Your Rights as an EV Owner in a Strata Building

For years, apartment owners wanting to charge their EVs at home faced the same obstacle. A request to install a charger went to the strata committee. The committee passed it to a general meeting. The meeting required a 75% supermajority. A handful of resistant owners could block the whole thing. Months passed. Nothing happened.

That process is being dismantled. Understanding exactly what you're now entitled to, under both existing law and legislation currently before the NSW Parliament, is the starting point for anyone who wants to charge their EV at home without spending the next two years in a dispute.

What the Law Already Allows

Before the new bill even passes, significant protections already exist for NSW apartment owners under the Strata Schemes Management Act.

EV charging is officially classified as Sustainability Infrastructure. This means approval for EV charging infrastructure requires only a simple majority vote, not the 75% supermajority that previously applied to common property modifications. If your building holds a general meeting on the question of EV charging, the motion passes as long as more owners vote in favour than against. A minority of resistant owners can no longer block it outright.

From 1 July 2025, owners corporations in NSW cannot block EV charger installations on aesthetic grounds alone. The only exception is for heritage-listed buildings or those in a heritage conservation area.

This is significant. "It doesn't fit the look of our carpark", one of the most commonly cited reasons for committee resistance, is no longer a legally defensible basis for refusal in most buildings.

Additionally, sustainability infrastructure must now appear on the agenda of every Annual General Meeting. EV charging can no longer be deferred indefinitely by committees who simply decline to put it on the agenda.

What the New Bill Adds: The Right to Charge

The Strata Schemes Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2026 has passed the NSW Legislative Assembly and is now before the Legislative Council. When it passes, apartment owners will have a legal right to install an EV charging station on their lot.

This is a meaningful shift. Under the new bill, you don't need to wait for a general meeting or a committee vote. The process works as follows:

The owner sends a written notice to the strata committee. The committee then has three months to respond. If it does not respond in time, it is taken to have approved the installation. The committee must not unreasonably object and if it does object, it must provide the reasons in writing.

In other words: you write to your committee, you wait up to three months, and if they don't respond with written reasons, you can proceed. The burden has shifted from the owner having to prove why a charger should be approved, to the committee having to justify why it shouldn't be.

If there is an objection, the owner can apply to NCAT – the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal for a no-objection order.

What "On Your Lot" Actually Means

Under the new rules, an owner can install an EV charging station on their lot. This includes a simple 10A power socket, not just a full 7 kW wall charger.

For most apartment owners, the car space is either a titled lot, meaning it legally belongs to you or an exclusive-use common property space assigned to your lot. In both cases, the legislation covers you.

What about the wiring? Getting power from the building's switchboard to your car space almost always involves running cable through common property, through walls, ceilings, or conduit in the carpark. The bill allows this. The owner can carry out work on common property as part of the installation, as long as the strata committee has issued a no-objection notice. The standard rules about owner renovations do not apply to EV charger installations made under this section, removing a layer of red tape that previously triggered a separate approval process.

What You Cannot Be Refused

Under both existing law and the new bill, your strata committee cannot:

• refuse on aesthetic grounds (unless heritage-listed),

• require a 75% supermajority vote to block an installation,

• ignore your written notice without providing written reasons, or indefinitely delay a decision without consequence.

What the committee can legitimately raise are concerns about electrical capacity, safety standards, and the impact on common property infrastructure. These are genuine engineering questions, not pretexts for refusal, and they're best addressed by coming prepared with data rather than just a request.

How to Prepare a Request Your Committee Can't Reasonably Refuse

The biggest mistake apartment owners make is approaching the committee with nothing more than "I want a charger." The committee's immediate concern is electrical overload. The solution is data.

Before writing to your committee, commission a building energy assessment from a qualified EV charging installer. This produces a formal report showing the building's available electrical capacity and confirming whether your installation can proceed within existing limits or what minor infrastructure work would be needed.

Arriving at a committee meeting with a professional assessment report, a quote from a licensed installer, and a clear proposal transforms the conversation. You're no longer asking permission; you're presenting a solution to a documented need.

What a Licensed Installer Does for You

A qualified EV charging installer does more than mount a charger on a wall. In the strata context, the right installer will assess your building's electrical capacity before recommending any hardware, confirm whether your installation requires any common property works, specify a charger that complies with AS/NZS 3000 and supports OCPP-based load management, and produce the documentation you need to support your notice to the committee.

This preparation is what separates a request that moves quickly from one that stalls.

"In most buildings, residents have more legal standing than they realise. The new legislation is designed to make individual installations straightforward as long as the electrical groundwork has been done properly." — Michael Brewitt, Director, VeCharge

The Next Step

If you're an apartment owner in NSW who wants to charge at home, the sequence is straightforward.

First, request a building energy assessment from a qualified EV charging specialist.

Second, use the assessment report to prepare a written notice to your strata committee.

Third, if needed, escalate through NCAT, though in most cases, a well-prepared request doesn't get that far.