statute is non-variable as to the prohibition on bans, so a declaration or rule that forbids an owner from charging on the owner's own property or designated parking is unenforceable to that extent.¹ Below the statute, the declaration and rules consistent with it govern, followed by bylaws and rules, with common-law contract and property doctrine filling gaps the statute and declaration leave open. Tennessee courts construe restrictive covenants using ordinary contract principles and enforce covenants that appear in the chain of title.⁷

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

A. Installation rights and prohibitions

An association may not prohibit installation on property the owner owns, including the owner's designated parking location, and a declaration or rule to the contrary is barred; this applies to both condominiums, Part 4 section, and planned communities, § 66-27-902.¹ An association may prohibit or restrict installation on common elements, condominiums, or common areas maintained by the HOA, planned communities, except where the owner's designated parking sits within that shared space, in which case the association may not prohibit installation.¹ The operative line is between a permitted reasonable restriction and an effective prohibition: a restriction that in practice denies an owner any ability to charge on the owner's own property or designated parking crosses from the association's reserved power into the conduct the statute forbids.¹

B. Conditions an association may impose

An association may set reasonable restrictions on the number, size, placement, and manner of placement or installation on the exterior of the owner's property, true for both community types.¹ The installing owner must indemnify and hold the association harmless from all liability arising out of installation, maintenance, operation, or use, including reasonable attorney's fees.¹ The association may require the owner to obtain and maintain insurance covering such claims and to name the association as an insured, and the statute states no dollar amount.¹ The statute sets no approval clock and no cost-or-efficiency ceiling on reasonable restrictions; any further architectural review flows from the declaration, not from the statute.¹

C. Cost, metering, and maintenance allocation

The owner bears the practical cost of a station installed for the owner's own use, and the statute is silent on cost allocation, so the declaration governs that question, true for both community types.¹ The statute is likewise silent on electricity and metering, leaving those to the declaration. The association isn't responsible for maintaining the station or the vehicle the station serves.¹ On the utility side, an owner charging on a private meter generally isn't reselling utility service; electric vehicle chargers that provide electricity exclusively for EVs aren't considered public utilities within the TVA service area, and much of Tennessee is served by TVA, municipal systems, and cooperatives, so the utility-resale question is generally immaterial for private-meter owner charging.⁸

D. Where the station may be installed

For condominiums, the unit and the owner's designated parking are protected; a general common element may be restricted, except where the owner's designated parking sits within a common element, where installation may not be prohibited.¹ For planned communities, the owner's property and designated parking are protected; a common area maintained by the HOA may be restricted, except where the owner's designated parking sits within a common area, where installation may not be prohibited.¹ The two tracks are parallel in substance but use different terms, so the correct section must be cited for each community type — don't cite the Part 4 section for a planned community or § 66-27-902 for a condominium.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No other enacted or introduced Tennessee bill in the past 24 months creates or amends EV-charging rules specifically for community associations. A separate 2026 measure, SB1481, Walley, / HB1680, Wright, would levy a tax of $0.03 per kilowatt-hour on public DC fast charging stations, exempting residential chargers and stations with capacity under 20 kilowatts; Senator Walley said the bill is modeled after the electric vehicle charging tax instituted in Kentucky.⁹ It addresses public charging fees rather than association authority and is outside this topic.

B. Recent appellate rulings

No published Tennessee appellate decision has yet interpreted Public Chapter 914 or its condominium and homeowners'-association EV sections. Because the statute took effect July 1, 2026, no interpreting case exists as of this page's verification date. HOA and condominium civil appeals proceed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, which hears civil appeals, and then to the Tennessee Supreme Court on discretionary review; the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals hears only criminal appeals and isn't part of the civil path.¹⁰¹¹ Trial-level matters seeking equitable relief, such as injunctions to compel or restrain installation and covenant-enforcement or declaratory actions, commonly originate in chancery court, which has original jurisdiction of equity causes under T.C.A. § 16-11-103, while claims for money damages at law proceed in circuit court, which in many counties also exercises concurrent equity jurisdiction.¹²

C. Active legislative debates

No active proposal to amend or extend the new EV provisions was identified as of the verification date; the most visible 2026 EV bill, SB1481 / HB1680, concerns taxation of public fast charging rather than association authority.⁹

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Tennessee sits in the middle of a three-tier national landscape. In the first tier are states with detailed EV-charging-station mandates that void or limit HOA prohibitions and add approval clocks and insurance parameters, such as California, whose Civil Code § 4745 provides that "if an application is not denied in writing within 60 days from the date of receipt of the application, the application shall be deemed approved, unless that delay is the result of a reasonable request for additional information," and treats conflicting governing-document provisions as void and unenforceable, and Colorado, whose C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.8 requires an owner to engage a licensed and registered electrical contractor, bear installation and restoration costs, register the system within thirty days, and use equipment certified by Underwriters Laboratories that complies with article 625 of the National Electrical Code.²¹³ In the second tier are states, now including Tennessee, with a narrower prohibition-on-bans statute that protects the owner's own property and designated parking but omits approval clocks and metering rules. In the third tier are states with no EV-charging-specific statute, where the declaration controls. Tennessee's 2026 statute moved it from the third tier into the second, and it reaches both condominiums and, for the first time, planned-community homeowners' associations. For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is that the Tennessee statute grants a narrower right than California's, so a California playbook overstates owner protections and association obligations in Tennessee. This is a fast-moving area, and Tennessee's new statute should be re-checked each quarter for amendments and interpreting cases.

HOA Weekly's Tennessee EV Charging coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and courts act, and Public Chapter 914 is re-verified against current codified text each cycle. Federal incentives may affect installation economics, but no federal law mandates HOA EV charging access.

Footnotes

1. Public Chapter 914 (2026), SECTION 1 and SECTION 2 (Tennessee Secretary of State, enacted text) ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
2. California Civil Code § 4745 (national positioning only, not Tennessee law) ↩ ↩
3. SB1787 / HB1875, 114th General Assembly, bill history and sponsors (capitol.tn.gov) ↩
4. Public Chapter 766 (2008), Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008, §§ 66-27-201, 66-27-202 (capitol.tn.gov) ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
5. Holloway v. Tanasi Shores Owners Ass'n (Tenn. Ct. App.) (tncourts.gov) ↩
6. Homeowners Protection Bureau, Tennessee HOA Laws; Tennessee Nonprofit Corporation Act, T.C.A. § 48-51-101 ↩
7. Pandharipande v. FSD Corp. (Tenn.) on restrictive-covenant construction (tncourts.gov) ↩
8. U.S. DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center, Tennessee: EV chargers exclusively for EVs not public utilities within TVA service area ↩
9. Tennessee Lookout, Tennessee to consider instituting tax on public EV fast chargers, Jan. 20, 2026 (SB1481 Walley); bill text at capitol.tn.gov/Bills/114/Bill/SB1481.pdf ↩ ↩
10. Tennessee Court of Appeals, jurisdiction over civil appeals (tncourts.gov) ↩
11. Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, criminal appeals only (tncourts.gov) ↩
12. T.C.A. § 16-11-103, chancery court jurisdiction of equity causes ↩
13. Colorado C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.8 (national positioning only, not Tennessee law) ↩