Community consent for your own EV charger in Poland

What consent for an individual charger covers

This article concerns a charger for individual use: a single charging point in a parking space used exclusively by you, for charging your own car. The charger is not made available to other residents or outside drivers.

This is a different situation from shared charging infrastructure for the whole building, used by many residents. Such an installation requires a resolution of the association, a collective assessment and design, and — if made available for a fee — UDT inspections as well; we cover this at the end of the article.

Who can apply for consent

The right to install a charging point in a multi-family building is governed by Article 12b of the Act on Electromobility and Alternative Fuels. An application can be submitted by a person who:

• holds legal title to a unit in the multi-family building (e.g. is the owner or holds a co-operative right to the unit),
• has the right to exclusive use of a specific parking space in that building or on the land belonging to it,
• if they are not the owner (e.g. they rent the unit and parking space) — has the owner’s written consent.

The procedure step by step

An assessment is not needed if the building was designed and built from the outset with an installation intended to supply charging points. The procedure is as follows:

• You submit an application to the board of the housing community or housing co-op (or the property manager) for consent to install a charging point in your parking space.
• Within 30 days of the application being submitted, the board commissions an assessment approving the installation of the charging point and, once received, passes it on to the applicant without delay.
• If the assessment is positive, the board gives its consent. Installing a charger with a power of up to 11 kW is an act of ordinary management — the board decides, without a vote of the owners. For higher power, a housing community requires a resolution.
• Installation is carried out by a qualified electrician in accordance with the assessment and design, who hands over the as-built documentation once the work is completed.

When the association can refuse

Consent for a charger for individual use does not depend on your neighbours’ discretion. The board can only refuse in specific situations, including when:

• the assessment shows that installing the charging point is not possible (e.g. due to the connection capacity or fire-safety requirements),
• the applicant does not hold legal title to the unit or the right to exclusive use of the parking space,
• the required consent of the owner of the unit or parking space is missing,
• the applicant does not agree to bear the costs of the assessment and installation.

Who pays and how much it costs

The costs are borne by the applicant: the assessment, design, charger, installation and any connection work. The association does not contribute to your charger — and it should not contribute to the energy you use either.

At Domena Power, the assessment with design costs 3,000 zł net (3,690 zł gross) for the first point. If several neighbours apply at the same time, each additional point in the same property is only 330 zł net (405.90 zł gross) — the cost per person drops several times over. Installation including materials usually costs 3,500–6,000 zł.

The installation cost depends on the distance from the switchboard and the conditions in the building. We will prepare an exact quote individually.

How to bill the energy from your own charger

Connecting the charger to your own apartment’s meter is rarely possible in an underground car park — they are usually several floors apart. In practice, the charger is supplied from the common-area installation, so consumption has to be measured and billed reliably.

This requires a charger with a MID-certified meter (or a MID submeter upstream of the charger). Based on its readings, the property administration issues debit notes to the owner according to the actual cost of 1 kWh. With the Domena Power system, readings reach the panel remotely — the property manager doesn’t need to visit the site to write down meter readings, and you can see consumption and cost in the app.

A charger for your own use, not used to provide a charging service to others, is as a rule not subject to UDT inspections.

And if the association is planning chargers for everyone

When several residents are interested, it is worth considering a joint project instead of individual applications. A single collective assessment with dynamic load balancing (DLB) allows more points on the existing connection and lowers the cost per person. However, such an installation requires a resolution of the association, and chargers made available for a fee to many users require UDT inspections.

This article is for information only and does not constitute legal advice. It is worth consulting the details of the procedure for your specific building with the property manager or a lawyer.