Section 1: Overview — How architectural review works in Alabama

Alabama has no standalone architectural-review statute. No provision of Alabama law sets a deadline to decide an architectural application, imposes a deemed-approval rule, requires a written denial, or creates an architectural appeal track. Where those protections exist, a community's recorded declaration supplies them. So architectural control in Alabama runs on the CC&Rs first, with only a thin statutory backstop behind them.

Governance splits by community type, and the date of creation decides which statute applies. Condominiums created on or after January 1, 1991 fall under the Alabama Uniform Condominium Act of 1991, a light-touch enactment of the 1980 Uniform Condominium Act.¹ Condominiums created before that date remain under the predecessor Alabama Condominium Ownership Act, with select § 35-8A sections reaching back to govern post-1991 events.^2,3 Planned-community HOAs created on or after January 1, 2016 answer to the Alabama Homeowners' Association Act, a mostly organizational statute passed as Act 2015-292; older planned communities depend almost entirely on their declaration plus corporate-formality scaffolding under Title 10A.⁴

A framing note worth flagging: Alabama did enact a dedicated planned-community statute, so the accurate statement is "a thin § 35-20 overlay for post-2016 HOAs," not "no planned-community statute at all." Alabama has adopted neither the Uniform Planned Community Act nor UCIOA.

Owner-protective carve-outs stay minimal here. Alabama has no solar-access law and no confirmed state carve-out for signs, landscaping, EV charging, rainwater harvesting, clotheslines, or religious displays; its one carve-out is a U.S.-flag statute, Ala. Code § 35-1-5. The other limits that bind architectural authority come from federal law: the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act, the FCC OTARD rule, and the Fair Housing Act's reasonable-modification right. That places Alabama at the light-touch, declaration-first end of the spectrum, well apart from carve-out-heavy states such as California, Arizona, and Nevada. The state offers no HOA regulator and no architectural ombudsman; the Secretary of State's office states plainly that HOAs are not regulated in Alabama and simply maintains a public filing database.⁵

Section 2: The architectural-review framework

2A. Source and scope of architectural authority

For condominiums created on or after January 1, 1991, architectural authority flows from the recorded declaration, backstopped by the Alabama Uniform Condominium Act. Section 35-8A-302(a)(1) empowers the association to adopt and amend bylaws, rules, and regulations — the statutory hook for design guidelines.⁶ The declaration itself carries the use and alteration restrictions under § 35-8A-205, and owners may make improvements or alterations to their units subject to the declaration under § 35-8A-211.^7,8 Order of precedence matters: where the declaration and bylaws conflict, the declaration prevails except to the extent it clashes with the chapter.⁹ Pre-1991 condominiums operate under § 35-8, with an enumerated list of § 35-8A sections applying to events and circumstances that occur after January 1, 1991.¹⁰

For planned communities, the recorded declaration is the operative source of architectural authority, and the board or a designated architectural review committee usually administers it. Post-2016 HOAs get a thin statutory overlay. Section 35-20-5 requires nonprofit incorporation, filing of the governing documents with the Secretary of State, and reasonable rules for the use, maintenance, repair, replacement, or modification of common areas.¹¹ Section 35-20-8 gives the declaration precedence over other governing documents except where it conflicts with the chapter.¹² But § 35-20 supplies no architectural-review process, and Title 10A furnishes only corporate formalities — director duties, meetings, notice — not an HOA architectural statute. Older planned communities rely on the declaration plus common-law contract and property principles.

2B. The approval process and standards of review

Alabama imposes no statutory application deadline, no deemed-approval rule, and no mandatory written-denial requirement for either community type. Those procedural protections are declaration terms, not statutory mandates. When a declaration says nothing, an owner has no statutory fallback timeline and no automatic approval to fall back on.

What governs review is common-law reasonableness. Alabama courts uphold architectural restrictions that serve a legitimate purpose and stay within the association's power under the declaration, but they will not enforce arbitrary, capricious, or discriminatory decisions, and they weigh the equities before granting the drastic remedy of forced removal. The Alabama Supreme Court's 2025 decision in Englund v. Dauphin Island Property Owners Association shows the limits. The Court reversed a permanent injunction that would have required tearing down portions of a nearly finished home over a setback-covenant violation, noting that rebuilding to the same stage would exceed $200,000 and that the association's proposed redesign would cut the home by roughly 700 square feet and cost an estimated $300,000 to $350,000 in value.

The Court held that the relative-hardship defense applied even though the owners knew of the covenant, that the trial court's failure to apply that test was manifestly unjust because the harm to the owners was considerably disproportionate to any benefit to the association, and that unclean hands bars equitable relief only for willful misconduct, not mere negligence.¹³ Two later decisions refine the defense. In Dendy v. Ryan (Ala. Dec. 19, 2025), relative hardship was barred by clean hands where the owner testified that he could get approval for one plan and build another; a special concurrence questioned whether relative hardship is a defense at all rather than an element of the plaintiff’s showing for an injunction, noting that he found no pre-2023 Alabama case describing it as a defense.¹⁴ In Austin Brook & Austin Park POA v. Nabors (Ala. Civ. App. June 5, 2026), the Court of Civil Appeals held that “the defense of relative hardship is not available” to an owner who never pleaded it, treating it, under Cole v. Davis, 383 So. 3d 646, 654 (Ala. 2023), as an affirmative defense on which the party asserting it bears the burden.¹⁵

Taken together, these decisions measure architectural enforcement against the declaration and any architectural guidelines adopted under it, and they weigh the owner's conduct and the proportionality of the remedy before a court orders removal.

2C. Statutory and federal limits on architectural authority

Alabama imposes almost no state-law substantive carve-outs on architectural authority. There is no Alabama solar-access statute, so the declaration and common-law reasonableness govern solar devices, and an association may restrict or even prohibit rooftop solar through its CC&Rs.¹⁶ The one state carve-out covers flag display: Ala. Code § 35-1-5 lets a person display a U.S. flag of up to 40 square feet on his or her property notwithstanding any contrary covenant and voids a covenant that prohibits it. No confirmed Alabama statute protects political or campaign signs, drought-tolerant or native landscaping, EV charging, rainwater harvesting, clotheslines, or religious displays.

The remaining limits on architectural authority come from federal law, and they apply in Alabama as everywhere. The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 bars an association from prohibiting display of the U.S. flag, though it may impose reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions necessary to protect a substantial association interest; the Act carries no private right of action.¹⁷ The FCC OTARD rule limits restrictions that impair the installation, maintenance, or use of covered antennas and satellite dishes — generally one meter or less — in an owner's exclusive-use area, subject to safety and historic-preservation exceptions, and it does not reach common elements.¹⁸ The Fair Housing Act requires an association to permit reasonable disability-related exterior modifications, ordinarily at the owner's expense.¹⁹

Section 3: Compliance obligations in the architectural-review process

In Alabama, most architectural-process obligations rest on the declaration, not on a statute. The statutory duties stay narrow, and they split by community type. The obligations below name their source and show whether they reach condominiums, post-2016 planned communities, or both.

A. Adopting and maintaining architectural standards

Condominiums may adopt and amend architectural rules under § 35-8A-302(a)(1). For post-2016 HOAs, § 35-20-5(c)(4) requires the organizational documents to provide reasonable rules for the use, maintenance, repair, replacement, or modification of any common areas. For every other community — especially pre-2016 planned communities — the standards derive from, and cannot exceed, the recorded declaration. In each case, a board must adopt its guidelines through proper corporate action under Title 10A nonprofit governance.

B. Reviewing and deciding applications

Neither community type gets a statutory timeline or a deemed-approval default, so a board follows the declaration's stated timeline and procedures. Its decisions must stay reasonable, non-arbitrary, and consistent with published standards. Where governing documents conflict, the declaration controls over the bylaws — under § 35-8A-203(c) for condominiums and § 35-20-8 for post-2016 HOAs.

C. Honoring statutory and federal owner protections

Ala. Code § 35-1-5 voids any covenant barring display of a U.S. flag of up to 40 square feet, and the federal Flag Act allows only reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on U.S. flag display; the OTARD rule bars restrictions that impair covered antennas and dishes in exclusive-use areas; and the Fair Housing Act requires associations to permit reasonable owner-funded disability modifications.

D. Enforcement and dispute resolution

Condominiums may levy reasonable fines for violations of the declaration, bylaws, and rules, but only after notice and an opportunity to be heard.²⁰ Post-2016 HOAs may assess reasonable penalties only after the member is afforded the opportunity to be heard and represented by counsel, and they may suspend facility use for nonpayment.²¹ Condominiums may also institute, defend, or intervene in litigation, and both community types may pursue assessment liens and common-law injunctive relief in Alabama circuit courts.²² Alabama has no dedicated HOA regulator and no architectural ombudsman, so the parties resolve disputes through internal association processes and the courts.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

Recent Legislation

In Alabama, we aren't seeing the massive rewrites of HOA codes that some other states are experiencing. Instead, the legislative focus is more surgical, centering on condominium procedures and the professional standards of real estate.

Recent Court Rulings

In Alabama, the courts aren't reshaping HOA law from the bench. What they're doing is more practical: holding associations to their own procedures, and to a sense of proportion. Two recent rulings show how — one on whether a foreclosure can stand when the owner wasn't properly named or noticed, and one on whether tearing down a finished house is the right answer to a setback violation.

Regulatory Developments

Alabama's regulatory action right now is mostly about catching up. The Real Estate Commission has been working through how the 2025 license law applies to community-management firms — who needs which credential, which on-site tasks now require licensing, and where the new condominium-manager exception kicks in. For property managers, that guidance is doing more practical work than any single court ruling.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Alabama sits at the light-touch, CC&R-primary end of the national spectrum. Condominiums enjoy a thin statutory backstop under the Alabama Uniform Condominium Act, and planned communities created on or after January 1, 2016 get a thin organizational overlay under the Alabama Homeowners' Association Act — but neither statute supplies an architectural-review process, a decision timeline, a deemed-approval rule, or design carve-outs, and Alabama has adopted neither the Uniform Planned Community Act nor UCIOA.

That contrasts sharply with carve-out-heavy states such as California, whose Davis-Stirling Act voids solar restrictions, limits EV-charging denials, protects political signs, and protects drought-tolerant landscaping — as well as Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and Florida, which layer detailed statutory owner protections and process requirements onto HOA architectural authority.³⁰

For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is clear: in Alabama the recorded declaration is the operative rulebook — especially for planned communities — and the main external limits on architectural decisions are federal, not state carve-outs. Clear, objective, consistently applied declaration-based standards carry the weight; the statutory defaults a board might lean on do not exist. The federal frameworks noted above — the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act, the FCC OTARD rule, and the Fair Housing Act — apply to Alabama associations regardless of the declaration. Architectural review does not displace that federal duty: once a resident has communicated a disability-related need, a board may not use its design-review process to indefinitely delay or effectively deny the request, and it may deny only for undue financial or administrative burden, fundamental alteration, or a direct threat to health or safety — not mere aesthetic preference.³¹