Kentucky · Law guide

Kentucky HOA law guide.

Every Kentucky statute that governs community associations, hosted in full on HOPB with the official text. Kentucky now has an HOA statute — the Planned Community Act, in force since June 2023 — and a great deal of advice still in circulation predates it. Which of the three property Acts applies to you is a question of what you own and when it was created; the corporation statute then supplies most of the procedure. This index is how the pieces fit together, and which one answers your question.

5 statutes Full text on-site KRS through the 2026 Regular Session
Which statute governs you

Two questions decide it: what do you own, and when was it created?

Kentucky keeps its three community statutes in one chapter, KRS 381, and they do not overlap. A planned community — lots, covenants and an association — is governed by the Planned Community Act, whose own definition at KRS 381.785(13)(a) excludes condominiums. A condominium created after January 1, 2011 is governed by the Condominium Act. A condominium created before that date is governed by the Horizontal Property Law — and here is the part that catches people out: nothing inside the Horizontal Property Law says when it stopped applying. The cut-off is in the other Act, at KRS 381.9103(5), and the same section sends twelve of the Condominium Act's sections back to reach older condominiums as well. So an owner in a 1985 condominium reads two pages, not one.

01 Kentucky Planned Community ActKRS 381.785 to 381.801, 17 sections, created by 2023 Ky. Acts ch. 23 effective June 29, 2023 and amended in 2025. This is the statute Kentucky spent decades without. It covers the board and the end of declarant control, budgets and assessments, meetings, notice and quorum, open board meetings, standards for directors, insurance, financial records and reports, and the association's lien. Read the scope section before anything else. Section 381.786(1) reaches “all planned communities in this Commonwealth” — but “[u]nless specifically stated” it does not invalidate a provision already in a document recorded before June 29, 2023. Exactly two provisions do specifically state: § 381.797(8), which overrides caps on assessments and annual increases, and § 381.800(2), which makes any contrary political-yard-sign provision of any existing governing document void. Everything else operates going forward only. Two more limits: a development with no homeowners' association is outside the Act (§ 381.786(3); § 381.785(13)(b)2.), as is one whose sole common facility for sharing maintenance expenses is a roadway (§ 381.785(13)(b)1.). And the lien is not a super-lien — it is prior to other liens except taxes, governmental charges and anything recorded before it (§ 381.799(2)(b)), so an ordinary purchase-money first mortgage outranks it. The board may withhold five enumerated categories of record (§ 381.795(2)). Verified from reading all 17 sections: the Act creates no state regulator, no complaint process and no agency with jurisdiction. 02 Kentucky Condominium ActKRS 381.9101 to 381.9207, all 55 sections live. Kentucky's version of the Uniform Condominium Act, created by 2010 Ky. Acts ch. 97 effective January 1, 2011 and substantially amended in 2012. Its deepest difference from the newer HOA statute is that you cannot sign these rights away: § 381.9107 provides that the Act's provisions “may not be varied by agreement, and rights conferred… may not be waived” except where it expressly says otherwise. On records it is also the more generous of the two — all financial and other records “reasonably available for examination by any unit owner” with no enumerated exceptions (§ 381.9197(1)), against five withholdable categories in the Planned Community Act. Scope: condominiums created after January 1, 2011 (§ 381.9103(1)); for older ones, twelve named sections plus § 381.9105 apply “only to the extent of events or circumstances occurring after January 1, 2011” and “do not invalidate existing provisions of the declaration, bylaws, plats, or plans” — with two provisos: § 381.9103(4) lets the board rely on the whole Act notwithstanding anything contrary in a pre-2011 declaration where a public health or safety issue is at stake, and § 381.9103(3) lets owners of 100 percent of the votes elect the whole Act in. Four qualifiers: the lien is not a super-lien and is extinguished after five years without enforcement (§ 381.9193(2), (5)); fines require notice and an opportunity to be heard (§ 381.9167(1)(k)); an emergency assessment to repair an emergency condition needs a sealed engineer's or architect's opinion — one levied to comply with a judicial order under (3)(a) does not (§ 381.9167(3)(b)); and declarant control ends at the earliest of four triggers, not at seven years (§ 381.9169(4)). 03 Kentucky Horizontal Property LawKRS 381.805 to 381.910, 26 sections of which 22 are live and four repealed. Kentucky's original condominium statute, on the books since 1962 and rewritten in 1974. It still governs condominiums created before January 1, 2011 — unless the owners have elected into the Condominium Act under § 381.9103(3) — — a fact you can only learn from KRS 381.9103(5), because this Act never says it. It works in a different arithmetic. A unit owner's share of the common elements is the floor area of the unit over the floor area of the whole property (§ 381.830(1)(a)), and “[m]ajority of co-owners” means owners of fifty-one percent (51%) of the floor area — not of the units (§ 381.810(9)). There is no association, and no board the statute creates or requires: the “council of co-owners” simply is all the co-owners. The most important thing on that page is a repeal. The Act's own records section, § 381.865, was repealed by 2012 Ky. Acts ch. 99 — the same act that amended § 381.9197, which is one of the sections that reaches back. So an owner in an older Kentucky condominium asks for records under KRS 381.9197, not § 381.865. Two further points a summary drops: the lien priority test here differs from the modern one, yielding to all sums unpaid on first mortgages of record (§ 381.883); and rebuilding is not compulsory where two-thirds or more of a building is destroyed, if the documents provide compensation and redistribution (§ 381.890(3)).
The entity behind it

Something has to hold the property, sign the contracts and take the vote — and that decides most of the procedure.

Kentucky's property Acts assume a corporate body and mostly do not supply one. KRS 381.787(1) requires a planned community association to be either a nonprofit corporation under KRS Chapter 273 or an unincorporated nonprofit association under KRS Chapter 273A. KRS 381.9165 permits a condominium association to be a for-profit corporation, a nonprofit corporation or an unincorporated association. And the Horizontal Property Law requires no entity at all. So for a large share of Kentucky associations the meetings, notice, quorum, proxy, board, officer and records rules live in the corporation statute rather than in the property statute — and if yours never incorporated, in chapter 273A instead.

04 Kentucky Nonprofit Corporation ActsKRS 273.161 to 273.390, 131 sections of which 80 are live. The short title is plural. Nothing in the chapter mentions homeowners — the words homeowner, covenant, common area and condominium appear zero times across all 131 section numbers — but it is where most Kentucky associations actually live. The single most important sentence is the last one in § 273.233. Members may inspect and copy all books and records for any proper purpose at any reasonable time — and then: “The member's right of inspection may be abolished or limited by the corporation's articles of incorporation or bylaws.” The corporate inspection right is a default your documents can switch off, which is why an owner cites KRS 381.795 or KRS 381.9197 instead. Four more that surprise people. The board, not the members, controls the bylaws unless the documents say otherwise (§ 273.191). There is no statutory procedure for removing a director — § 273.211(4) points only to whatever your documents provide. A director may never vote by proxy, whatever the documents say (§ 273.217(4)). And a Circuit Court may order a special board meeting on the application of one-third of the incumbent directors (§ 273.223(4)). Suing the board is hard by design: § 273.215(5) and (6) bar both damages and injunctive relief unless the director breached that section's standards — and for monetary damages add that the breach be willful misconduct or wanton or reckless disregard, proved by clear and convincing evidence. Injunctive relief carries neither extra hurdle. The nearest thing to a statutory cause of action is § 273.330(1)(a), where a member or director may sue over acts that are “illegal, oppressive or fraudulent” or assets “misapplied or wasted” — but the remedy that section is built around is liquidation, which is a heavy thing to ask for.
What a board cannot do to you

Discrimination is the one area where Kentucky law reaches past your declaration.

None of the property Acts and none of the corporation statute says anything about discrimination on a protected characteristic. The Kentucky Civil Rights Act does, and it exists in part to carry out federal fair housing policy inside the state (§ 344.020(1)(a)). Read it alongside the federal Fair Housing Act rather than instead of it — and note that § 344.020(4) says nothing in the chapter repeals any other Kentucky law on discrimination because of familial status, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age forty and over, or disability.

05 Kentucky Civil Rights ActKRS Chapter 344, 79 sections of which 78 are live. In housing, § 344.360 protects race, color, religion, sex, familial status, disability and national origin — and § 344.360(11) is the provision an association's rules run into: refusing a reasonable modification at the disabled person's expense, or refusing “to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services” where necessary to give equal opportunity to use and enjoy a home. That is the sentence a blanket no-pets rule, an assigned-parking rule or an architectural bar on a ramp collides with. Two scope points this page will not fudge. First, the protected-class list is not uniform across the chapter — § 344.370 adds age, § 344.120 drops sex and familial status, and § 344.400 drops disability and familial status. Read the list in the section you are relying on. Second, § 344.360 is addressed to a real estate operator, broker or salesman — or anyone employed by or acting on behalf of one, not to “any person”, so whether it reaches your association directly turns on the § 344.010(8) definition — a lawyer's question. What is not in doubt is § 344.280(5), which is addressed to “a person” — associations included — and makes it unlawful to coerce, intimidate, threaten or interfere with anyone exercising rights protected by § 344.360. Two clocks: a complaint to the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights within one year, or a Circuit Court action within two years — and you do not have to go to the commission first. Punitive damages are a court remedy only. One caution: KRS 344.010(4) excludes persons with current or past controlled-substance or alcohol abuse problems from the state definition of disability. That limits this chapter; the federal Act is separate, so speak to a lawyer rather than assuming you are unprotected.
Everything that is somewhere else

The provisions that decide the most common Kentucky arguments are not in any of the five statutes above.

They sit in chapters written for conveyancing, limitations of actions, civil damages, local code enforcement, planning and zoning, consumer protection, building safety and open government. The through-line, once you put them together, is that in Kentucky the covenant almost always survives: KRS 381.222 exempts a restrictive covenant without right of entry or reverter from the thirty-year cut-off that kills reverters and rights of entry, so an ordinary Kentucky covenant does not expire; KRS 100.348 voids a local ordinance excluding manufactured homes and then expressly preserves recorded covenants; and KRS 382.794 voids private transfer fees while KRS 382.792(2)(g) carves association assessments, dues, fines and estoppel fees straight back out.

06 Related & miscellaneous Kentucky statutesTwelve topics and five myth-busters, drawn from chapters 14A, 61, 65, 100, 227, 273, 273A, 344, 367, 381, 382, 411 and 413. Among them: a city's power to petition for a receiver over an association — active or inactive — that will not maintain its infrastructure (§ 381.803); the two director shields with different triggers, one of which (§ 411.200) requires 501(c) tax-exempt status and an uncompensated director; why your association is not a public agency under either the Open Records or the Open Meetings Act, and the twenty-five percent funding limb that exists in only one of them; the seven-year construction repose, measured from substantial completion — first occupancy or first use (§ 413.135(1), (4)); the local code-enforcement lien that outranks your association's (§ 65.8835); the stronger records right in KRS Chapter 273A, where the association bears the burden of justifying a restriction unless the member assented in writing to that limitation; and the ground-fault rule for pools in a public place, which no state or local government agency may waive (§ 227.810). It also records what Kentucky does not have, counted across the whole corpus rather than assumed: no solar-rights, flag, clothesline, rain-barrel, EV-charging or short-term-rental statute reaching covenants, no state debt-collection act, and no regulator of associations at all.

General information, not legal advice. Statutory references are to the Kentucky Revised Statutes as published by the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission, including enactments through the 2026 Regular Session; the statutes are amended every session, so confirm the current text against the official source.

← Kentucky HOA laws Related & miscellaneous laws →