Can You Own an EV in a Condo With No Charger? Four Routes, in the Order That Actually Works

"Can you own an EV in a condo with no charger?" is one of the questions Canadians ask most often in the threads we read, and the answers they get are usually either "no" or "ask your board," which is not much better.

The real answer is that there are four routes, they are not equally hard, and most people pick the wrong one first. Almost everyone starts by asking the board for permission to install a charger — the slowest and most expensive option — when the thing that actually solves their week is often the cheapest one on the list.

Start with how much charging you actually need

A Canadian driver averages about 15,000 km a year, or roughly 290 km a week. A typical EV uses 18 to 22 kWh per 100 km, so that week costs about 55 to 65 kWh.

That number is the whole decision. Sixty kWh a week is two hours on a 50 kW fast charger, or one long session while you do something else. It is also about five nights on a regular 120V outlet. What it is not is a reason to need a 48 A wall unit in your own parking stall, which is what most of these conversations start with.

Route 1: Do not charge at home at all

This is the route people skip, and for a large minority of condo drivers it is the answer.

Cities have started building for exactly this case. Toronto has curbside Level 2 chargers in residential neighbourhoods aimed at drivers with no driveway, run through the Toronto Parking Authority, and the city has committed capital funding to expand the program through 2026. Vancouver licenses organizations to install curbside chargers on city property, and — for drivers in houses rather than condos — sells a permit to run a cord across the sidewalk while charging. Montreal has Electric Circuit units on city property.

The question to ask is not "is there a charger near me" but "is there one I will pass anyway". A charger on your commute, beside your grocery store, or in your office garage costs you nothing in time. A charger four blocks away that you must walk back from costs you a trip every week, and you will stop using it in February.

Our public charging tool shows the picture by province — how many plug-in vehicles there are per public plug, which is the number that decides whether the charger you found will be free when you get there.

Route 2: Ask for a plug, not a charger

If your parking stall is near an existing outlet, or the building has one in a service area, the cheapest route is to ask for permission to use it — no installation, no application, no contractor.

A 120V outlet delivers about 5 to 8 km of range an hour. Twelve hours overnight is roughly 60 to 100 km depending on the car, and about 30% less in the cold. Our vehicle pages work this out per model: a Tesla Model 3 gains about 127 km on a twelve-hour night in mild weather and 89 km in the cold; an F-150 Lightning gains 65 km and 46 km.

Against 290 km a week, five nights on a regular outlet covers most drivers. This is the option that never appears in the Reddit threads, and it is the one that needs no permission from anyone except whoever controls that outlet.

If the building worries about who pays for the electricity, a 120V circuit draws about 1.4 kW. A week of overnight charging is roughly 40 kWh, or four to six dollars in most provinces. Offer to pay a flat monthly amount and the objection usually disappears.

Route 3: Apply to install your own charger

If you need more than that, you have a legal right to apply, and in two provinces the process has real deadlines attached.

Ontario. Since 2018, an owner can apply under section 24.5 of Ontario Regulation 48/01. The application must identify you, be signed, and include drawings and specifications of the proposed installation. The corporation then has 60 days to respond in writing, extendable only if you both agree. If it does not respond in time, it is deemed to have not rejected the application.

It can only reject you on the opinion or report of a qualified professional, and only on three grounds: the installation would violate the Condo Act or other legislation, would adversely affect the structural integrity of the property, or poses a health and safety risk. If it rejects you, it must give you a copy of that report. If none of the three apply, it must either accept, or propose an alternative that does not impose unreasonable costs on you.

After acceptance you have 90 days to sign a written agreement setting out who pays for what, and the corporation registers that agreement on title to your unit. It does not take effect until it is registered. If you applied, you generally pay the installation costs.

British Columbia. Since December 2023, an owner request under section 90.1 of the Strata Property Act must include your contact details and strata lot, a description of the proposed infrastructure and where it goes, a qualified contractor's name, their description of the work, and their cost and time estimate.

The strata council must decide within three months, and if your request was properly made it cannot unreasonably refuse — though it can refuse for real reasons, insufficient electrical capacity being the obvious one. It can attach reasonable written conditions, and it can require you to pay.

There is a timing wrinkle worth knowing. This process becomes binding on your strata once it has obtained an electrical planning report, or once its deadline to obtain one has passed: December 31, 2026 or December 31, 2028 depending on where in the province the strata is. Stratas with fewer than five lots are covered as of December 31, 2026. If your strata is dragging its feet, those dates are the ones to quote.

Route 4: Get the building to do it properly

The best outcome is not your own charger. It is a building where any resident can plug in, because that is the version that survives you selling the unit.

"We do not have the electrical capacity" is usually wrong, and there is a code rule that says so. Rule 8-500 of the Canadian Electrical Code allows an electric vehicle energy management system to monitor the service and control charger loads so they never exceed what the feeder can carry. Where an EVEMS does that, the chargers do not have to be counted in the building's calculated load at all. Ten chargers sharing one feeder, each throttled as needed overnight, is a normal design — not a workaround. An electrician adding a switching EVEMS to an existing feeder runs two load calculations, one with the chargers and one with the existing load, and sizes to the greater.

In Ontario, a corporation that wants to install charging itself does not need an owners' vote if the cost is under 10% of the annual budgeted common expenses and the board believes owners will not see it as materially reducing their use or enjoyment of the property. It must give owners 60 days' notice first. Above that threshold, owners get the right to requisition a meeting within 60 days, and the work proceeds unless they meet and vote it down.

In BC, the thresholds moved specifically to make this easier: a majority vote now approves spending from the contingency reserve fund on EV charging infrastructure or on the reports needed to plan it, and a majority vote approves the change in use or appearance of common property. A three-quarters vote is still needed for a special levy.

Billing, and the myth that per-use charging is illegal

Boards often assume they cannot bill residents by the kilowatt-hour. The actual position is more useful than that.

Under the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act, a device used to sell electricity by the kWh must be type-approved by Measurement Canada. Most chargers are not. So Measurement Canada runs temporary dispensation programs that let owners of devices already in the market bill by energy delivered — separate streams for commercial Level 1 and 2 devices and for non-commercial ones, which is the stream a building charging its own residents falls into. Devices put into service before January 1, 2028 are covered, and the dispensations run to December 31, 2029.

The practical translation: per-kWh billing in your garage is legal, it requires the operator to be registered under the dispensation rather than simply switching it on, and the deadline to get devices in under the program is closer than it looks.

In BC there is a second layer. A strata can charge user fees for common property under Strata Property Regulation 6.9, and those fees can be consumption-based — but the rate must be reasonable and authorized by a bylaw or a rule ratified by majority vote at a general meeting. A council that starts billing without that step is on weak ground.

If billing is genuinely too much trouble for a small building, flat monthly fees per stall are a defensible alternative and need no meter at all.

What this costs, and who helps pay

BC Hydro's rebate program has a separate stream for multi-unit residential buildings, which is the one your strata should be applying for rather than the single-family stream an owner would use. Several of the home-charger reward programs we track are explicit that they are single-family only — SWTCH's, for instance — so read the eligibility line before building a plan around one. Our charger rebates ranking and charger grants page list what is open by province.

If you do one thing this week

Work out your weekly kilometres, then in order: look for a charger you already pass; look for an existing outlet near your stall and ask about it; and only then start the application. If you are going to apply, ask the building one question first — has it had an electrical planning report or load study done? In BC that report is becoming mandatory anyway, and in every province the answer determines whether your request is a five-figure project or a day's work for an electrician.

One caution. This describes Ontario and British Columbia because those are the provinces with an explicit statutory process. Quebec, Alberta and the rest work through the declaration, bylaws and negotiation, with no deadline behind you. And none of this is legal advice — it is the map, not the terrain.