Birmingham, Alabama Tenant changed lock on garage door

[Nancy Carr]

WE provide an apartment-size washer and dryer in our apartments because they are on a septic and we want to control how much waste water is going into The septic tank & field.  

We have a not-pleasant tenant who remove them and installed his own full-size set, then put ours in the garage and put his own lock on the door.  We no longer have access to the garage because of his own lock being on the door.  He says our washer and dryer are in there, but I cannot confirm that. 

We tried to talk to him about these things but he turned on a leaf blower while we were trying to talk to him and walked away saying we were too picky. 

This tenant has been a pain to work with all along and has 6 months left on his lease.

Can we serve a notice to quit for locking us out of our garage?   Or is there a different form? 

Thanks 

[Denise Evans]

Under Alabama law:

(1) Unless the lease provides otherwise, you do not have any rights of access during the lease term and cannot cut the lock and put on your own. There are limited exceptions.

(2) You can ask for permission to enter. Under the Alabama Uniform Residential Landlord Tenant Act, the tenant is not allowed to unreasonably deny permission. It's apparent to me he is being unreasonable. You can give him a Notice of Default and Opportunity to Cure, and describe the "cure" as allowing you access to confirm the storage of the w/d.  If he does not cure within the stated period, you can terminate and evict. The question is, do you want things to go that far?  If you give the notice and then he does not let you in and you do not terminate and evict, have you lost all credibility for future notices? That's what you have to think about.

(3) There are other exceptions for the "no access" rule, but they don't really apply to your situation.