Kentucky related & miscellaneous statutes

Many states put a clock on recorded restrictions. Kentucky put a clock on something else and then expressly exempted covenants from it. This is the single most useful thing on this page for an owner arguing that a 1968 subdivision restriction has run out of time.

What does expire. A fee simple subject to a right of entry for condition broken becomes a fee simple absolute if the contingency does not occur within thirty years of the instrument creating it (§ 381.219, for interests created after July 1, 1960). Every possibility of reverter and right of entry created before July 1, 1960 ceased to be valid or enforceable thirty years after its instrument, unless a “Declaration of Intention to Preserve Restrictions on the Use of Land” was recorded with the county clerk before July 1, 1965 (§ 381.221).

And then § 381.222 takes the ordinary covenant back out. Neither section applies to a possibility of reverter or right of entry in a deed, gift or grant from the Commonwealth or a political subdivision; to a case where both the present and the succeeding interest are for public, charitable or religious purposes; to leases, easements, rights of way, mortgages or trusts; to communication, transmission or transportation lines; to a public highway, to a right to take minerals, to a charge for support during a person's life — “or any restrictive covenant without right of entry or reverter.”

Read that last clause slowly. An ordinary subdivision covenant — no fences over six feet, no commercial use, no boats in the driveway — is a restrictive covenant that carries no right of entry or reverter. It is therefore outside both thirty-year rules. No provision in the property, conveyancing or limitations chapters switches an ordinary covenant off by the passage of time — Kentucky has no marketable-record-title act cutting off recorded restrictions.

What does run is the clock on suing. An action on a written contract executed after July 15, 2014 must be brought within ten years of accrual, as must an action for relief not otherwise provided for by statute (§ 413.160). An action “upon a liability created by statute, when no other time is fixed by the statute creating the liability”, and an action “for an injury to the rights of the plaintiff, not arising on contract and not otherwise enumerated”, must be brought within five years (§ 413.120(2), (6)). Which one governs a particular covenant claim, and when it accrued, is a lawyer's question — but the covenant itself does not die of old age.

Since April 11, 2012: “Private transfer fee obligations, whether recorded or not, shall be prohibited and any contract, covenant, or other instrument that attempts to create a private transfer fee obligation shall be void and unenforceable as against public policy” (§ 382.794(1)). A “private transfer fee obligation” is an obligation under a recorded declaration or covenant, or under any other contractual agreement or promise, whether or not recorded, requiring payment of a fee on a later transfer (§ 382.792(3)).

The remedy has teeth. Anyone who records or enters into such an agreement in their own favour is liable for all damages, including the fee itself, and for all attorney fees, expenses and costs incurred by a party to the transfer or a mortgagee in recovering it or in an action to quiet title. Where an agent acted for a principal, liability falls on the principal, not the agent. And any provision purporting to waive a buyer's rights under the section is void (§ 382.794(2), (3)).

Now the qualifier that matters most to an association, and it is explicit. “Private transfer fee” does not include “[a]ny fee, charge, assessment, dues, fine, contribution, or other amount payable to a homeowners', condominium, cooperative, mobile home, or property owners' association pursuant to a declaration or covenant or law applicable to such association, including but not limited to fees or charges payable for estoppel letters or certificates issued by the association or its authorized agent” (§ 382.792(2)(g)). Ordinary assessments, dues, fines and resale-certificate fees are outside the ban. So is an amount payable under a covenant solely to a nonprofit or charitable organization for cultural, educational, charitable, recreational, environmental or conservation activities benefiting the property or the community (§ 382.792(2)(h)) — the community-foundation model.

A separate disclosure duty rides on top. Any contract for the sale of real property that obligates the buyer to pay a fee to the seller on a later resale must contain a conspicuous provision disclosing the obligation, describing it, and stating that private transfer fee obligations are prohibited by § 382.794. A contract that does not comply “shall be void”, is unenforceable by the seller, exposes the buyer to no liability, and requires the seller to return all deposits. If the obligation surfaces only after closing, the buyer may recover the amount paid with interest or the difference in market value, plus fees and costs — and a waiver of any of it is void (§ 382.796).

This is new law — 2024 Ky. Acts ch. 150, effective July 15, 2024 — and it is not on any of the three property-Act pages, because it sits outside all three section ranges.

If a planned community “whether active or inactive” fails to maintain any infrastructure, common area, storm water detention or retention area, or other facility that it is legally obligated to maintain”, any city in which the community is located may petition the Circuit Court for the appointment of a receiver to manage the affairs of the homeowners' association (§ 381.803(2)). The city must serve notice on the community's governing authority and on each owner. If the petition succeeds, the city “shall be entitled to reimbursement of all costs, fees, and reasonable attorney's fees, as approved by the court.”

The receiver steps into the board's shoes completely. It has “all the authority granted to the governing authority of the planned community by its governing documents, including the ability to impose and collect fees” in conformance with those documents, and may contract for ongoing renovation, maintenance and upkeep. It recovers its own reasonable costs and fees as the court approves (§ 381.803(3)). If the city has already spent money repairing the infrastructure or curing code violations the association was responsible for, it may seek reimbursement from the receiver (§ 381.803(4)).

“City” is defined broadly — any city, consolidated local government, urban-county government or unified local government (§ 381.803(1)(a)).

Watch the definition, because it is not the same one as in the Act. Section 381.803(1)(b) defines “planned community” for this section as a group of residential dwellings, excluding condominiums, of individual lots where a deed, common plan or other legal document requires that all owners become members of a homeowners' association, or that owners or the association hold or lease property or facilities for the benefit of all owners, or that owners support facilities by membership fees. That is a different test from KRS 381.785(13) on the Planned Community Act page — and the phrase “whether active or inactive” means a dormant association is squarely within reach.

Kentucky protects association board members twice over, from two different chapters, on two different tests. Merging them is the mistake.

Shield one — the corporation statute, and it is broad. Any action or failure to act as a director “shall not be the basis for monetary damages or injunctive relief” unless the director breached the standards of § 273.215 and, for damages, the breach “constitutes willful misconduct or wanton or reckless disregard for human rights, safety or property” — and, in an action for monetary damages, the plaintiff bears the burden of proving both elements by clear and convincing evidence and of proving the breach was the legal cause of the damages (§ 273.215(6)). Injunctive relief needs only the breach in (5)(a). Note that it blocks injunctive relief as well as damages, and that it applies to a director of any nonprofit corporation under the chapter. Section 273.229 does the same for officers with discretionary authority.

Shield two — the civil damages chapter, and it is narrower than it looks. “Any person who serves as a director, officer, volunteer or trustee of a nonprofit organization qualified as a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code… and who is not compensated for such services on a salary or prorated equivalent basis, shall be immune from civil liability” for any act or omission resulting in damage or injury occurring on or after July 15, 1988, “if such person was acting in good faith and within the scope of his official functions and duties, unless such damage or injury was caused by the willful or wanton misconduct of such person” (§ 411.200).

Two conditions in that sentence do real work. The organisation must be qualified as tax-exempt under section 501(c) — and many homeowners' associations are not tax-exempt at all, filing instead as taxable corporations. And the person must be uncompensated. A paid board member, or a director of an association that has no 501(c) determination, does not get this immunity. Check your association's federal tax status before relying on § 411.200; § 273.215 carries no such condition.

And a third layer is optional. Your articles of incorporation may eliminate or limit a director's personal liability to the corporation for monetary damages — but not liability to anyone else — and not for a transaction where the director's personal financial interest conflicts with the corporation's, for acts not in good faith or involving intentional misconduct or a known violation of law, or for a transaction from which the director derived an improper personal benefit (§ 273.248(1)). Those three cannot be drafted away, and no such provision reaches conduct that occurred before it took effect (§ 273.248(2)).

Kentucky's Open Records Act and Open Meetings Act each define “public agency” for themselves, and the definitions are not the same. Reading one and assuming the other is the trap.

Neither reaches an ordinary homeowners' association. Both lists are built from government bodies: state and local officers, departments, boards, commissions and authorities; legislative boards; county and city governing bodies, school district boards, special district boards and municipal corporations; agencies created by or pursuant to statute, ordinance or other legislative act. A private nonprofit corporation formed by a developer to run a subdivision is none of those.

Both Acts do have a capture rule that could catch an unusual association. Each reaches any entity where the majority of its governing body is appointed by a public agency, by a member or employee of one, or by any combination (§ 61.870(1)(i); § 61.805(2)(f)). If a city appoints most of your board, you are inside both.

The difference that matters to an association is the money limb, and it exists only in the Open Records Act. Section 61.870(1)(h) reaches “[a]ny body which, within any fiscal year, derives at least twenty-five percent (25%) of its funds expended by it in the Commonwealth of Kentucky from state or local authority funds” — excluding funds received as compensation for goods or services under a contract obtained through a public competitive procurement process. There is no equivalent paragraph in § 61.805(2). So a community association that crossed the twenty-five percent line in a fiscal year could owe open-records duties without its board meetings becoming open meetings.

And even then, only part of it opens. For a body captured by the funding limb, “public record” does not include records “that are not related to functions, activities, programs, or operations funded by state or local authority” (§ 61.870(2)). The publicly funded activity opens; the rest of the association does not.

Where your actual records right comes from. Not here — from KRS 381.795 in a planned community, KRS 381.9197 in a condominium, KRS 273.233 if the association is an incorporated nonprofit, or KRS 273A.110 if it never incorporated.

Searching every section of KRS Chapter 367 held in our source folder for “debt collect” returns nothing. Kentucky has not enacted a state analogue of the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and there is no state licensing or conduct code for collection agencies in this chapter. If an association's collector is harassing you, the statute to reach for is the federal FDCPA.

What Kentucky has instead is the Consumer Protection Act, KRS 367.110 to 367.300. Its operative sentence is one line: “Unfair, false, misleading, or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce are hereby declared unlawful” — and “unfair shall be construed to mean unconscionable” (§ 367.170).

An association is a “person” under it. Section 367.110(1) defines “person” to include corporations, trusts, partnerships, incorporated or unincorporated associations, and any other legal entity. “Trade” and “commerce” cover the advertising, offering for sale or distribution of any services and any property, “tangible or intangible, real, personal or mixed” (§ 367.110(2)).

But the private right of action has a gate on it. Section 367.220(1) gives the action to “[a]ny person who purchases or leases goods or services primarily for personal, family or household purposes” and thereby suffers an ascertainable loss. Whether an owner's relationship with their association is a purchase or lease of goods or services within that sentence is a question a Kentucky attorney has to answer on your facts; this page does not answer it.

If the action does lie, the terms are good. Actual damages and such equitable relief as the court thinks proper; punitive damages are expressly not foreclosed; and the court “may award, to the prevailing party… reasonable attorney's fees and costs” — which cuts both ways (§ 367.220(1), (3)). The clock is two years after the violation, or one year after any Attorney General action terminates, whichever is later (§ 367.220(5)). The clerk must mail a copy of the complaint, and of any judgment, to the Attorney General (§ 367.220(2)).

This is the provision that ends most Kentucky condominium construction-defect claims before they start, and boards routinely discover it too late.

No action — “whether based upon contract or sounding in tort” — for damages resulting from any deficiency in the construction components, design, planning, supervision, inspection, or construction of any improvement to real property, or for injury to property or person or wrongful death arising out of such a deficiency, “shall be brought against any person after the expiration of seven (7) years following the substantial completion of such improvement” (§ 413.135(1)).

“Substantial completion” is defined, and it is earlier than you would guess. It “shall be construed to mean the date upon which the owner of the structure, project, or facility first entered upon the occupancy or commenced the use thereof” (§ 413.135(4)). Not the certificate of occupancy for the last building, not turnover of the association — first occupancy or first use.

A narrow late-injury extension, with a hard ceiling. If the injury occurs during the seventh year, an action may be brought within one year of the injury — “but in no event may such an action be brought more than eight (8) years after the substantial completion of construction” (§ 413.135(2)). And nothing in the section extends any other statutory limitation period (§ 413.135(3)); a shorter clock still applies on its own terms.

“Person” is broad — individual, corporation, partnership, business trust, unincorporated association or joint stock company (§ 413.135(4)) — so it protects builders, designers and subcontractors alike.

A separate five-year rule for personal injury against a builder. An action for personal injuries against the builder of a home or other improvements must be brought within five years, and “shall be deemed to accrue at the time of original occupancy of the improvements which the builder caused to be erected” (§ 413.120(13)) — again keyed to occupancy, not to discovery.

Practical consequence for a new association. The seven-year clock is usually well advanced by the time a board is turned over by the declarant. Under the Condominium Act, declarant control ends at the earliest of four triggers with an outer limit of seven years after the first unit conveyance (§ 381.9169(4)) — which can be the same year § 413.135 closes.

The Planned Community Act subordinates the association's lien to this one by name, at KRS 381.799(2)(b)1. Here is what it actually is.

Where a person is found by a nonappealable final order, or by a final judgment, to have committed a violation of a local government ordinance, the local government has a lien on that person's property for all civil fines assessed and all charges and fees incurred in enforcing the ordinance, including abatement costs. An affidavit of the code enforcement officer is prima facie evidence of the amount and of the regularity of the proceedings (§ 65.8835(1)).

The priority is the point. The lien is recorded with the county clerk, is notice to all persons from the time of recording, bears interest until paid, and — subject to § 65.8836 — “shall take precedence over all other liens, except state, county, school board, and city taxes”. It continues for ten years from the final order or judgment and may be enforced by foreclosure (§ 65.8835(1)(a)–(e)).

It is not only a lien. The person found to have committed the violation is personally responsible for the whole amount, and the local government may sue for it “and shall have the same remedies as provided for the recovery of a debt” (§ 65.8835(2)). Nothing in the section otherwise affects rights between the owner and holders of security interests (§ 65.8835(3)).

Why an association should care twice over. If the association owns common area with a code violation, this lien attaches to it — but its priority over previously recorded liens is conditional. Under § 65.8836(1) and (3)(b) the local government keeps that super-priority only if it runs the required lienholder-notification system, and a prior lienholder who corrects the violation or pays the fines, charges, fees and abatement costs within forty-five days of notification defeats it; the lien then takes precedence only over subsequent liens (§ 65.8836(3)(c)). And where a city has spent money curing violations the association was legally obliged to fix, § 381.803(4) lets it recover from a court-appointed receiver as well.

This is the clearest example in Kentucky law of a pattern worth recognising — the state limits what the local government may do, and then says in terms that the private restriction is untouched.

What the city loses. A local government “shall not adopt or enforce any zoning regulation, ordinance, or other requirement” that excludes qualified manufactured homes from any residential zone where single-family residences are permitted, that discriminates against them, or that imposes conflicting or multiple foundation requirements (§ 100.348(3)). Any regulation that violates the section “is void and unenforceable” (§ 100.348(8)).

A “qualified manufactured home” has four tests (§ 100.348(2)(d)): manufactured no more than five years before installation with transport parts removed; affixed to a permanent foundation, connected to the appropriate facilities, and installed as KRS 227.570 requires; at least twenty feet wide at its narrowest, or two stories with the main door facing the street; and a minimum of nine hundred square feet of living area. A narrower or smaller home is treated as a qualified manufactured home for the purposes of subsections (3) and (4) only, and only if all three conditions are met: the lot's setbacks or dimensions would not reasonably accommodate a conforming home; the home is the maximum width and square footage that could reasonably fit while complying with all setbacks and other zoning regulations; and it otherwise meets every other qualified-manufactured-home requirement (§ 100.348(5)).

What the city keeps. It may adopt “compatibility standards” designed to ensure the home is compatible in assessed value with existing housing within one-eighth of a mile — but only across six listed features: roof pitch; square footage of livable space; type and quality of exterior finishing materials; foundation skirting; existence and type of attached structures; and setbacks, lot dimensions and orientation no stricter than for site-built homes in the same zone. Architectural standards applied to qualified manufactured homes “must be equivalent to, and not more stringent than” those applied to other single-family homes in the zone (§ 100.348(4)).

What “installed in compliance with KRS 227.570” actually means. That section is not a formality. Every installation of a manufactured or mobile home must be performed by an installer certified by the Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction, and “[i]n accordance with the manufacturer's instructions, if available, or the current ANSI standard or the generally accepted industry standard” adopted by regulation (§ 227.570(2)). The certified installer must apply for a certified installer seal before installing (§ 227.570(3)), and the installation of a new manufactured home is inspected, with the retailer paying an inspection fee that may not exceed one hundred fifty dollars and may rise by no more than ten percent a year (§ 227.570(4), (5)). So a “qualified manufactured home” under § 100.348 is one installed by a state-certified installer under a certified installer seal and to the manufacturer's or ANSI standard — and, if it is a new home, one whose installation is also inspected. That is the answer to the objection that these homes are unregulated.

And then the sentence that decides it for an HOA owner. “This section shall not be construed to affect, modify, or abolish restrictions contained in recorded deeds, covenants, or developers' subdivision restrictions.” (§ 100.348(6)). Your city may be forbidden to exclude a manufactured home; your declaration is not. If your covenant bans them, KRS 100.348 is not your argument.

Kentucky has one hard electrical-safety mandate for pools, and it comes with an unusual anti-exemption clause — but whether it reaches your association’s pool turns on a defined phrase most people would read the wrong way.

The rule. “A ground-fault circuit-interrupter shall be installed on all existing and new fountains and pools that are located in a public place within the Commonwealth”, to National Electrical Code standards adopted by the Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction (§ 227.810(1)). And then the part that has no equivalent elsewhere in this chapter: “A state or local government agency shall not promulgate an administrative regulation or ordinance to exempt any fountain or pool located in a public place from the required installation of a ground-fault circuit-interrupter, regardless of the age of construction of the fountain or pool.” No grandfathering, and no local waiver.

“Pool” is defined very widely — “all swimming, wading, therapeutic, decorative, ornamental, display, and reflection pools; hot tubs; spas; and hydromassage bathtubs, whether permanently installed or storable” (§ 227.800(4)). A decorative fountain at the entrance to a subdivision is a “fountain”; the clubhouse hot tub is a “pool”.

“Public place” is the limit, and it is narrower than it sounds. It means “any building, structure, or location that is accessible to the general public for business, civic, educational, political, religious, recreational, social, or travel purposes” (§ 227.800(5)). An amenity open only to members and their guests is not obviously accessible to the general public, and the chapter says nothing about association pools either way. Whether a particular community’s pool is in a “public place” is a factual question this page cannot answer — but note the shape, because it is the same one that appears at KRS 344.130(1), where a genuine private club is taken outside the public-accommodations rule of the Civil Rights Act.

The practical reading for a board. If your pool or fountain is open to the public in any real sense, § 227.810 applies, nobody can exempt it, and the age of the installation is irrelevant. If it is genuinely members-only, the statutory mandate may not reach you — which is a reason to install the protection as a matter of ordinary care, not a reason to skip it.

KRS 381.787(1) lets a planned community association be either a nonprofit corporation or an unincorporated nonprofit association under KRS Chapter 273A. If yours is the second, the Nonprofit Corporation Acts do not govern it — this chapter does, and its rules are different in ways that matter.

Records: a proper-purpose and materiality test, with the burden on the association. On reasonable notice and for a proper purpose, a member or manager may inspect and copy, during regular operating hours at a reasonable location the association specifies, “any record maintained by the association regarding its activities, financial condition, and other circumstances, to the extent the information is material to the member's or manager's rights and duties under the governing principles” (§ 273A.110(1)). Copying costs are limited to labor and materials (§ 273A.110(2)).

The governing principles may impose reasonable limits — but the association has to justify them. “Except as to limitations set forth in written governing principles to which a member or manager requesting information has assented, the association bears the burden of proof in demonstrating the reasonableness of any restrictions imposed” (§ 273A.110(3)). Compare KRS 273.233, where an incorporated association's documents may abolish the inspection right outright with no burden to discharge. On records, the unincorporated form is the stronger one. A former member or manager keeps access to information from their own period of service, sought in good faith (§ 273A.110(4)).

The liability shield is conditional on a filing. A debt, obligation or liability of the association is solely the association's, and not a member's or manager's merely because they act as one — but only if the association “has filed a certificate of association with the Secretary of State”, and only as to liabilities accruing or arising after that filing (§ 273A.030(1)). Personal negligence, wrongful acts and misconduct are never covered (§ 273A.030(2)). An unincorporated association that never filed a certificate gives its members no statutory shield at all.

Money. No dividends or distributions to members or managers — but reasonable compensation for services, reimbursement of expenses, benefits conferred in conformity with the nonprofit purposes, repurchase of a membership and repayment of a capital contribution where the governing principles allow, and distributions on winding up, are all permitted (§ 273A.115).

Absence is worth as much as presence when you are deciding whether to fight a rule, so these were checked by searching every section held in our Kentucky source folder rather than by memory.

No solar-rights statute. The word solar appears in exactly one place: § 381.200(2), which provides that “[a] solar easement may be obtained for the purpose of ensuring access to direct sunlight”, must be created in writing, is an interest in real property subject to the ordinary recording and conveyancing rules, and “shall not be acquired by prescription.” That is a statute for making a voluntary agreement with a neighbour. It does not override a covenant restricting solar panels, and Kentucky has no statute that does.

No flag-display statute, no clothesline statute, no rain-barrel statute, no electric-vehicle-charging statute and no short-term-rental statute reaching private covenants. Each was searched for across the corpus and returns nothing applicable to a community association.

No state debt-collection practices act — see the card above.

And no state regulator of associations. Read across all five Kentucky statute pages, no chapter creates an agency with jurisdiction over a homeowners' or condominium association, a registry of associations, or an administrative complaint process. The Secretary of State handles corporate filings; the Attorney General may sue to dissolve a corporation (KRS 273.320) or bring a fair-housing pattern-or-practice action (KRS 344.665); a city may seek a receiver (§ 381.803). None of those is a complaints desk.

The one covenant Kentucky voids outright. Governing documents “shall not prohibit the outdoor display of political yard signs” within the statutory window, and § 381.800(2) makes any contrary provision of any existing governing document void — retroactively and statewide. It is set out in full on the Planned Community Act page.