EV charging for your scheme — approved properly, billed fairly.

Know your rights

Whose bay is it? Real right vs personal right — and why it matters

• Your own section A charger inside an owner's own registered section is the simplest case in principle — but written body-corporate approval is still required before any work begins, because the cabling and the load reach back onto shared infrastructure.
• Exclusive use as a REAL right (s27 Sectional Titles Act) An exclusive-use area registered against the title as a real right under section 27 of the Sectional Titles Act 95 of 1986 is the strongest position an owner can hold. The bay is effectively the owner's to use long-term, which makes a dedicated, owner-funded charger the cleanest application to approve.
• Exclusive use as a PERSONAL right (s10(7)&(8) STSMA) Exclusive use granted only through the scheme's rules — under section 10(7) and (8) of the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act 8 of 2011 — is a personal right. It is workable, but it can be amended by the members, so the trustees usually want clearer conditions around a fixed charger. We flag which one your bay actually is, because the two are routinely confused.
• Charging on common property Shared or visitor charging on common property is a different animal — it needs broader member approval and a clear ownership-and-billing model. We scope it so it benefits the whole scheme rather than gifting one owner free infrastructure.

Framework-level guidance only. The exact resolution type for your scheme depends on its registered and conduct rules and the nature of the alteration — always confirm against your scheme's rules with the managing agent.

Protect the levy — the cost-recovery maths

What a bay costs, and how the scheme never subsidises one owner

• An AC22 bay from ~R16,000 A 22 kW AC charger — supply and install — is indicatively around R16,000 a bay, more than enough to fully charge any car parked overnight. It is the right tool for a residential home-base: cars sit for hours, so there is no need for expensive DC fast hardware. Firm price follows the site visit, since it depends on the cable run and the DB.
• Owner-funded, not levy-funded In the cleanest model the charging owner funds their own bay and charger up front, so the body corporate spends nothing on hardware. The scheme's only role is approval, metering and billing — it is never out of pocket for one owner's convenience.
• Sub-metered, billed at cost A dedicated kWh sub-meter on each bay means the owner pays for exactly what they draw. Billed at roughly the ~R3.50/kWh grid power cost, a typical home-base session recovers cleanly — the levy carries none of it, and there is a clear paper trail when the owner queries their statement.
• No standing cost to non-EV owners Because metering isolates each charging bay, owners who do not drive an EV pay nothing toward it. That single fact is what gets EV charging through an AGM without a fight — and it is the test we design every scheme to pass.

AC22 ~R16,000 and ~R3.50/kWh are indicative planning figures (charger catalogue + commercial tariff incl. demand charges, Jun 2026); the firm quote follows the site assessment.

The shared-supply engineering

Adding EV bays without tripping the complex

• Bulk-capacity assessment first Before any charger is specified we read the scheme's notified maximum demand and the headroom that is actually free at the main DB. The whole plan is built on what the supply can truly carry, not on a hopeful guess.
• Dynamic load management Chargers are managed so their combined draw stays inside the available capacity — throttling or staggering bays automatically at peak so EV charging fits in the gaps rather than competing with lifts, pumps and units for the same kVA.
• Defer the supply upgrade A bulk-supply upgrade in a complex is one of the most expensive things a body corporate can be pushed into. Load management buys years of EV growth on the existing connection, so the scheme upgrades on its own timetable — if ever — not because the first three EVs forced it.
• Headroom for the next owner The design leaves deliberate room to add the next bay. As more owners switch to EVs, each new charger drops into a system already sized and managed for growth — no rip-and-replace, no fresh round of trustee anxiety.

Phase it — and turn shared charging into an asset

Start with owner bays, add shared and visitor charging later

• Phase 1 — the owners who are ready Begin with the owners who already drive EVs: their own real-right or personal-right bays, owner-funded AC22 chargers from ~R16,000, sub-metered and load-managed. Small, self-funding, and approvable now.
• Phase 2 — shared charging on common property Once owner bays prove the model, the scheme can add shared bays on common property with the broader member approval that requires. Sized into the same load-managed system, so it extends rather than re-engineers the install.
• Visitor charging as amenity or revenue A shared bay can be billed per session, turning visitor charging into a small revenue line or a genuine amenity that lifts the scheme's appeal — instead of a cost the levy quietly absorbs. The right billing decision is made up front, with the members.
• EV-ready bays lift saleability A bay that is already approved, wired and metered for an EV is a real selling point in a market where EV ownership is climbing. Schemes that are visibly EV-ready stand out to buyers and tenants — and the groundwork is far cheaper to lay in a planned phase than to retrofit in a panic.

Property-value and saleability benefits are directional, not a guaranteed valuation — they depend on the scheme, the market and how the bays are documented.