In recent months, in multi-apartment buildings across Croatia, there has been an increasingly frequent situation in which managers and representatives of tenants, under the pressure of media sensationalism and internal letters from certain institutions, make decisions on banning the charging of electric vehicles in their garages and covered parking spaces. However, such practice raises serious legal, technical and social issues. The Association eMobilnost Hrvatska has therefore launched an educational initiative with the aim of informing managers about the illegality of such decisions and removing illegally placed signs.
The initiative was launched after several reports from electric car drivers, who found that some managers approached the problem restrictively, without understanding the technical and legal framework. Disputed prohibition signs often refer to individual opinions of civil protection bodies that do not have a general legal character, but are issued for specific situations. Emphasizing those opinions as general rules creates unnecessary confusion, which is why the goal of the initiative is to educate managers and enable the legal use of private property in accordance with current legislation.
Technical unsustainability of the ban
Experts from EV Clinic point out on their website that the selective ban aimed exclusively at electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles is completely technically unfounded and discriminatory. The term “battery vehicle charging”, when so set, also includes conventional internal combustion vehicles using modern hybrid and mild hybrid systems, since almost the entire modern vehicle fleet after 2010 uses lithium-ion or similar battery technologies. If the argument that garages “were not designed for vehicles with battery systems” were consistently applied, entry into the garage would have to be prohibited to practically all modern gasoline and diesel vehicles on Croatian roads – say the EV Clinic institute.
EV Clinic
Furthermore, the inconsistency of such decisions leads to practical absurdities because most modern vehicles continuously charge their own batteries during movement through energy recovery, alternator or inverter operation. This would (taken to the point of absurdity) mean that drivers would have to push their vehicles from the garage entrance to the parking space to avoid actively charging in the “no-go zone”.
The initiators of the initiative point out that official statistics do not support the narrative of an increased risk of fire when it comes to electric vehicles. In 2024, the Ministry of the Interior recorded 744 vehicle fires in Croatia, where the most common causes were age and technical malfunction, which is much less often associated with electric vehicles. At the same time, fire services warn that the bigger real problem is improvised modifications to electric bicycles and scooters, and not properly installed charging stations for electric cars.
Legal consequences
Enacters and enforcers of such prohibitions are exposed to misdemeanor, civil and criminal liability. Placing prohibition signs or physical barriers that prevent the owner of a parking space from using his property in the usual way is trespassing.
Co-owners who charge the vehicle with a correctly installed socket do not affect the rights of other tenants, while an arbitrarily prescribed ban on charging opens up room for lawsuits. Co-owners and representatives of tenants can be sued for disturbing the property and demand the mandatory removal of the prohibition signs – at the expense of those who placed them there.
Furthermore, a selective ban fulfills the characteristics of indirect discrimination. In this case, the procedure can be initiated before the misdemeanor court, if it is shown that the vehicle owners suffer specific material damage due to more expensive charging on public infrastructure and the loss of the market value of the parking space itself. Lawyers, representatives of tenants, managers and co-owners who participated in the making of an illegal decision are liable for this jointly and severally with their personal property, warn.
For those who would like to legally install a charger for electric vehicles in their own building, a free guide is available here.