2B. Planned communities and the corporate-law layer

Planned communities — the non-condominium associations — have no detailed director-qualification statute at all. The Alabama Homeowners’ Association Act (Ala. Code § 35-20-1 et seq.), effective January 1, 2016, reaches developments under a declaration recorded on or after that date and older associations that elect into it, but it sets no director eligibility criteria. It requires organization as a nonprofit corporation and routes governance to the corporate code and the governing documents.^{5, 8}

Most Alabama associations of either type incorporate under the Alabama Nonprofit Corporation Law, which since January 1, 2025 has been Chapter 3A of Title 10A (Ala. Code § 10A-3A-1.01 et seq.; § 10A-3A-14.01(b)). Its director sections supply the corporate baselines: a board of one or more individuals, with the number specified in or fixed under the certificate of incorporation or bylaws (§ 10A-3A-8.03); a one-year term unless those documents specify otherwise (§ 10A-3A-8.05); and, in a membership corporation, removal with or without cause by the members unless the certificate of incorporation or bylaws provide otherwise (§ 10A-3A-8.08).⁹ Title 10A is corporate-formality scaffolding, not an HOA-specific qualification statute. Beyond requiring a director to be a natural person at least 19 years old (§ 10A-3A-8.02(b)), it leaves who may sit on the board to the governing documents. Act 2026-495, effective August 1, 2026, added §§ 10A-3A-8.61 and 10A-3A-8.62 and Division G (§ 10A-3A-8.70) to Chapter 3A, which set conflict-of-interest and corporate-opportunity safe harbors for nonprofit directors and officers, including a route by which members’ approval cleanses a conflicting-interest transaction. Under Section 7 of the act, a nonprofit corporation governed by Chapter 3A and in existence before that date may elect, on or before December 31, 2026, to amend its certificate of incorporation to be governed by Chapter 3A as in effect immediately before August 1, 2026.¹⁰

2C. The declaration, CC&Rs, and bylaws as the operative source

The recorded declaration or CC&Rs and the bylaws are where the actual qualification rules live for any given community. Member-only requirements, good-standing conditions, residency or age floors, staggered terms — these are documentary choices, not statutory commands.

The order of precedence differs by community type. For condominiums under the 1991 Act, the hierarchy runs from the Act’s non-variable provisions, then the Act’s default rules as the declaration and bylaws modify them, then unmodified Act defaults, then Title 10A corporate defaults, then board-adopted rules.^{1, 7} For planned communities, where no condominium-style statute applies, the hierarchy runs from the CC&Rs and bylaws, then Title 10A corporate defaults, then board rules.^{8, 9} Operationally, a manager has to identify the community type first, then read the governing documents against the applicable backstops. The phrase “Alabama law” alone does not answer a director-eligibility question.

3. Director eligibility, disqualification, and tenure rules

3A. Eligibility to serve

Whether a director must be a unit owner or member is, in Alabama, almost always a documentary question. Neither the 1991 Act nor Title 10A requires a director to own a unit or hold membership; Ala. Code § 10A-3A-8.02 provides that a director need not be a resident or a member unless the certificate of incorporation or bylaws so prescribe, and lets those documents set other reasonable qualifications.⁹ Member-only directors exist only where the documents say so. Residency works the same way; on age, the statutory floor is 19 for a director of a nonprofit corporation (§ 10A-3A-8.02(b)), and any higher age or other condition comes from the declaration or bylaws (source layer: governing documents, with the Title 10A age floor; applies to all incorporated associations).

Good-standing or current-on-assessments conditions work the same way in Alabama — documentary, not statutory. Where the governing documents say nothing, an owner who is behind on assessments is not statutorily barred from serving (source layer: governing documents; applies to all community types). Co-owners, spouses, trustees, and entity representatives — the natural person an LLC or trust designates — may serve where the documents permit. Because Title 10A requires a director to be a natural person but not an owner (§ 10A-3A-8.02(b)), an entity owner cannot itself sit as a director but can generally name an individual to serve unless the documents restrict it.⁹

3B. Disqualification and removal

Assessment delinquency does not disqualify a candidate or a sitting director under Alabama statute. Any disqualification on that ground has to come from a CC&R or bylaw provision (source layer: governing documents; applies to all community types). This is the single most common point of Florida contamination, and as applied to Alabama it is simply wrong. Criminal history works the same way: no Alabama statute disqualifies a person from board service over a felony or other conviction, so any such bar is documentary (source layer: governing documents). Conflict-of-interest limits on service likewise come from the documents and from general fiduciary principles, not from a dedicated statute.

Owner-initiated removal is the one removal mechanism Alabama addresses by statute for condominiums. Under Ala. Code § 35-8A-303(g), the unit owners, by a two-thirds vote of all persons present and entitled to vote at a meeting where a quorum is present, may remove any board member with or without cause — except a member the declarant appointed (source layer: 1991 Act; applies to post-1991 condominiums).¹

For corporations generally, including planned-community associations and pre-1991 condominiums organized as nonprofits, Ala. Code § 10A-3A-8.08 provides that, unless the certificate of incorporation or bylaws provide otherwise, the members of a membership nonprofit corporation may remove a director with or without cause, and the meeting notice must state that removal is a purpose of the meeting (source layer: Title 10A plus governing documents).⁹ The voting mechanics of any recall — notice, quorum, and ballots — are a board-elections question, taken up separately.

3C. Board composition and terms

Ala. Code § 10A-3A-8.03(a) requires the board of an incorporated association to consist of one or more individuals, with the number specified in or fixed under the certificate of incorporation or bylaws (source layer: Title 10A as modified by governing documents; applies to all incorporated associations).⁹ For post-1991 condominiums, the 1991 Act adds a backstop: once any period of declarant control ends, the owners must elect a board of at least three members.¹

There is no statutory maximum board size and no statutory term limit; term length, staggering, and any term cap come from the governing documents, and Title 10A supplies a one-year default term when the certificate of incorporation and bylaws are silent (§ 10A-3A-8.05(a)) (source layer: governing documents, with Title 10A default).⁹

For condominiums, Ala. Code § 35-8A-303(d) and (e) govern declarant-appointed seats versus owner-elected seats. The declaration may provide for a period of declarant control, but that period ends no later than the earliest of three triggers: 60 days after 75 percent of the units that may be created are conveyed to non-declarant owners; two years after all declarants stop offering units for sale in the ordinary course of business; or two years after anyone last exercised a development right to add new units.¹ The Act also steps owners onto the board before that endpoint: within 90 days after 25 percent of the units are conveyed to non-declarant owners, owners other than the declarant must elect at least one member and at least 25 percent of the board, rising to at least one-third once 50 percent are conveyed (source layer: 1991 Act; applies to post-1991 condominiums).¹

Planned communities run a parallel but document-driven version: Ala. Code § 35-20-7 lets the declaration provide a period of declarant control over the election of directors, without the statutory step-down triggers the condominium Act imposes (source layer: HOA Act plus governing documents).¹¹

3D. Onboarding and ongoing qualification duties

Alabama requires no director certification, no education course, and no post-election written attestation. Nothing in the 1991 Act, the Condominium Ownership Act, the Homeowners’ Association Act, or Title 10A conditions a director’s service on completing training. Florida runs differently. There, as amended effective July 1, 2024, each newly elected or appointed residential condominium director must, within 90 days, hand the association secretary both a written certification and an educational certificate from a division-approved course of at least four hours, and a director who misses the deadline “is suspended from service on the board until he or she complies.”^{1, 6} In Alabama, conflict-of-interest disclosure answers to general fiduciary duty and the governing documents, not to a dedicated condominium statute.

The operative ongoing duty is the standard of care. For post-1991 condominiums, Ala. Code § 35-8A-303(a) sets two tiers: declarant-appointed board members owe the non-declarant owners the care of fiduciaries, while owner-elected members owe ordinary and reasonable care (source layer: 1991 Act).¹ For associations incorporated as nonprofits, including planned communities, the parallel fiduciary baseline flows from the Alabama Nonprofit Corporation Law and the general corporate-law principles that supplement it (source layer: Title 10A).⁹

4. Recent legislative and judicial activity

4A. Recent bills

Alabama’s recent activity on this front is a single bill, and it did not survive the session.

No other bill in the 2025 or 2026 Regular Sessions amended the 1991 Act, the Condominium Ownership Act, or Title 10A, as applied to associations, on director qualifications, board composition, or removal.

4B. Recent appellate rulings

4C. Active legislative debates

The failed SB344 (2024) shows a continuing appetite to extend the Homeowners’ Association Act to all planned communities and to tighten declarant control of boards. For now, though, no comprehensive planned-community statute or director-qualification mandate is moving forward.¹²

5. National positioning and related coverage

Alabama is a light-touch, split-structure state for director qualifications. The condominium statute leaves eligibility, terms, and disqualification to the governing documents and the corporate code, and addresses only declarant-control transition, the standard of care, and owner removal rights. Planned communities have only the thin Homeowners’ Association Act, which sets no director criteria at all. Florida runs the other way: statute there requires both director certification and an approved education course, caps consecutive service at eight years absent a two-thirds owner vote, and provides that an owner delinquent on assessments “is not eligible for board membership.” California’s Davis-Stirling Act, in turn, sets statutory candidate-eligibility rules.^{6, 15}

For a multi-state operator, the practical lesson is direct: a manager used to Florida’s statutory director screens will find none of them in Alabama statute, and must read each community’s governing documents instead. Apart from the condominium standard-of-care provision and the declarant-control transition rules, the qualification question in Alabama stays documentary and corporate.

Federal frameworks rarely dictate director qualifications, but Alabama associations still answer to federal law — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the OTARD rule — in their broader operations. One federal statute does bear on director status directly. The Corporate Transparency Act’s beneficial-ownership-information rule defines a reportable “beneficial owner” through a “substantial control” test that would sweep in an Alabama association’s senior officers and any director with authority over board appointments, if the rule applied to incorporated associations at all. It currently does not: a March 2025 interim final rule exempted domestic entities from BOI filing, and a final rule FinCEN announced on August 11, 2026 permanently removed the reporting requirement for U.S. companies and U.S. persons, so no Alabama director must report personal identifying information to FinCEN — though that exemption rests on rulemaking rather than statute, and the Corporate Transparency Act itself remains on the books.¹⁶ HOA Weekly’s federal Corporate Transparency Act coverage tracks the rule and the litigation behind it.