NSW Right to Charge: What the Law Means for Strata Buildings (And What It Doesn't Fix)
If you manage or sit on a strata committee in NSW, you have probably heard something about the incoming Right to Charge legislation. Most of the coverage has been written from the owner's perspective. But there is an equally important story for the people responsible for running these buildings, and it is not as simple as 'the committee can no longer say no.'
This article covers what the law actually does, what new obligations it creates for committees and strata managers, and, just as importantly, what it leaves completely unresolved.
What the new Right To Charge law does
The Strata Schemes Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2026 has passed the NSW Legislative Assembly and is currently before the Legislative Council. It forms part of a broader package of strata reforms introduced by Minister Anoulack Chanthivong, fulfilling the NSW Government's commitment under its Consumer Energy Strategy.
Under the proposed legislation, a strata lot owner can install an EV charging station in their car space, including something as simple as a standard 10A or 15A power socket. The process works like this:
The owner sends written notice to the strata committee.
The committee has three months to respond.
If the committee does not respond, the installation is deemed approved.
If the committee objects, it must do so in writing with reasons that are reasonable.
If the owner considers the objection unreasonable, they can apply to NCAT, which can order the committee to issue a no-objection notice.
By-laws that attempt to block EV charger installations outright have no legal effect under the new law.
On costs: the owner pays for everything. Installation, ongoing maintenance, and any damage caused to common property. The owners corporation is indemnified.
What this means for committees and strata managers
The approval dynamic shifts significantly. A few practical implications worth understanding now:
Strata has a response obligation. Three months from receipt of written notice. Miss that window and the installation proceeds, regardless of the committee's views.
Objections need to be substantiated. A general concern about 'setting a precedent' or vague electrical risk will not hold up. Objections must be reasonable, and what counts as reasonable will eventually be tested at NCAT.
By-laws cannot be used as a workaround. If your building has an existing by-law restricting EV charger installations, it will not be enforceable under the new legislation. Your strata lawyer should review these.
Ad-hoc requests will increase. Once residents understand they have a legal right, requests are likely to come in faster and more frequently. Managing them individually, without a building-wide plan, becomes progressively harder.
What the law does not solve
Here is the part that tends to get overlooked in the coverage: the Right to Charge law removes the approval barrier. It does not give your building more electricity.
Most strata buildings in Australia were wired well before EVs existed. In older buildings especially, switchboard and distribution board upgrades to current standards can run anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 before a single charger is installed.
The law also does not solve:
Individual metering. If a resident installs a charger but the building has no way to measure their consumption separately, the cost gets shared across the whole building. That is a fairness and cost-recovery problem that sits entirely outside the new legislation.
Load management. Without Dynamic Load Management, multiple chargers drawing power simultaneously can overload the building's electrical supply and trip the switchboard. This becomes a building management problem, even though the committee had no obligation under the law to plan for it.
Basement connectivity. Many car parks have no Wi-Fi or cellular coverage. Standard smart chargers that rely on a data connection to operate simply do not work in these environments.
Infrastructure consistency. If residents install chargers ad-hoc over time without any building-wide equipment standard, the result is an inconsistent, hard-to-maintain patchwork that makes future upgrades more expensive.
The ad-hoc problem
Here is how it typically unfolds. The first charger request comes in, the committee approves it, no problems. A second follows, still manageable. By the fifth or sixth installation, the building's available electrical headroom is running low. The committee, having approved each request individually, now has to explain why it cannot say yes to the next one, when the law says objections must be reasonable.
As electrical and strata industry observers have noted, many buildings approach EV charging by approving installations case by case. What begins as a simple approval process can quickly become a complex and costly problem for the building.
The electrical constraint is a legitimate objection under the new law. But it is one that should be identified and planned for in advance, not discovered after several installations are already in place.
Why charging speed matters less than people think
One of the more useful things the Right to Charge legislation does is include a standard 10A power socket as a valid EV charging station. That matters, because Level 2 wall chargers (7kW) are frequently presented as the only real option. The actual usage data tells a different story. The average Australian drives around 30 kilometres per day.
A 15A GPO delivers roughly 20km of range per hour of charging. A car parked at home overnight for eight to ten hours is fully recharged for the next day with range to spare. The car does not need a 7kW fast charger. It needs a socket that works reliably, meters individually, and does not push the building's electrical infrastructure beyond what it can handle.
That is the case for managed Level 1 charging in strata, and it is the approach that avoids the switchboard upgrade problem entirely for most buildings.
What good buildings are doing now
The buildings that will navigate this well are treating the incoming legislation as a planning trigger, not just a compliance task. Three things worth doing before requests arrive:
Get an electrical capacity assessment. Before any resident puts in a formal request, know what your building can actually support. Energy NSW has resources to support this process, and the EV Ready Buildings grant has co-funded feasibility studies for eligible buildings (note: the first major funding round was exhausted in late 2025, so timing matters if this is relevant to your building).
Develop a building-wide EV charging policy. Having a framework in place before requests arrive is significantly easier than creating one under pressure. A policy can set expectations around permitted equipment types, cost recovery, and responsibilities. It gives the committee something concrete to point to.
Think about load management from the start. This is where most buildings get caught out. Granting one or two individual approvals seems manageable. But without Dynamic Load Management, a wave of requests in the same year creates a real infrastructure problem. The right time to plan for this is before you are staring it down.
The bottom line
The Right to Charge law is a sensible reform. For too long, strata committees have been able to block EV charging installations indefinitely and without good reason. That changes once this bill passes.
But the law gives owners a right to install. It does not give the building a plan for handling twenty of them.
The buildings that come out ahead will be the ones that use this moment to get ahead of the infrastructure question, not just the approval question. That means understanding your building's electrical capacity, setting up individual metering and load management, and choosing a solution that actually works in a basement car park.
If your building is starting to receive EV charging requests and you are not sure where to begin, get in touch. We work with strata committees and managers across NSW and can walk you through what a practical, building-wide approach looks like.
Further reading
- NSW Parliament: Strata Schemes Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2026
- NSW Government: Strata overhaul reaches final milestone
- Zecar: NSW Right to Charge Law explained
- Energy NSW: Making your strata building EV ready
