Unlawful Detainer in Alabama: Notice, Hearing, and Defenses

Unlawful detainer in Alabama is the court process a landlord uses to remove a tenant who stays on the property after the right to occupy it has ended. It begins with a written notice, moves into district court if the tenant doesn’t leave, and ends with a judgment that can include both possession of the property and money damages. Skip a step and the case can be thrown out. Ignore the process as a tenant and you can end up with a court-ordered removal, a judgment for back rent and fees, and an eviction record that follows you for years.

What Unlawful Detainer Actually Covers

The situation is narrow and specific. A tenant entered legally, usually under a lease, and then refused to leave after the right to stay ran out.¹ Nothing aggressive has to happen. Staying past a terminated or expired lease is enough.

This is different from forcible entry and detainer, which involves force, threats, or intimidation to take or hold a property.¹ The court proceedings are similar, but the ordinary holdover-tenant case is unlawful detainer.

The Notice That Has to Come First

Before filing anything in court, an Alabama landlord has to give written notice. The required period depends on why the tenant is being asked to leave.

For nonpayment of rent, the notice must state the amount of rent and late fees owed and give the tenant at least seven days to pay. If the tenant pays in full within that window, the lease continues. If not, the lease terminates and the landlord can go to court.²

For a month-to-month tenancy, either side can end the arrangement with at least 30 days’ written notice before the next rental due date.³

For a fixed-term lease that runs out, no separate notice period is required beyond the lease’s own end date. If the tenant stays after the lease expires without the landlord’s agreement, the landlord can demand possession.

The notice can be hand-delivered, posted on the door, or sent by certified mail. This is the step landlords most often mishandle. A defective notice, whether the wrong amount, too short a cure period, or bad delivery, can get the whole case dismissed. Landlords should keep proof of delivery. Tenants should check the dates on any notice carefully.

Filing and Serving the Case

Once the notice period passes and the tenant hasn’t left or paid, the landlord files an unlawful detainer complaint in the district court for the county where the property sits. Circuit courts also have jurisdiction depending on the amount at stake.⁴ Eviction cases get scheduling priority over other civil matters, so they move faster than a typical lawsuit.⁵

The court issues a notice that has to be served on the tenant at least six days before the court date.⁶ A sheriff, constable, or qualified process server delivers it. If the tenant can’t be reached in person, service can go to another adult living at the property. As a last resort, the server posts a copy on the door and mails another copy by first-class mail, and service is complete on the mailing date.⁵

The tenant then has seven days to answer the possession claim. If the landlord is also asking for money damages, the tenant has 14 days to respond to that portion. A tenant who ignores the case risks a default judgment, meaning the court rules for the landlord without any hearing at all.

The Hearing and What the Court Can Award

If the tenant answers, the court sets a hearing. Both sides present evidence. The landlord has to show that the tenant’s right to possession ended and that proper notice was given. The tenant can challenge the evidence or raise defenses.

Alabama lets the landlord pursue both possession and money damages in the same case.⁵ So the landlord can ask for the property back and unpaid rent in one action rather than filing separate suits.

Getting the Tenant Out After Judgment

Winning doesn’t automatically clear the property. The landlord has to apply for a writ of possession. Once issued, law enforcement carries out the physical removal if the tenant still hasn’t left. A tenant who re-enters after being removed can be held in contempt, and the court can issue additional writs as many times as needed to enforce the judgment.⁵

There’s one safety valve for tenants in nonpayment cases. If the tenant pays all accrued rent and posts a bond set by the court, the writ can be suspended.⁷ Miss a single payment during the appeal and the stay comes off and the writ goes into effect. It’s not a way to permanently avoid eviction. It only works if the tenant can catch up and stay current.

What a Tenant Can End Up Owing

The judgment can go well beyond losing the apartment. The court can award the landlord actual damages plus reasonable attorney fees for the tenant’s noncompliance with the rental agreement.² In practice that generally means:

Unpaid rent through the date of eviction.
The landlord’s attorney fees for the case.
Property damage beyond normal wear and tear.
Court costs, filing fees, and service of process charges.

Whatever the judgment amount comes to, it’s enforceable like any other civil debt. That can lead to wage garnishment or liens.

Appealing an Eviction Judgment

A tenant who loses in district court can appeal to circuit court within seven days.⁵ Filing alone doesn’t stop the eviction. To stay in the property during the appeal, the tenant has to pay the circuit court clerk all rent accrued since the lawsuit was filed and keep paying rent as it comes due. The tenant also has to post a bond set by the court to cover any damages the landlord might suffer from the delay.⁷

Miss a rent payment during the appeal and the landlord can ask the circuit court to lift the stay and issue the writ. Once the case is on appeal, the circuit court has to schedule it for trial within 60 days.⁵ The bond-and-rent requirement is the part that catches most tenants off guard. An appeal without the bond just means the eviction proceeds while the appeal grinds forward.

Defenses Worth Raising

Defective Notice

Often the strongest defense is the simplest one: the landlord didn’t follow the notice rules. If the notice didn’t state the amount owed, didn’t give the full seven-day cure period, or wasn’t properly delivered, the whole case can be dismissed. Courts take these requirements seriously because the notice is what gives the landlord the right to sue in the first place.²

Retaliatory Eviction

Alabama prohibits a landlord from evicting a tenant, raising rent, or cutting services in retaliation for protected activities. Those include a complaint to a government agency about building or housing code violations affecting health and safety, a complaint to the landlord about failure to maintain habitable conditions, or the tenant’s involvement in a tenant organization.⁸ The defense has limits. A landlord can still evict if the tenant caused the code violation, owes back rent, or has other material lease violations, even when the timing looks suspicious.

Landlord’s Failure to Maintain the Property

Alabama requires landlords to keep rentals habitable, which includes maintaining plumbing, electrical, heating, and air-conditioning systems, keeping common areas clean and safe, and supplying running water and reasonable hot water.⁹ Where a landlord has neglected these obligations, a tenant can raise that noncompliance as part of the defense. Its strength depends on how bad the maintenance failures are and whether the tenant contributed to the problem, since the statute doesn’t protect a tenant whose own negligence caused the condition.

Discrimination

Under the federal Fair Housing Act, a landlord cannot evict based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability.¹⁰ If the eviction is pretextual and the real reason is discriminatory, that’s a defense to the unlawful detainer and can also support a separate fair housing complaint with HUD.

What Landlords Cannot Do

No matter how frustrating a holdover tenant is, Alabama flatly bars landlords from taking possession outside the court process. A landlord cannot change the locks, remove a tenant’s belongings, or shut off essential services like heat, water, electricity, or gas to force the tenant out.¹¹ The only exceptions are genuine abandonment or surrender of the property. A tenant subjected to an illegal lockout or utility shutoff can pursue legal remedies against the landlord.

The Record Afterward

An eviction judgment doesn’t disappear when the tenant moves out. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, tenant screening companies can report the eviction for up to seven years.¹² During that window, future landlords running background checks will see it, and many automatically reject applicants with any eviction history.

Beyond the credit report, an unpaid judgment from the case stays on public court records indefinitely in Alabama unless satisfied. A tenant who pays the judgment can sometimes negotiate a satisfaction of judgment from the landlord, but the underlying court file remains public either way.

1
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 6-6-310 – Definitions
2
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 35-9A-421 – Noncompliance with Rental Agreement; Failure to Pay Rent
3
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 35-9A-441
4
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 6-6-330 – Jurisdiction
5
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 35-9A-461 – Landlord’s Action for Eviction, Rent, Monetary Damages, or Other Relief
6
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 6-6-332 – Process – Form of Notice
7
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 6-6-351 – Writs of Restitution or Possession – Suspension Upon Payment of Rent by Defendant
8
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 35-9A-501 – Retaliatory Conduct Prohibited
9
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 35-9A-204 – Landlord to Maintain Premises
10
HUD.gov / U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Housing Discrimination Under the Fair Housing Act
11
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 35-9A-427
12
Consumer Advice. Tenant Background Checks and Your Rights