Overview

HOPB hosts the full text of the Alabama statutes that most affect homeowners' and condominium associations — you'll find them all on the Alabama HOA laws hub. This page covers the edges: a handful of scattered provisions that can reach a community, and a short list of things people commonly get wrong.

Because these are scattered provisions we don't reproduce in full, each entry below is a brief plain-language summary with its citation; the official text is available from the Alabama Legislature.

Related & HOA-adjacent provisions

Provisions that can reach your community.

Alabama laws outside the core acts that can bear on an association and its members.

Service animals — in the commons and at homeAla. Code §§ 3-1-7, 21-7-4, 21-7-9

Alabama protects service animals in two settings that matter to a community. In publicly-accessible areas, a guide dog may accompany a blind person into any place of public accommodation (§ 3-1-7), and more broadly a person with a disability may be accompanied by a service animal in areas of a public accommodation open to the public (§ 21-7-4). In housing, a person with a disability has full and equal access, and a service animal cannot be charged an extra fee — though the owner is liable for any damage and may be asked for proof of vaccination (§ 21-7-9), and the animal must still meet Alabama's rabies-vaccination requirements (Ala. Code Tit. 3, Ch. 7A). Note the reach of these state provisions is service animals; the broader rules on reasonable accommodations and emotional-support / assistance animals come from the federal Fair Housing Act and Alabama's parallel Fair Housing Law, which Title 21 expressly leaves intact (§ 21-7-9).

Debt collection — a federal-law matter in Alabama15 U.S.C. § 1692

When an association pursues unpaid assessments through a third-party collector or attorney, the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) can apply — it bars abusive, deceptive, and unfair collection practices. Unlike some states, Alabama has not enacted its own fair-debt-collection statute, so the federal FDCPA is the primary protection for homeowners. A homeowner who experiences abusive collection can complain to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, or the Alabama Attorney General.

The corporate code your association runs onAla. Code Title 10A, Ch. 3

Nearly every Alabama homeowners' association — and many condominium associations — is organized as a nonprofit corporation under the Alabama Nonprofit Corporation Law (Title 10A, Ch. 3); in fact the Homeowners' Association Act requires it (§ 35-20-5). That law supplies the corporate machinery — members and meetings, the board and officers, records and inspection, and dissolution — that the community's declaration and bylaws build on. You can confirm an association's corporate status and look up its filings through the Alabama Secretary of State business search.

Commonly misunderstood

The questions worth getting right.

These come up constantly in association disputes. In Alabama they don't work the way people assume — starting with the most common question of all: which law even governs your community.

Start here

Which law governs your community?§ 35-8A-102; § 35-20-3

Alabama's coverage is date-based, which trips people up. For a condominium: one created before January 1, 1991 is governed by the Condominium Ownership Act (Ch. 8), and one created after January 1, 1991 by the Uniform Condominium Act of 1991 (Ch. 8A) (§ 35-8A-102). For a non-condominium homeowners' association: the Homeowners' Association Act (Ch. 20) governs only if the community's declaration was recorded on or after January 1, 2016, or the association has voted to opt in (§ 35-20-3). An older HOA that hasn't opted in runs on its recorded declaration and the general nonprofit corporate law. So before asking what a statute requires, check when your community was created and whether it's a condominium or an HOA.

Does not apply

The Open Records & Open Meetings acts don't reach your HOA§ 36-12-40; § 36-25A-2

Alabama's Open Records law gives every resident the right to inspect “any public record of this state” (§ 36-12-40), and the Open Meetings Act applies only to a “governmental body” — the boards and commissions of state or local government that expend or appropriate public funds (§ 36-25A-2). A private homeowners' or condominium association is funded by member assessments, not public funds, and isn't a government body, so you can't use these acts to force records or open meetings from your board. The records rights you're reaching for come instead from the condominium act (§ 35-8A-318), the Homeowners' Association Act (§ 35-20-13), and the Nonprofit Corporation Law (§ 10A-3-2.32) — plus your recorded declaration.

Often assumed

Alabama has no “solar rights” law overriding your HOANo Alabama statute

Some states have passed solar-access laws that void or limit an HOA's restrictions on rooftop solar panels. Alabama has not. There is no Alabama statute that overrides a community's architectural restrictions on solar energy systems, so whether you can install panels — and under what conditions — turns on your community's recorded declaration and architectural rules, not a state solar-rights statute. If your governing documents restrict solar, your path is through the association's architectural-review and amendment process.

Miscellaneous & related Alabama laws

Provisions that can reach your community.

The questions worth getting right.