EV charging points: what a neighbour can require

It is one of the fastest-growing requests in buildings, and one of the most confusing: can a neighbour install a charging point without the community authorising it?

The short answer

For installing a charging point for private use in their own parking space, provided it is an individual space, Spanish horizontal property law sets out a very favourable regime: the owner only has to notify the community in advance. They do not need the meeting to approve it.

The community cannot prevent it, although it does have room to set reasonable points about how the work is carried out (the route taken, how things are fixed), always respecting the safety of the installation.

Who pays

The owner installing it, including the electricity, which has to be individually metered. The community does not take on that cost unless it agrees otherwise.

When the meeting does decide

When what is proposed is a collective installation or shared infrastructure serving several spaces. That is a community resolution, with its majority, its budget and its cost allocation.

And that is usually the better option once several requests have come in: a properly sized shared pre-installation works out cheaper per space and stops the car park ending up with five different installations hanging off five different places.

What is worth having ready before the first request

• A technical criterion agreed with an installer: where the cabling runs, where it connects, what capacity the current supply can take.
• A simple procedure for notifications: what the neighbour provides and how long the community takes to respond.
• The capacity question: if the car park fills up with charging points, at some stage you will have to talk about available power. Better to know before it becomes urgent.

In practice

Communities that get ahead of this and approve a general criterion have the conversation once. Those that do not have it every time a new car arrives, and always in a hurry.