How to have your Homeowners' Association invest in basic infrastructure for electric charging stations?

Lieselot SeghersAdverit Antwerp, Belgium

In a recent article, Sander Herreygers of Pluginvest touched on the fact that charging stations for co-owned parking facilities offer an interesting solution for a future with electric vehicles, but that not all co-owners are in favor of investments in charging stations. (click here for the relevant interview; the article can be found here)

The aforementioned article shows that it is possible to split the investment in the basic infrastructure from the actual installation of charging stations. The joint investment by the co-owners therefore only concerns the construction of the basic infrastructure and is relatively limited: according to the article, the basic infrastructure and connection to the electricity grid could already be realized from €200 per parking space, after which you enjoy an upgraded green parking space!

It is likely that, as the owner of such a parking space, you would want your homeowners’ association to carry out this limited joint investment.

We are happy to explain how to proceed in order to achieve this (in a legally sound manner):

1.   If you hold at least 1/5 of the shares in the common areas, you can request the syndic to convene a general meeting within thirty days. (If you do not hold 1/5 of the shares in the common areas, you will need to rally other shareholders until you have gathered 1/5 of the shareholders together to jointly convene the meeting, or you will have to wait for the general meeting during the scheduled period.)

2.   You inform the syndic in a timely manner that you wish to have the construction of the basic infrastructure for electric charging stations placed on the agenda, so that this item can be included on the notice of meeting.

3.   If the general meeting can validly deliberate (i.e., if at the start more than half of the co-owners are present holding at least ½ of the shares in the common areas, or if the co-owners present hold more than ¾ of these shares), a decision on the investment can be made with a 2/3 majority of the votes (abstentions, blank votes, and invalid votes do not count).

4.   If the vote is positive, each co-owner will contribute to the one-time cost of constructing the basic infrastructure for charging stations, in proportion to their share in the common areas.

After installation of the basic infrastructure, each co-owner (or tenant) can individually decide to actually install a charging station. The energy consumed is then billed per charging card or per charging station, so that the syndic is not burdened with this.

Related practice areas

Real estate law Civil law

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