The 5% test

An association that cannot ban solar can still regulate it, and § 57-8a-701(4)(e) supplies the measuring stick. A restriction on a system's size, location or manner of placement is permitted if it:

“(i) decreases the solar energy system's production by 5% or less…and (ii) increases the…cost of installation by 5% or less…”

Both conditions, not either. The figure is 5% in both limbs, and it is the number that decides most Utah solar disputes — a relocation to a less visible roof plane either clears it or it does not, and the answer is an engineering question rather than an aesthetic one.

Section 57-8a-702 attaches the incentive to get this right: the prevailing party in an action to enforce Part 7 recovers costs and attorney fees. Our Utah solar rights page sets out the whole part, including the applicability provision.

The condominium gap

There is no solar access part in the Condominium Ownership Act. Chapter 8 contains no section on solar energy systems at all. A condominium unit owner's position therefore turns on the applicability test at § 57-8a-103 and § 57-8-2 — the declaration's own election controls, and absent an election, whether the plats are designated as condominium plats — rather than on a provision written for them.

That is a familiar shape in Utah. The same asymmetry runs through the ADU provisions, which reach planned communities only, and it is the reason the state's two chapters have to be read side by side rather than as one code. Our Utah governing statute page covers which chapter reaches which community.

EV charging, by contrast, reaches both

The companion right-to-charge provisions do exist in duplicate — § 57-8a-802 for community associations and § 57-8-8.2 for condominiums, with the same text. Subsection (1) of the community-association version:

“Notwithstanding any provision in an association's governing documents to the contrary, an association may not prohibit a lot owner from installing or using a charging system in: (a) a parking space: (i) on the lot owner's lot; and (ii) used for the parking or storage of a vehicle or equipment; or (b) a limited common area parking space designated for the lot owner's exclusive use.”

What an association may do is listed at (2): require an application, require a licensed contractor, require reimbursement for an insurance premium increase where the system sits in a common area, apply reasonable design criteria and building codes, charge a reasonable review and permitting cost, and impose restrictions that do not significantly increase cost or decrease efficiency. Our Utah EV charging page sets it out.

A technical change arriving in 2027

Both EV definitions sections — § 57-8a-801 and § 57-8-8.2 — carry a future version effective January 1, 2027, amended in the 2026 session. The change is a cross-reference renumbering in the electrical-contractor licensing title, from § 58-55-102 to § 58-55-202. Nothing about the right to charge changes; the citation does.

What to watch next

The 51% removal threshold is new enough that Utah has not yet produced a published advisory opinion or appellate decision applying it. The practical question it raises is procedural rather than substantive: an amendment under § 57-8a-701(3)(b) has to be reconciled with the general amendment machinery at § 57-8a-104, which requires a meeting with at least 51% of voting interests present and bars the board from amending on its own.