Does Alabama have an implied warranty of habitability?

Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it. The duty comes entirely from statute: Ala. Code § 35-9A-204, part of the Alabama Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (Act 2006-316), which took effect January 1, 2007. Alabama's appellate courts had refused three times to create a common-law implied warranty of habitability in leases and said the change was for the Legislature to make — Osborn v. Brown (1978), Murphy v. Hendrix (1986) and Harper v. Coleman (1996), restated by the Supreme Court in Coleman v. Harper (1997) — and the Legislature then acted.

How long does a landlord have to make repairs in Alabama?

14 days. The tenant's own written notice starts and ends the clock. For noncompliance with the rental agreement, or with § 35-9A-204 in a way that materially affects health and safety, the tenant delivers a written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than 14 days after the landlord receives it if the breach is not remedied in that period.

Can a tenant repair and deduct in Alabama?

No — no statute or decision authorizes it — No Alabama statute lets a tenant repair a condition and take the cost out of the rent, and the refusal is documented rather than merely silent: the Code prints § 35-9A-403 with the caption "Reserved" and no text at all, and the enacted Act's own table of corresponding sections identifies that number as the uniform act's self-help repair provision. No other section of the chapter supplies a substitute — there is no procure-and-deduct remedy, no substitute-housing remedy, and no tenant election to abate rent.

Can a tenant withhold rent for repair problems in Alabama?

No — expressly barred — Alabama bars rent withholding in so many words. Section 35-9A-164 says the tenant may not withhold payment of rent to the landlord, while in possession, to enforce any right under the chapter, and its caption states the design: payment of rent is a prerequisite to enforcing the chapter's remedies.

Can a landlord retaliate against a tenant who complains about repairs in Alabama?

Protected by a general retaliation statute — The section states a prohibition with no presumption and no shift in the burden of proof: there is no time window inside which a landlord's action is presumed retaliatory, so the tenant must prove the retaliatory motive. Where it is proven, the tenant gets the ouster remedies — recovery of possession or termination of the lease and, either way, an amount equal to not more than three months' periodic rent or actual damages, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees, with security and unearned prepaid rent returned on a termination — and retaliation is also a defense to the landlord's action for possession.

Can a lease make the tenant responsible for repairs in Alabama?

Repairs may be delegated only within uniform-act-style limits. A rental agreement may not make the tenant give up rights or remedies under §§ 35-9A-204, 35-9A-401 or 35-9A-404, the chapter's security-deposit requirements, or the law of unlawful detainer; it also may not authorize confession of judgment, make the tenant pay the landlord's attorney's fees or collection costs, or exculpate or indemnify the landlord. A prohibited clause is unenforceable, and a landlord who seeks to enforce one owes actual damages, up to one month's periodic rent, and reasonable attorney's fees.

What does Alabama law require a landlord to repair?

Verified August 30, 2026 All Alabama topics →

Alabama requires a landlord to make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep a rented home in a habitable condition, and that duty comes entirely from statute.

Cited to Ala. Code § 35-9A-204 (landlord to maintain premises) and 12 more cited sources · Verified August 30, 2026

The Alabama Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, in force since January 1, 2007, lists six duties — building and housing code compliance, general habitability, clean and safe common areas, working electrical, plumbing, heating and air-conditioning facilities, garbage removal, and running water, hot water and reasonable heat. What Alabama does not give tenants is self-help. There is no repair-and-deduct remedy: the Code numbers the slot for one, § 35-9A-403, and prints it as "Reserved" with no text. Rent withholding is forbidden in terms while the tenant remains in possession, and a tenant who wants to counterclaim in an eviction case must pay the accruing rent into court to do it. The tenant's real options are a written notice terminating the lease at least 14 days out — the same clock for a broken furnace as for anything else — actual damages with attorney fees, and, for a landlord who cuts off services or evicts in retaliation, the greater of three months' rent or actual damages.

Alabama habitability & repairs at a glance

Where the duty comes from	Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it
Duty source details	The duty comes entirely from statute: Ala. Code § 35-9A-204, part of the Alabama Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (Act 2006-316), which took effect January 1, 2007. Alabama's appellate courts had refused three times to create a common-law implied warranty of habitability in leases and said the change was for the Legislature to make — Osborn v. Brown (1978), Murphy v. Hendrix (1986) and Harper v. Coleman (1996), restated by the Supreme Court in Coleman v. Harper (1997) — and the Legislature then acted. Alabama decisions construe the statute, but no judicially created warranty operates alongside it.
Who is covered	Statewide — no coverage split
Where the repair standards live	More than one source does real work — the details on this page say which
What must be kept in repair	The statute lists six duties and also pulls in local codes. The landlord must comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a habitable condition; keep common areas clean and safe; maintain in good and safe working order all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and other facilities and appliances, including elevators, that the landlord supplies or must supply; provide garbage receptacles and arrange for removal; and supply running water, reasonable amounts of hot water at all times, and reasonable heat. Where the building-code duty is greater than any other item on the list, the code duty is the one that governs, so the operative standard can sit in a city's housing code. Note the wording of the general clause: Alabama requires "a habitable condition," not the uniform act's "fit and habitable." Nothing in the section names locks or keys, smoke or carbon monoxide detectors, vermin or extermination, weatherproofing, or mold. No duty arises at all where the condition was caused by the willful or negligent act of the tenant, a member of the tenant's family, a licensee, or another person on the premises with the tenant's consent.
Heat standard type	A duty to supply heat or maintain temperatures while the unit is occupied
Heat standard details	The landlord must supply running water, reasonable amounts of hot water at all times, and reasonable heat. The statute states no temperature figure and no seasonal window — "reasonable" is the whole standard. Two exceptions: buildings the law does not require to be equipped for heat or hot water, and units built so that heat or hot water is generated by an installation under the tenant's exclusive control and supplied by a direct public utility connection.
Headline repair day count	14 days
Notice and repair-window rules	The tenant's own written notice starts and ends the clock. For noncompliance with the rental agreement, or with § 35-9A-204 in a way that materially affects health and safety, the tenant delivers a written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than 14 days after the landlord receives it if the breach is not remedied in that period. The 14 days is a period to complete the repair, not merely to start one, and curing before the stated date defeats the termination. The same 14-day count runs for a failure to supply heat, water, hot water, electricity or gas. Nothing in the chapter lets a tenant hold back rent while the notice runs.
Repair and deduct	No — no statute or decision authorizes it — No Alabama statute lets a tenant repair a condition and take the cost out of the rent, and the refusal is documented rather than merely silent: the Code prints § 35-9A-403 with the caption "Reserved" and no text at all, and the enacted Act's own table of corresponding sections identifies that number as the uniform act's self-help repair provision. No other section of the chapter supplies a substitute — there is no procure-and-deduct remedy, no substitute-housing remedy, and no tenant election to abate rent. A tenant who repairs and deducts anyway is simply short on rent: § 35-9A-164 forbids withholding while in possession, so the shortfall exposes the tenant to a nonpayment termination and, in a possession action, to the rent-into-court rules. One section invites misreading: § 35-9A-422, "Failure to Maintain," runs the other way — it lets the landlord, after a 7-day notice, enter, do work the tenant was obliged to do, and bill the cost as rent on the next rent day.
Rent withholding or escrow	No — expressly barred — Alabama bars rent withholding in so many words. Section 35-9A-164 says the tenant may not withhold payment of rent to the landlord, while in possession, to enforce any right under the chapter, and its caption states the design: payment of rent is a prerequisite to enforcing the chapter's remedies. Note the limit — the bar operates while the tenant is in possession. There is no escrow route a tenant can start: no court registry, no agency program. Rent does reach a court, but only inside the landlord's own case and as the price of defending it. To counterclaim in an action for possession, or for rent while in possession, the tenant shall pay into court rent accrued and accruing as it comes due; the Court of Civil Appeals read that in Morrow v. Pake as a prerequisite for asserting the counterclaim, and a defense or counterclaim raised without merit and not in good faith exposes the tenant to the landlord's attorney's fees. Whether the tenant stays in possession meanwhile is for the court. At the appeal stage the rule tightens again: an appeal from an eviction judgment does not stop a writ of possession unless the tenant pays the circuit clerk all rent properly payable since the case was filed and keeps paying as rent comes due, and one missed payment obliges the court to issue the writ on motion. A tenant who simply stops paying has no protection at any of the three layers.
Termination over habitability failures	Yes — a statute states the right — The tenant's written notice specifying the acts and omissions sets a termination date at least 14 days out, and the tenancy ends on that date unless the landlord remedies the breach in the meantime. On termination the landlord must return all security recoverable under the deposit section and all unearned prepaid rent. Failures of heat, running water, hot water, electricity, gas or another essential service run on their own version of the same 14-day notice, with the alternative of damages measured by the drop in the dwelling's fair rental value; choosing that route forecloses the general noncompliance route for the same breach. Fire or casualty not caused by the tenant that substantially impairs enjoyment of the unit has a separate track: the tenant vacates first and then has 14 days to give written notice of intent to terminate, in which case the tenancy ends as of the date of vacating, with security and unearned prepaid rent returned and accounts taken as of the date of the fire. Termination is not available for a condition the tenant, a household member, a licensee, or a guest caused deliberately or negligently.
Essential-service remedies	Yes — distinct statutory remedies for essential-service failures — Essential services have their own section but no faster clock. If, contrary to the lease or § 35-9A-204, the landlord willfully or negligently fails to promptly make available heat, running water, hot water, electricity, gas or another essential service after receiving the tenant's notice of the breach, the tenant may give a written notice terminating the tenancy on a date not less than 14 days after receipt and, on moving out, ends the agreement without further obligation or penalty, recovering the recoverable security and unearned prepaid rent; or the tenant may instead recover damages measured by the reduction in the dwelling's fair rental value. Most uniform-act states shorten this to a matter of days; Alabama runs heat and water on the ordinary 14-day termination clock and layers on two extra elements the tenant must prove — that the failure was willful or negligent, and that the landlord did not act promptly. The landlord is not responsible for paying for utility service unless the lease says so. Choosing this section rules out proceeding under the general noncompliance section for the same breach. A landlord who deliberately cuts off services is a different subject, covered with the lockout and utility-shutoff rules.
Retaliation protection	Protected by a general retaliation statute — The section states a prohibition with no presumption and no shift in the burden of proof: there is no time window inside which a landlord's action is presumed retaliatory, so the tenant must prove the retaliatory motive. Where it is proven, the tenant gets the ouster remedies — recovery of possession or termination of the lease and, either way, an amount equal to not more than three months' periodic rent or actual damages, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees, with security and unearned prepaid rent returned on a termination — and retaliation is also a defense to the landlord's action for possession. The statute lists four grounds on which a landlord may still bring a possession action: the code violation was caused primarily by a lack of reasonable care by the tenant, a household member or a guest; the tenant is in default in rent; compliance with the code needs alteration, remodeling or demolition that would effectively deprive the tenant of the unit; or other material lease violations. Bringing an action on one of those grounds does not release the landlord from ordinary damages liability for the underlying breach. — Complaining to a governmental agency charged with enforcing a building or housing code about a violation applicable to the premises materially affecting health and safety; complaining to the landlord of a violation of the landlord's maintenance duty; and organizing or joining a tenant union or similar organization. The first of those is read strictly: in Leeth v. J & J Properties the Court of Civil Appeals held that complaints to the Better Business Bureau, the Attorney General's office, a city mayor's office and the fire department were not complaints to an agency charged with enforcing a building or housing code.
Damages, penalties, and defenses	For noncompliance with the lease or with the maintenance duty, the tenant may recover actual damages and reasonable attorney fees and obtain injunctive relief. The fee half of that is newer than most sources show: as enacted in 2006 fees ran only where the landlord's noncompliance was in bad faith, and Act 2011-700 struck the bad-faith gate. Beyond actual damages the chapter's money remedies are narrow — an essential-services claim can be measured by the drop in fair rental value, a prohibited lease clause a landlord tries to enforce costs actual damages plus up to one month's periodic rent plus fees, and an unlawful ouster or willful cutoff of services costs the greater of three months' periodic rent or actual damages plus fees. The one place the chapter reduces rent without a lawsuit is fire or casualty: a tenant who vacates only the unusable part of the dwelling owes rent reduced in proportion to the drop in fair rental value. The landlord's defenses: the condition was caused by the tenant, a household member, a licensee or a guest; the tenant is in default in rent; the tenant did not give the written notice the chapter requires; and, on a counterclaim raised without merit and not in good faith, the landlord recovers reasonable attorney's fees. Rent must be paid throughout — payment is a prerequisite to enforcing any remedy in the chapter.
Can the duty be waived or shifted	Repairs may be delegated only within uniform-act-style limits
Waiver and delegation rules	A rental agreement may not make the tenant give up rights or remedies under §§ 35-9A-204, 35-9A-401 or 35-9A-404, the chapter's security-deposit requirements, or the law of unlawful detainer; it also may not authorize confession of judgment, make the tenant pay the landlord's attorney's fees or collection costs, or exculpate or indemnify the landlord. A prohibited clause is unenforceable, and a landlord who seeks to enforce one owes actual damages, up to one month's periodic rent, and reasonable attorney's fees. Two delegation routes sit beside that bar. For a single-family residence the parties may agree in writing that the tenant will perform the garbage and water-heat-and-hot-water duties and also specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations and remodeling — a bare written agreement is all the section requires, with no separate consideration, good-faith, or anti-evasion condition, which makes Alabama's single-family carve-out the loosest in the uniform-act family. For any other dwelling unit the agreement must be a separate signed writing supported by adequate consideration, the work must not be needed to cure a building-code violation, and the agreement must not cut into what the landlord owes other tenants. The landlord may never treat performance of such a separate agreement as a condition of the rental agreement itself.
Leading court decisions	Osborn v. Brown, 361 So. 2d 82 (Ala. 1978) — Asked to expand a landlord's standard of care or to recognize an implied warranty of habitability in leases of new residential apartments, the Court expressly declined to do so. It is the first of the three refusals that left the duty to the Legislature. • Murphy v. Hendrix, 500 So. 2d 8 (Ala. 1986) — Reconsidered Alabama's longstanding rule at a tenant's urging and kept it, holding that the rule should not be changed and that the best forum for making such a change in the law is the Legislature. • Harper v. Coleman, 705 So. 2d 388 (Ala. Civ. App. 1996) — Declined to adopt the equivalent of an implied warranty of habitability in the landlord-tenant context, noting that the Supreme Court had rejected the doctrine more than once and agreeing that adopting new law is a function for the Legislature. The Supreme Court restated that position when it reviewed the case in 1997. • Leeth v. J & J Properties, 69 So. 3d 176 (Ala. Civ. App. 2010) — Tenants who alleged toxic mold and a ventilation defect lost their retaliatory-eviction counterclaim because the bodies they complained to — the Better Business Bureau, the Attorney General's office, the city mayor's office and the fire department — were not a governmental agency charged with enforcing a building or housing code. A concurring opinion added that the tenants had not shown the conditions materially affected health and safety. • Morrow v. Pake, 263 So. 3d 1054 (Ala. Civ. App. 2018) — Read the counterclaim section as establishing a prerequisite for asserting counterclaims rather than as a compulsory-counterclaim rule: a tenant in possession who counterclaims shall pay into court rent accrued and thereafter accruing as it comes due. The tenant's later claims were not barred by the failure to raise them in the district court eviction case.
Local rules	Local building and housing codes do real work in Alabama, but through the statute rather than beside it: the landlord's first listed duty is to comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety, and where that code duty is greater than any other duty on the list, the code duty is the one that governs. The city or county code where the property sits therefore sets the practical standard for anything it covers.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Alabama Habitability & Repair Laws (verified August 30, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/habitability/alabama/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

The repair-and-deduct section Alabama left blank — The Code of Alabama prints § 35-9A-403 as "Reserved": no text, no history line, in a chapter where every other section carries both. The 2006 Act's own table matching uniform-act sections to Alabama numbers identifies that slot as the uniform act's self-help repair provision, so the blank is a decision, not an oversight. Claims that Alabama gives tenants a 14-day repair-and-deduct right confuse this with the 14-day termination notice; the number that does exist belongs to ending the lease, not to fixing the problem and billing the landlord.
A section that looks like repair-and-deduct but runs the other way — Section 35-9A-422 is captioned "Failure to Maintain," and summaries that skim captions file it as a tenant remedy. It is the landlord's remedy against the tenant: after a 7-day written notice the landlord may enter, do work the tenant was obliged to do, and charge the cost as rent on the next date rent is due.
Attorney fees no longer turn on bad faith — Older summaries — and anyone quoting the widely circulated 2006 enacted text of the Act — say a tenant recovers attorney's fees only if the landlord's noncompliance was in bad faith. Act 2011-700 removed that condition. Section 35-9A-401(b) now reads that the tenant may recover actual damages and reasonable attorney fees and obtain injunctive relief for noncompliance with the lease or with the maintenance duty.
One clock for everything, heat and water included — Most uniform-act states shorten the notice for a loss of heat, water or electricity to a few days. Alabama does not: the essential-services section runs on the same not-less-than-14-days termination notice as an ordinary breach, and adds two elements — the landlord must have failed willfully or negligently, and must have failed to act promptly. Choosing that section also gives up the general noncompliance route, and with it the damages-plus-fees remedy, for the same breach.
Complaining to the wrong body is not protected — Alabama's retaliation section protects complaints to a governmental agency charged with enforcing a building or housing code — and in Leeth v. J & J Properties the Court of Civil Appeals held that the Better Business Bureau, the Attorney General's office, a city mayor's office and the fire department are not such an agency. Complaining to the landlord about a maintenance-duty violation is separately protected, and is the safer route. The section carries no presumption period, so the tenant carries the burden of proving the motive.
The anti-waiver rule is narrower than it looks — Section 35-9A-163(a)(1) lists the rights a lease may not waive: those under §§ 35-9A-204, 35-9A-401 and 35-9A-404, the security-deposit requirements, and the law of unlawful detainer. Rights under the counterclaim, fire-and-casualty and unlawful-ouster sections are not on that list. What is easy to miss is subsection (b)'s price: a landlord who seeks to enforce a clause known to be prohibited owes actual damages plus up to one month's periodic rent plus reasonable attorney's fees.
The Alabama warranty that does exist is about buying, not renting — Alabama recognizes an implied warranty of habitability and workmanlike construction in the sale of a new home by a builder-vendor. That is a different doctrine with different parties, and search results conflate it with leases. It has no application to a rented dwelling, where the duty is the statute and only the statute.

Common questions: Alabama habitability & repairs

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

Does Alabama have an implied warranty of habitability?: Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it. The duty comes entirely from statute: Ala. Code § 35-9A-204, part of the Alabama Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (Act 2006-316), which took effect January 1, 2007. Alabama's appellate courts had refused three times to create a common-law implied warranty of habitability in leases and said the change was for the Legislature to make — Osborn v. Brown (1978), Murphy v. Hendrix (1986) and Harper v. Coleman (1996), restated by the Supreme Court in Coleman v. Harper (1997) — and the Legislature then acted.
How long does a landlord have to make repairs in Alabama?: 14 days. The tenant's own written notice starts and ends the clock. For noncompliance with the rental agreement, or with § 35-9A-204 in a way that materially affects health and safety, the tenant delivers a written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than 14 days after the landlord receives it if the breach is not remedied in that period.
Can a tenant repair and deduct in Alabama?: No — no statute or decision authorizes it — No Alabama statute lets a tenant repair a condition and take the cost out of the rent, and the refusal is documented rather than merely silent: the Code prints § 35-9A-403 with the caption "Reserved" and no text at all, and the enacted Act's own table of corresponding sections identifies that number as the uniform act's self-help repair provision. No other section of the chapter supplies a substitute — there is no procure-and-deduct remedy, no substitute-housing remedy, and no tenant election to abate rent.
Can a tenant withhold rent for repair problems in Alabama?: No — expressly barred — Alabama bars rent withholding in so many words. Section 35-9A-164 says the tenant may not withhold payment of rent to the landlord, while in possession, to enforce any right under the chapter, and its caption states the design: payment of rent is a prerequisite to enforcing the chapter's remedies.
Can a landlord retaliate against a tenant who complains about repairs in Alabama?: Protected by a general retaliation statute — The section states a prohibition with no presumption and no shift in the burden of proof: there is no time window inside which a landlord's action is presumed retaliatory, so the tenant must prove the retaliatory motive. Where it is proven, the tenant gets the ouster remedies — recovery of possession or termination of the lease and, either way, an amount equal to not more than three months' periodic rent or actual damages, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees, with security and unearned prepaid rent returned on a termination — and retaliation is also a defense to the landlord's action for possession.
Can a lease make the tenant responsible for repairs in Alabama?: Repairs may be delegated only within uniform-act-style limits. A rental agreement may not make the tenant give up rights or remedies under §§ 35-9A-204, 35-9A-401 or 35-9A-404, the chapter's security-deposit requirements, or the law of unlawful detainer; it also may not authorize confession of judgment, make the tenant pay the landlord's attorney's fees or collection costs, or exculpate or indemnify the landlord. A prohibited clause is unenforceable, and a landlord who seeks to enforce one owes actual damages, up to one month's periodic rent, and reasonable attorney's fees.

Citations

Ala. Code § 35-9A-204 (landlord to maintain premises) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-401 (noncompliance by the landlord) · (a), (b) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-403 (reserved — the empty repair-and-deduct slot) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-404 (wrongful failure to make available heat, water, hot water, or essential services) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-405 (counterclaims in an action for possession or rent) · (a) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-406 (fire or casualty damage) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-407 (tenant's remedies for unlawful ouster, exclusion, or diminution of service) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-163 (prohibited provisions in rental agreements) · (a)(1), (b) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-164 (payment of rent prerequisite to enforcing remedies under the chapter) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-422 (failure to maintain — the landlord's remedy against the tenant) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-461 (landlord's action for eviction; payment of rent to the clerk on appeal) · (d) (verified 2026) Official source
Ala. Code § 35-9A-501 (retaliatory conduct prohibited) (verified 2026) Official source
House Bill 287, Act 2006-316 (the Act as enacted in 2006, with the official Alabama Comments; §§ 35-9A-163 and 35-9A-401 were later amended by Act 2011-700, so this text is not current law) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct reading of the Code of Alabama, title 35, chapter 9A (the Alabama Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act) on the Alabama Legislature's official code service — all 48 sections of the chapter read in full with their history lines, from a code compilation stamped August 2, 2026, which post-dates the close of both 2026 sessions; the 2006 enacted text of the Act (House Bill 287, Act 2006-316) with the official Alabama Comments as posted by an Alabama court, used for the enacted-act concordance and never as a statement of current law; the Legislature's own session calendar and its complete instrument lists for the 2025 Regular, 2026 Regular and 2026 First Special Sessions; and the official reporter texts of Osborn v. Brown, Murphy v. Hendrix, Harper v. Coleman, Coleman v. Harper, Leeth v. J & J Properties and Morrow v. Pake, each read in full.