Alabama HOA Solar Rights

1. Overview: Solar rights for HOAs in Alabama

Alabama has no solar access or solar rights statute limiting an association's authority over a unit owner's solar energy device.¹ The Community Associations Institute's state-by-state classification puts Alabama in neither camp — not among the states that void or restrict association solar prohibitions, and not among those that enable recorded solar easements.² Alabama also lacks a solar easement enabling statute, so owners in Alabama communities have no statutory mechanism to record an easement securing access to sunlight.² Absent a solar-specific statute, solar installations fall under a split structure: condominiums formed on or after January 1, 1991 answer to the Alabama Uniform Condominium Act of 1991 (Ala. Code § 35-8A-101 et seq.), read with the recorded declaration; condominiums formed before that date answer to the Alabama Condominium Ownership Act (Ala. Code § 35-8-1 et seq.); and planned communities operate under recorded CC&Rs, with the Alabama Homeowners' Association Act (Ala. Code § 35-20-1 et seq.) and Title 10A supplying corporate and procedural rules.³ Alabama's well-known solar disputes play out on the utility side — chiefly Alabama Power's capacity reservation charge on residential solar customers before the Alabama Public Service Commission — and they carry no bearing on an association's architectural authority.⁴ Nationally, Alabama sits among the no-protection states, a contrast with strong-protection states such as California, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Texas.² The sections below lay out the statutory framework, what an Alabama association can and cannot do, and recent legislative and judicial activity.

2. The statutory framework

2A. Solar access statute (or its absence)

Alabama has no solar access statute limiting an association's authority over solar energy devices. Independent surveys confirm the absence: the Community Associations Institute doesn't list Alabama among states that prohibit or allow prohibiting solar-blocking covenants, and the Kansas Legislative Research Department's national review likewise leaves Alabama off the list of states that restrict association solar authority.^2,5 The consequence follows directly: the recorded declaration and the general condominium or corporate statutes — not any solar-specific protection — set an association's authority over solar.¹ Don't confuse that absence with utility-side regulation. Alabama has no statewide net-metering statute, and the disputes over Alabama Power's charges on solar customers run through utility tariffs and the Public Service Commission — a separate regime from association architectural authority.⁴ No other state's solar statute reaches into Alabama. The "Alabama Solar Rights Act" occasionally cited online doesn't exist, and the act sometimes attached to that label, Act 2014-245, concerns nonpublic and home schools, not solar energy.⁶

2B. Solar easement enabling provisions

Alabama has no solar easement enabling statute either. It's absent from the Community Associations Institute's list of states with laws that protect solar easements on a contractual basis, and national reviews identify Alabama as a state that has never established solar easement legislation.^2,7 Owners in Alabama communities therefore have no statutory solar easement mechanism. General Alabama easement law lets property owners create easements by express written grant, but that's a voluntary arrangement between consenting owners — it gives a unit owner no right to install solar over an association's objection.⁷ A solar easement, even where a state provides one, secures access to sunlight across a neighbor's land. It is not a solar access law, and it doesn't override association architectural authority.²

2C. The governing-document and corporate-law backdrop

Because no Alabama statute addresses solar specifically, the recorded declaration becomes the controlling document, read against whichever general statute applies to the community. For condominiums formed on or after January 1, 1991, the Alabama Uniform Condominium Act of 1991 supplies the association's general powers, including the power to adopt and amend rules and regulations under Ala. Code § 35-8A-302(a)(1), exercised subject to the declaration.⁸ For condominiums formed before January 1, 1991, the Alabama Condominium Ownership Act (Ala. Code § 35-8-1 et seq.) governs, though certain provisions of the 1991 Act also reach older condominiums for events after January 1, 1991.⁹ Planned communities have no condominium statute of their own; their operative rulebook is the recorded CC&Rs, with the Alabama Homeowners' Association Act requiring associations formed on or after January 1, 2016 to organize as nonprofit corporations under Chapter 3 of Title 10A and to file governing documents with the Secretary of State.¹⁰ The order of precedence in a dispute runs from the applicable statute, to the declaration, to the bylaws, to the rules: the condominium statute holds that where the declaration and bylaws conflict, the declaration prevails except where it's inconsistent with the chapter, and the HOA Act holds that the declaration prevails over other governing documents.¹¹ None of these statutes contains a solar-specific provision, so for solar, the declaration controls. In practice, an Alabama board's solar authority comes from its own governing documents, and for planned communities there's no statutory backstop of any kind.³

3. What an Alabama HOA can and cannot do regarding solar

Because Alabama has no solar access statute, everything here turns on governing-document authority, not statutory mandates.

3A. Approval and architectural review

A solar installation typically faces architectural review to the extent the community's declaration and rules require preapproval of exterior changes — general architectural authority, not solar-specific authority. For post-1991 condominiums, the rule-making power derives from Ala. Code § 35-8A-302(a)(1), statutory but subject to the declaration; for planned communities, it derives from the recorded CC&Rs, with corporate rule-making procedures under Title 10A layered on top.^8,10

3B. Permissible and impermissible restrictions

An association may regulate solar under its declaration — placement, mounting, screening, aesthetics — and may, in principle, prohibit solar entirely where its declaration says so, because no Alabama statute caps or limits those restrictions.¹ The only meaningful limits come from the declaration's own terms and general doctrines of good faith and reasonable, consistent enforcement. Alabama courts strictly construe restrictive covenants against the restriction, resolving doubts in favor of free use of property.¹²

3C. Governing-document and disclosure considerations

Solar rules, where they exist, typically appear in the declaration or in architectural guidelines adopted under it. Changing them requires amending the declaration or the rules through whatever procedures those documents and the applicable statute specify. For post-1991 condominiums, resale disclosure is statutory: Ala. Code § 35-8A-409 requires a unit owner to furnish a purchaser, on request, the declaration, bylaws, rules, and a certificate of specified financial and legal information — the channel through which any solar-related rules reach a buyer.¹³ The HOA Act requires associations formed on or after January 1, 2016 to file governing documents with the Secretary of State, which makes recorded solar rules publicly searchable.¹⁰

3D. Dispute resolution and remedies

Absent a solar statute, an owner challenging a solar denial proceeds through the declaration's enforcement and dispute provisions, the applicable condominium or corporate statute, and the courts. Trial-level disputes run through the Alabama Circuit Courts, with appeal to the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals and discretionary review by the Alabama Supreme Court.¹⁴ No solar-specific statutory remedy exists. The 1991 Condominium Act provides a general attorney's-fee and remedies provision for violations of the chapter (Ala. Code § 35-8A-414), but no fee-shifting rule tied to solar exists, and that provision applies to condominiums only.¹⁵

4. Recent legislative and judicial activity

4A. Recent bills

No bill enacted or pending in the Alabama Legislature over the past 24 months would create or amend solar rights affecting Alabama HOAs. The community-association bills of the 2026 Regular Session addressed other subjects entirely: HB260 covered procedures for amending condominium declarations, and SB246 addressed consumer protection against unsolicited investment-oriented real property solicitations.¹⁶ Neither touches solar. Utility-scale solar bills did surface in the 2026 session — SB354, sponsored by Sen. Greg Albritton (R-Atmore), would have placed a one-year moratorium on new large-scale solar facility construction. It passed the Senate 27-4 but died in April 2026 without reaching the House. That bill concerns land use and utility generation, not an association's authority over a homeowner's device, so it falls outside the scope of this page.¹⁷

4B. Recent appellate rulings

No Alabama appellate decision in the past 36 months addresses an HOA or condominium solar dispute, an architectural denial of solar, or enforcement of an association solar restriction. Recent association appellate matters have concerned other issues, and the leading Alabama covenant-enforcement decisions applied to landscaping and other exterior features rather than solar.¹² The one prominent Alabama solar case — a suit by GASP, Inc. and several solar customers challenging Alabama Power's fee under federal law — is a utility-rate matter. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama resolved it in favor of the utility and the Public Service Commission in March 2026. It is not an association architectural dispute, and it doesn't bear on HOA authority.⁴

4C. Active legislative debates

No active, identified proposal in the Alabama Legislature would enact solar access protection for community-association homeowners. Legislative attention on solar has centered on utility-side and land-use questions, not association authority.¹⁷

5. National positioning and related coverage

Solar-rights regimes nationally fall into three broad categories. Strong-protection states carry statutes that void or limit association solar restrictions, including California (Civ. Code § 714), Florida (Fla. Stat. § 163.04), Arizona (A.R.S. § 33-1816), Colorado (C.R.S. § 38-30-168), Nevada, and Texas (Prop. Code § 202.010).¹⁸ Solar-easement-only states enable voluntary easements securing access to sunlight but don't override associations. No-protection states, where the recorded declaration fully controls, make up the third category — and Alabama sits here, with neither a solar access statute nor a solar easement enabling statute.² For multi-state operators, the practical implication is significant: a firm accustomed to a strong-protection state can't assume owner solar rights carry into Alabama, where associations operate without a statutory solar backstop and planned communities operate under CC&Rs alone. No identified legislative momentum points toward solar access protection for Alabama associations.¹⁷

HOA Weekly's Alabama Solar Rights coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and courts act. No federal rule comparable to the FCC's OTARD rule (47 C.F.R. § 1.4000) applies to rooftop solar, so state and association rules control here.

1. Code of Alabama, Title 35 (Property), containing no solar access provision; see Chapters 8, 8A, and 20 ↩
2. Community Associations Institute, Solar Rights and Easements (Alabama listed in neither the solar-rights nor solar-easement category) ↩
3. Alabama Secretary of State, Homeowners' Associations (Alabama Homeowners' Association Act framework) ↩
4. Alabama Public Service Commission (utility-side regulation of Alabama Power's capacity reservation charge on solar customers; GASP, Inc. v. Alabama Public Service Commission resolved for the utility, M.D. Ala. 2026) ↩
5. Kansas Legislative Research Department, State Regulations of Homeowners Associations' Abilities to Restrict Solar Panels ↩
6. Alabama Legislature, Summaries of the 2014 General Acts (Act 2014-245, SB38, concerning nonpublic and home schools) ↩
7. Overview of Alabama easement law (express-grant easements are voluntary instruments) ↩
8. Ala. Code § 35-8A-302, Powers of unit owners' association ↩
9. Ala. Code § 35-8A-102, Applicability (post-1991 condominiums; select provisions apply to pre-1991 condominiums) ↩
10. Ala. Code § 35-20-5, Organization of associations; filing requirements; rulemaking authority ↩
11. Ala. Code § 35-20-8, Priority of declaration; and § 35-8A-203(c), declaration prevails over bylaws ↩
12. Esfahani v. Steelwood Property Owners Ass'n, Inc., Ala. Civ. App. (covenant enforcement of architectural review) ↩
13. Ala. Code § 35-8A-409, Resales of units ↩
14. Ala. Code § 12-3-10 (Court of Civil Appeals jurisdiction) and § 12-2-7 (Supreme Court jurisdiction) ↩
15. Ala. Code § 35-8A-414, Effect of violations on rights of action; attorney's fees ↩
16. Alabama Legislature, SB246 (2026 Regular Session), unsolicited real property solicitations; and HB260, condominium declaration amendments ↩
17. Alabama Legislature bill search (no solar access bill affecting community associations; SB354 utility-scale solar moratorium, 2026 Regular Session) ↩
18. Texas Property Code § 202.010 (representative strong-protection statute) ↩