Board asked to approve electric car charging station

Q. An owner in our condominium requests the board to grant this owner permission to install an electric vehicle charging station in his garage unit. This would require some infrastructure changes to the electrical system for the association. What sort of issues should the board consider in making a decision?

A. These requests are becoming more common. The typical declaration of condominium provides that no alterations, additions or improvements shall be made by a unit owner to any part of the common elements without the prior consent of the board of managers of the association.

This would permit the board to impose conditions on the installation of the charging station. One such condition would be to require the owner to install a separate electric meter (and pay the electric bill), or to have the charger wired to the separate meter already serving the owner's residential unit. The owner should provide an engineer's opinion that the electric service for the building is robust enough to withstand the additional demand (not just for this owner, but for other owners who might make a similar request). The installation would be paid for by the owner.

The owner should be required to obtain necessary building permits and to have the installation performed by an approved and insured contractor, and to be responsible for the maintenance, repair and replacement of the charging station. Termination of the permission should also be addressed. Whatever is agreed to should be memorialized in a written agreement between the owner and the association. If the installation requires ingoing maintenance, which should be provided by the owner, the agreement should be recorded so as to bind future owners of the garage unit.

Q. Your column recently discussed association annual budgets. The board of our condominium association needs to substantially increase the assessments for next year. Is there a limit on the size of the increase?

A. The board may generally adopt an assessment increase without unit owner approval. However, under certain circumstances, the Condominium Property Act provides that unit owners have an opportunity to call a meeting and vote to reject the assessment increase after it is adopted by the board.

Specifically, if any assessment adopted by the board would result in the sum of all regular and separate assessments to exceed 115 percent of all regular and separate assessments payable the preceding year, the owners, with 20 percent of the votes of the association, have a right to file a petition with the board within 14 days of the board's adoption of the assessment. If the board receives such a petition, the board must call a meeting of the unit owners within 30 days of the date of delivery of the petition so that owners can vote on the assessment.

Unless a majority of the total votes of all unit owners in the association are cast at the meeting to reject the assessment, it is ratified.

The above also applies to the adoption of a special assessment by the board. However, the act provides that separate assessments for expenditures relating to emergencies or mandated by law may be adopted by the board without being subject to unit owner approval or a separate assessment. "Emergency" means an immediate danger to the structural integrity of the common elements or to the life, health, safety or property of the unit owners.

Q. Our association entered into a contract for certain services. The preprinted language in the contract says "The term of this contract shall be for three years." At the end of the contract, and above the signatures of the parties, the following language was handwritten in pen: "The term of this contract shall be for two years." Which provision controls?

A. Under the rules of contract construction, the handwritten language controls over the preprinted typed language. The contract is for two years.

• David M. Bendoff is an attorney with Kovitz Shifrin Nesbit in the Chicago suburbs. Send questions for the column to him at CondoTalk@ksnlaw.com. The firm provides legal service to condominium, townhouse, homeowner associations and housing cooperatives. This column is not a substitute for consultation with legal counsel.