Code of Alabama

Ala. Code § 11-42-21 (2026)

Annexation Proceedings.

✓ official Alabama Legislature (ALISON) text, current July 2026

Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section JustiaAla. Code CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar

(a) Whenever all of the owners of property located and contained within an area contiguous to the corporate limits of any incorporated municipality located in the state and the property does not lie within the corporate limits or police jurisdiction of any other municipality, shall sign and file a written petition with the city clerk of the municipality requesting that the property be annexed to the municipality, and the governing body of the municipality adopts an ordinance assenting to the annexation of the property to the municipality, the corporate limits of the municipality shall be extended and rearranged so as to embrace and include the property, and the property shall become a part of the corporate area of the municipality upon the date of the publication of the ordinance.

(b)(1) In the event any incorporated municipality’s police jurisdiction overlaps with the police jurisdiction of one or more other incorporated municipalities, the governing body of any one of the incorporated municipalities may exercise the authority of this article, in the overlapping portions of their police jurisdiction, to a boundary which is equidistant from the respective corporate limits of each of the incorporated municipalities which have overlapping police jurisdictions.

(2) If all of the owners of property located and contained within the area to be annexed sign and file a written petition with the city clerk of the incorporated municipality requesting that the property be annexed to the incorporated municipality, and the property is contiguous to the corporate limits of the incorporated municipality, and the governing body of the incorporated municipality adopts an ordinance assenting to the annexation of the property to the municipality, the corporate limits of the municipality shall be extended and rearranged so as to embrace and include the property and the property shall become part of the corporate area of the municipality upon the date of the publication of the ordinance.

(c) If an incorporated municipality intends to exercise its rights pursuant to subsection (b), but would have to perform more than one annexation pursuant to the equidistant rule provided by subsection (b) to acquire the entire parcel of property it intends to annex, the incorporated municipality may request that all of the municipalities whose police jurisdictions overlap assent to the annexation by adoption of a resolution of the governing body of each of the municipalities, and if the governing body of the annexing municipality adopts an ordinance assenting to the annexation of the property to the municipality, then the corporate limits of the municipality shall be extended and rearranged so as to embrace and include the property, and the property shall become a part of the corporate area of the municipality upon the date of the publication of the ordinance.

(d) The petition required by this section shall contain an accurate description of the property proposed to be annexed together with a map of the property showing its relationship to the corporate limits of the municipality to which the property is proposed to be annexed and the signatures of all of the owners of the property described. It shall be the duty of the governing body to file a description of the property annexed in the office of the judge of probate of the county in which the municipality is located.

(Acts 1971, No. 2228, p. 3585, §1; Acts 1981, No. 81-352, p. 507; Acts 1982, No. 82-507, p. 838, §1; Act 2021-459, §1.)

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 8 cases, 1985–2013 · leading case: City of Prattville v. City of Millbrook, 621 So. 2d 267 (Ala. 1993).

Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment

City of Prattville v. City of Millbrook, 621 So. 2d 267 (Ala. 1993). · cites it 8× ““ALLEGATIONS OP PLAINTIFF AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW “There are three methods by which a municipality may annex territory in Alabama. A city may annex property by legislative act, by an election in accordance with Ala.”

Fort Morgan Civic Ass'n v. City of Gulf Shores, 100 So. 3d 1042 (Ala. 2012). · cites it 3× “On March 25, 2003, Bob Riley, then governor of Alabama, and Barnett Lawley, then commissioner of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, submitted a petition on *1045 behalf of the State of Alabama formally requesting that the property be annexed into Gulf…”

City of Fultondale v. City of Birmingham, 507 So. 2d 489 (Ala. 1987). · cites it 2× “After the Fultondale and Trussvile annexation procedures were in progress, Birmingham adopted annexation ordinances pursuant to Ala.Code 1975, § 11-42-21. Under this section, Birmingham assented to U.”

City of Madison v. City of Huntsville, 555 So. 2d 755 (Ala. 1989). · cites it 6× ““As to the equidistant rule, Ala.Code 1975, § 11-42-21, prohibits annexing property which lies within the corporate limits or police jurisdiction of any other municipality.”

Dillard v. City of Foley, 926 F. Supp. 1053 (M.D. Ala. 1996). · cites it 3× “Second, annexation can occur pursuant to 1975 Alabama Code § 11-42-21 (Michie 1989) when all of the landowners in the area to be annexed submit a petition for annexation and the city council adopts an ordinance approving the annexation.”

City of Birmingham v. Wilkinson, 516 So. 2d 585 (Ala. 1987). · cites it 2× “1985), Tuskegee used an entirely different annexation authorization, § 11-42-21, which permits annexation by ordinance upon petition of all landowners.”

City of Tuskegee v. Lacey, 486 So. 2d 393 (Ala. 1985). · cites it 5× “The annexation proceeding at issue in this case was conducted pursuant to Code 1975, § 11-42-21, which provides in part: Whenever all of the owners of property located and contained within an area contiguous to the corporate limits of any incorporated municipality with a…”

City of Irondale v. City of Leeds, 122 So. 3d 1244 (Ala. 2013). · cites it 3× “Leeds argued that the Land Trust property was “not contiguous to any part of the corporate limits of Irondale” and that its annexation by Irondale was therefore improper because § 11-42-21, Ala.Code 1975, authorizes annexation by petition only when the subject property is…”

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.