Free Kentucky Landlord Forms
Every Kentucky landlord form we publish, organised by the stage of the tenancy it belongs to — and the question you have to answer before any of the deadlines mean anything: has your city or county adopted the Act?
Every form linked on this page is free, fillable in your browser, and downloadable as a PDF with no account, no membership and no paywall. Kentucky is a two-track state, and it is the only thing that really matters about Kentucky landlord law. The Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act at KRS 383.505 to 383.715 applies only where a city, county or urban-county government has adopted it. Everywhere else, an older and much thinner body of law governs.
The short version
- Check your jurisdiction first. In an adopting jurisdiction the Act governs; outside one, most of the rules below simply do not exist.
- Nonpayment (Act) — seven days, and the notice must state the nonpayment and the intention to terminate.
- Non-rent breach is 14 and 15, not 14 and 30. Fourteen is the earliest termination date; fifteen is the cure window.
- Entry — two days’ notice, at reasonable times.
- Deposits carry MUTUAL forfeitures — the landlord can lose everything, and so can the tenant.
- There is no deposit RETURN deadline in Kentucky. The thirty and sixty day figures everyone publishes are landlord-side retention mechanisms.
- First-class mail is not sufficient to serve a notice on a tenant. Hand delivery or registered or certified mail only.
- Local governments can no longer legislate here at all. A 2024 act preempts conflicting local landlord-tenant ordinances.
First: Which Track Are You On?
KRS 383.500 sets the whole structure in one paragraph:
“The General Assembly hereby authorizes cities, counties and urban-county governments to enact the provisions of the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act as set forth in KRS 383.505 to 383.705. If adopted, these provisions shall be adopted in their entirety and without amendment. No other ordinance shall be enacted by a city, county or urban-county government which relates to the subjects embraced in KRS 383.505 to 383.705.”
And KRS 383.195 confirms the other side of it in the statute’s own words: “In those jurisdictions where the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act is not in effect, a tenancy at will or by sufferance may be terminated by the landlord giving one (1) month’s notice, in writing, to the tenant requiring him to remove.”
What is confirmed by ordinance text
We were able to read the actual adopting ordinance for sixteen jurisdictions: Louisville and Jefferson County; Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government; Covington; Newport; Florence; Dayton; Ludlow; Taylor Mill; Bellevue; Bromley; Silver Grove; Campbell County; Fort Thomas; West Point; Oldham County; and Pulaski County.
The three in bold appear on no list circulating online. A further group — Georgetown, Southgate, Woodlawn, Melbourne and Alexandria — is asserted by a government office but we could not read the ordinance itself. And several names that appear on the usual lists could not be confirmed at all; one of them, Elsmere, turns out to have a rental licensing scheme rather than a URLTA adoption.
There is no authoritative current list, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. KRS 383.500 creates no registry. No statute, agency or court records adoptions. When the Legislative Research Commission itself needed the number for a bill’s fiscal note, it cited an advocacy nonprofit — and then contradicted itself in the next sentence. The list that circulates traces to a legal-aid client handout from August 2009, and it is wrong in both directions.
The interpretive rule that follows is important: absence from a code database is not evidence of non-adoption. Because KRS 383.500 compels adoption “in their entirety and without amendment”, many cities adopted by reference and never codified the text. Only the city clerk’s ordinance book resolves a given jurisdiction. Ring the clerk before you rely on either track.
The Notice Periods, Both Tracks
| Situation | Adopting jurisdiction (the Act) | Non-adopting jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|
| Nonpayment of rent | 7 days after written notice of the nonpayment and of the intention to terminate, KRS 383.660(2) | No statutory period exists. Governed by the lease’s forfeiture clause and common law |
| Non-rent breach | 14 days to the earliest termination date, 15 days to cure — see below, KRS 383.660(1) | No statutory cure-or-quit procedure at all |
| Repeat of substantially the same act within 6 months | 14 days, no cure right | — |
| Month-to-month | 30 days before the periodic rental date specified, either party, KRS 383.695 | One month’s written notice — and note it is landlord only; KRS 383.195 confers no tenant-side right |
| Week-to-week | 7 days, either party | No provision exists |
| Tenancy begun on termination of a written lease | 10 days — except no notice at all where the tenant is 10 or more days late on rent, KRS 383.695(3) | — |
The Rule Almost Every Kentucky Page Gets Wrong
Kentucky’s tenant-breach rule is 14 and 15 — not 14 and 30. KRS 383.660(1), verbatim: the landlord may deliver a written notice specifying the acts and omissions constituting the breach and that the agreement “will terminate upon a date not less than fourteen (14) days after receipt of the notice. If the breach is not remedied in fifteen (15) days, the rental agreement shall terminate as provided in the notice…”
So fourteen days is the earliest termination date, running from receipt; fifteen days is the cure window. And a tenant who adequately remedies “before the date specified in the notice” prevents termination altogether.
The “14 to cure, 30 to terminate” formula everyone publishes belongs to a different section — KRS 383.625(1), which is the LANDLORD-breach mirror provision. Kentucky deliberately inverted the standard uniform-act numbers for tenant breaches, and a great deal of published guidance has swapped them back.
The repeat rule sits in the same subsection: where substantially the same act or omission recurs within six months, the landlord may terminate on at least fourteen days’ written notice, with no cure right. Wilful noncompliance carries actual damages plus reasonable attorney’s fees.
Kentucky has FOUR different fourteen-day notices, and merging them is a real risk:
- the tenant-breach notice at KRS 383.660(1);
- the repeat-violation notice in the same subsection;
- KRS 383.665 — where the tenant fails to maintain, the landlord may enter, do the work, and bill it as rent on the next rent date;
- KRS 383.650 — fire or casualty substantially impairing enjoyment, where either party may terminate on fourteen days and the tenant may vacate immediately.
And there is a waiver trap worth pinning up. KRS 383.675: “Acceptance of rent with knowledge of a default by the tenant… constitutes a waiver of the landlord’s right to terminate the rental agreement for that breach, unless otherwise agreed after the breach has occurred.” Take the rent, lose the ground — unless you paper it afterwards. See our Kentucky eviction notice laws guide.
Every Kentucky Landlord Form, by Stage of the Tenancy
An alphabetical list is the least useful arrangement, because a landlord arrives knowing what has happened, not what the document is called. The index below is ordered by where you are in the tenancy.
Starting the tenancy
- Kentucky residential lease agreement — the master document. In an adopting jurisdiction it must not contain the terms KRS 383.570 prohibits, and in a non-adopting county it is doing nearly all the work by itself.
- Lead-based paint form — required by federal law, not Kentucky law, for any dwelling built before 1978.
- Move-in / move-out condition checklist — in an adopting jurisdiction this is the single most important document you will ever sign. See the deposit section; the signatures on it are conclusive evidence.
During the tenancy
- Notice to enter the property — at least two days’ notice under KRS 383.615(3), and entry only at reasonable times.
- Rent increase notice — Kentucky has no rent-increase notice statute. On a month-to-month tenancy an increase operates through the thirty-day termination and renegotiation route.
- Late rent notice — a courtesy reminder. There is no grace period and no late-fee cap; the lease governs.
- Month-to-Month Rental Agreement
When the tenant breaches
- Seven-day notice to pay rent or quit — KRS 383.660(2). It must state the intention to terminate, not merely demand the rent.
- Notice to cure or quit — the breach notice, carrying both the fourteen-day termination date and the fifteen-day cure window.
- Unconditional quit notice — the repeat-violation route, fourteen days with no cure right.
Ending the tenancy without fault
- Notice of non-renewal — thirty days before the periodic rental date in an adopting jurisdiction; one month elsewhere.
- Tenant notice to vacate — the tenant’s side, which exists under the Act but has no statutory basis outside it.
After the tenant moves out
- Security deposit itemisation — the move-out comprehensive listing with the estimated dollar cost of repairing each item.
- Security deposit return letter — and note the thirty and sixty day rules are about when you may keep money, not when you must return it.
Security Deposits: Mutual Forfeitures, and No Return Deadline
KRS 383.580 applies only in adopting jurisdictions. Outside one, there is no security-deposit statute at all — no separate account, no lists, no forfeiture, no deadlines.
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Separate account, mandatory | All deposits in an account “used only for that purpose”, at a bank or lending institution regulated by the Commonwealth or a federal agency |
| Naming the account | “Prospective tenants shall be informed of the location of the separate account and the account number” — both facts, before occupancy |
| Move-in list | Before tendering any consideration, the prospective tenant must be presented with “a comprehensive listing of any then-existing damage… and the estimated dollar cost of repairing such damage”, with a right to inspect prior to taking occupancy |
| Signatures are conclusive | Both sign, and the signatures are “conclusive evidence of the accuracy of such listing, but shall not be construed to be conclusive to latent defects”. A tenant who disagrees must “state specifically in writing the items… to which he dissents, and shall sign such statement of dissent” |
| Move-out list | The landlord shall compile the same kind of listing with estimated dollar costs; the tenant may then inspect; both sign; same dissent mechanism |
| Cap and interest | Neither exists. Verified across all seven subsections |
The forfeitures run BOTH ways, and this is the heart of Kentucky deposit law.
Against the landlord — KRS 383.580(4): “No landlord shall be entitled to retain any portion of a security deposit if the security deposit was not deposited in a separate account as required by subsection (1) and if the initial and final damage listings required by subsections (2) and (3) are not provided.”
Against the tenant — KRS 383.580(5): the tenant’s claim is limited to items specifically dissented from, and a tenant who fails to sign the listing or specifically dissent “shall not be entitled to recover any damages under this section”.
That is why the move-in checklist matters more here than almost anywhere else. Get it signed and you are protected; skip it and, combined with a commingled account, you lose the right to retain a penny.
And now the part that will surprise you: Kentucky has NO deposit return deadline. There is no “return within X days” rule anywhere in KRS 383.580. What the section actually contains are two landlord-side retention mechanisms:
Thirty days — where the tenant leaves without paying the last month’s rent and does not demand return of the deposit, the landlord may after thirty days remove the deposit from the account and apply the excess to the debt.
Sixty days — where the tenant leaves owing no rent and a refund is due, the landlord shall send notification of the refund amount to the last known or reasonably determinable address; if there is no response within sixty days from the sending, the landlord may remove the deposit and retain it free from any claim.
Any page telling you “Kentucky landlords must return the deposit within thirty (or sixty) days” is misreading those two subsections.
One rule that applies statewide, in both tracks: a person granted a reasonable accommodation for an assistance animal “shall not be required to pay a pet fee or deposit or any additional rent”, though they remain liable for physical damage on the same terms as pet owners. Misrepresenting an assistance animal carries a fine of up to one thousand dollars. See our Kentucky security deposit laws guide.
Entry: Two Days, and Two Separate Escapes
In an adopting jurisdiction, KRS 383.615(3) requires “at least two (2) days’ notice of his intent to enter”, and entry “only at reasonable times”. No clock hours are specified.
The exception clause is worth reading closely because it contains two escapes, not one: “Except in case of emergency or unless it is impracticable to do so…”. Impracticability is a separate route from emergency. Permitted purposes are inspecting; necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements; supplying necessary or agreed services; and exhibiting the unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workmen or contractors. The tenant “shall not unreasonably withhold consent”, and during any tenant absence over seven days the landlord may enter at times reasonably necessary.
The remedy for abuse is unusually broad — KRS 383.700(2) reaches not only unlawful entry but lawful entry made in an unreasonable manner and repeated demands for entry that are otherwise lawful but have the effect of unreasonably harassing the tenant. In any of those cases the tenant may obtain injunctive relief or terminate, and in either case recover actual damages and reasonable attorney’s fees. The section also says plainly: “A landlord shall not abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant.”
The mirror runs the other way too: a tenant who unreasonably refuses access can be met with injunctive relief or termination, plus damages and fees.
Outside an adopting jurisdiction there is no entry statute at all.
See our Kentucky landlord entry laws guide.
Serving Notices: First-Class Mail Is Not Enough
KRS 383.560(3)(c): notice to a TENANT is received when it is “delivered in hand to the tenant or mailed by REGISTERED OR CERTIFIED MAIL” to the place held out for receipt of communications or, absent that, the last known place of residence. First-class mail does not do it.
Note the asymmetry: the tenant’s route to the landlord allows certified only, while the landlord’s route to the tenant allows registered or certified.
The general standard is that notice is given “by taking steps reasonably calculated to inform the other in ordinary course whether or not the other actually comes to know of it”. There is no add-days-for-mailing rule — KRS 383.660(1) runs expressly from receipt of the notice. Time is computed under KRS 446.030(1): the day of the event is excluded and, where the period is less than seven days, intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays are excluded too.
Separately, KRS 383.585 requires the landlord to disclose in writing at or before the commencement of the tenancy the name and address of the manager and of an owner or agent authorised for service of process and for receiving notices and demands — and failure makes that person the landlord’s agent for service.
Where Kentucky Is Silent — and Two Fee Myths
- Grace period — none. Rent is payable “without demand or notice at the time and place agreed upon”.
- Late fee cap — none. There is no residential late-fee statute in Kentucky.
- Rent increase notice — no statute. An increase on a month-to-month tenancy operates through termination and renegotiation.
- Deposit cap and interest — neither exists.
Two figures circulate as Kentucky landlord law and neither one is.
The “twenty dollars or twenty per cent, no fee until five days late” late-fee safe harbour comes from KRS 359.215 — the Self-Service Storage Facilities chapter. And KRS 359.210 prohibits residential use of those spaces, so it could not apply to a home even in principle.
The “fifty dollar NSF cap” comes from KRS 514.040, Theft by Deception — a criminal statute. Its reference to a “merchant’s posted bad check handling fee not to exceed fifty dollars” is a safe harbour defining what defeats a criminal presumption of knowledge. It is not a cap on what a landlord may charge by contract.
See our Kentucky late fee laws guide.
One further prohibition matters for anyone drafting a lease in an adopting jurisdiction. KRS 383.570 makes a rental agreement unenforceable to the extent it provides that the tenant waives Act rights, authorises a confession of judgment, agrees to pay the landlord’s attorney’s fees, or agrees to exculpation or indemnification of the landlord. Landlord form templates routinely violate the attorney’s-fee prohibition.
The Two Tracks Diverge Sharply on Liens
In an adopting jurisdiction, KRS 383.680 provides that a landlord’s lien on household goods “is not enforceable unless perfected before August 1, 1984”, and that “DISTRAINT FOR RENT IS ABOLISHED”.
Outside one, both survive intact. KRS 383.070 gives a lien on the tenant’s fixtures, household furniture and other personalty securing four months’ rent — ineffective for rent past due more than a hundred and twenty days, and surviving open removal only fifteen days. And KRS 383.020 and 383.030 keep distress and attachment available, with double damages for distraining for rent not due and treble damages for wrongful removal of distrained property.
This is the sharpest practical divergence between the two tracks, and no competitor page we measured mentions it.
Interest on unpaid rent also runs statewide under KRS 383.010 at six per cent per annum from the time it is due.
Court, Costs and Timetable
Forcible detainers are heard in the District Court of the county where the land lies. A useful jurisdictional footnote: KRS 24A.120 contains no forcible-detainer clause and expressly excepts matters affecting title to real estate — the hook is KRS 383.210(1) itself. The District Court civil limit is five thousand dollars, and small claims is two thousand five hundred dollars.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Filing fee | Fifty dollars for a forcible detainer; District Court civil filing is ninety-four dollars plus a twenty-dollar court technology fee and facility fees; a post-judgment writ of possession is twenty-five dollars. Effective 1 July 2026 |
| Hearing notice | The officer must give the defendant “at least three (3) days’ notice of the time and place of the meeting”. If fewer, the inquest “shall, on his motion, be adjourned” — the tenant must move, it is not automatic. And “no inquiry shall be made against any defendant who has not been notified” |
| Jury | A bench trial unless a jury is demanded in writing |
| Appeal | Seven days after the finding, and the appellant “shall deposit with the circuit court clerk the amount of rent owing and due from the onset of the proceedings as well as the amount of all future rents, as it becomes owing and due in each succeeding month during the pendency of the appeal” |
| Writ | If no appeal by the seventh day, the court shall on request issue a warrant of restitution, “with the power of the county if necessary” |
| Limitation | “No inquisition… shall be taken at any time after two (2) years from the forcible entry or detainer complained of” |
Both tracks use the same court machinery. KRS 383.200 to 383.285 sits outside the Act’s range and applies statewide. What differs between an adopting and a non-adopting jurisdiction is the pre-suit notice that must precede it.
Kentucky’s Administrative Office of the Courts publishes numbered forms for the court stage: AOC-215 Eviction Notice / Notice of Eviction Hearing, AOC-216 Forcible Detainer Complaint, AOC-217 Forcible Detainer Judgment, AOC-218 Forcible Detainer Settlement Agreement, AOC-220 Warrant for Possession, and AOC-026 for a fee waiver.
But there is NO official AOC form for the pre-suit seven-day pay-or-quit or the fourteen-day breach notice. Those are landlord-drafted — which is precisely the gap a forms hub fills, and precisely why getting the fourteen-and-fifteen structure right on the page matters.
One inconsistency to be aware of: KRS 383.245 runs the seven-day appeal window from “the finding of the inquest”, while form AOC-217 says “within seven days of the entry of this Judgment”. Usually the same day — not necessarily.
Local Governments Can No Longer Legislate Here
Two recent acts changed the constitutional geography of Kentucky landlord law, and both run in the same direction: the state, not the locality, sets policy.
| Provision | Effective | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| KRS 383.198 | 6 March 2024 | “A city, county, charter county government, urban-county government, consolidated local government, or unified local government shall not adopt or enforce any ordinance relating to landlord or tenant laws that is in conflict with any law of this Commonwealth.” It took effect on a veto override, under an emergency clause |
| KRS 65.874 | 6 March 2024 | Bars local ordinances prohibiting a refusal to rent where the tenant’s lawful source of income includes federal housing assistance — nullifying the Louisville and Lexington source-of-income ordinances |
| KRS 383.199 | 27 June 2025 | Jefferson County only. For new leases initiated after 27 June 2025, an owner may not lease a single-family home, multifamily unit or accessory dwelling on a lot containing a single-family home in a “traditional single-family home zone” unless the owner primarily resides there. It does not apply to a lot containing only one single-family home with no accessory dwelling. The zoning test is frozen as at 1 January 2025, and the definition of owner reaches through trusts, LLCs, partnerships and corporations |
| KRS 383.290 | 27 June 2025 | A squatter-removal process using an eleven-box verified petition, with the officer serving a notice to vacate and putting the owner in possession |
Do not use the squatter statute on a holdover tenant. KRS 383.290(9) is explicit: the procedures “are not applicable to, and shall not be enforced against, a person who is a current or former tenant of the premises or who once had an agreement with the property owner that permitted the person to occupy the premises”. It is available only where the occupant is not and never has been a tenant and never had any agreement authorising occupancy. A wrongful-removal action lies in District Court within sixty days, with costs and fees to a prevailing plaintiff.
Against all that, the Act itself has not moved at all. There have been zero amendments to KRS 383.500 or to KRS 383.505 through 383.715 — every core section remains effective as of 13 July 1984 — and zero amendments to the forcible detainer chapter. Statewide adoption of the Act was attempted and defeated in every recent session, and an eviction-record expungement bill passed the House ninety-five to nil in March 2026 before dying in the Senate.
Which Kentucky Form Do I Need?
- First, ring the city or county clerk and ask whether the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act has been adopted. Everything else follows from the answer.
- The tenant has not paid rent, in an adopting jurisdiction. Seven days, stating the nonpayment and the intention to terminate.
- A lease term has been broken. A notice carrying both numbers — a termination date not less than fourteen days after receipt, and a fifteen-day cure window.
- The same breach has recurred within six months. Fourteen days, no cure right.
- Fire or casualty has made the unit substantially unusable. Fourteen days, either party — and the tenant may vacate immediately.
- Nobody is at fault. Thirty days before the periodic rental date; one month in a non-adopting county, and note that there the right is the landlord’s alone.
- You need to get into the property. Two days, at a reasonable time.
- The tenant has moved out. Compile the move-out listing with estimated repair costs, get it signed, and work the thirty or sixty day retention route as applicable.
How to Fill Out a Kentucky Fourteen-Day Notice
- Confirm the Act applies in your jurisdiction. Outside one, this notice has no statutory basis.
- Name every tenant and describe the premises exactly as the agreement does.
- Specify the acts and omissions constituting the breach. The statute uses that phrase.
- State a termination date not less than fourteen days after receipt.
- State the fifteen-day cure window separately, and say that adequate remedy before the date specified prevents termination.
- Check whether this is a repeat. If substantially the same act recurred within six months, say so and give fourteen days with no cure right.
- Serve it in hand or by registered or certified mail. First-class will not do.
- Do not accept rent afterwards unless you have agreed otherwise in writing after the breach — acceptance waives the ground.
What Happens If the Form Is Wrong
The distinctively Kentucky failure is assuming the Act applies. In a non-adopting county there is no seven-day rent notice, no fourteen-day breach notice, no entry rule and no deposit statute — and a notice drafted to the Act is a notice drafted to law that does not govern you.
The second is the 14/30 error — importing the landlord-breach numbers into a tenant-breach notice.
The third is service by first-class mail, which the statute does not accept for a tenant.
And the fourth is at the start rather than the end: a commingled deposit account plus a missing move-in listing, which together mean you may not retain a penny.
What This Page Does Not Have
We would rather scope this honestly than promise documents we do not host. Kentucky landlords also commonly want a rental application, a month-to-month agreement, a sublease, a room rental or roommate agreement, a commercial lease, a lease termination letter, an addendum or extension, a pet addendum, a rent receipt and an adverse action notice. Those are not published here as Kentucky-specific forms.
We have also deliberately left several questions open. We do not publish a definitive list of adopting jurisdictions, for the reasons given above. We do not publish any pay-or-quit period, entry rule, tenant-side termination notice or week-to-week rule for non-adopting counties, because none exists. We give no outer limit for the forcible detainer hearing date and no deadline for executing the warrant — the statutory form leaves the return period blank. And on KRS 383.199 we cite the Acts chapter rather than a bill number, because the bill usually credited with it died in committee and the enacting vehicle could not be confirmed.
Common Kentucky Landlord Form Mistakes
- Assuming the Act applies without checking the clerk’s ordinance book.
- Treating a code database search as proof of non-adoption. Many cities adopted by reference and never codified the text.
- Using the 14/30 formula for a tenant breach. It is 14 and 15.
- Merging the four different fourteen-day notices.
- Serving a bare rent demand without stating the intention to terminate.
- Serving by first-class mail. Hand delivery or registered or certified only.
- Accepting rent after the breach without a written agreement made afterwards.
- Commingling the deposit, or failing to give the account location and number before occupancy.
- Skipping the move-in listing with estimated repair costs.
- Believing there is a thirty or sixty day deposit return deadline. Those are retention mechanisms.
- Putting an attorney’s-fee clause in the lease. Unenforceable in an adopting jurisdiction.
- Applying the self-storage late-fee safe harbour or the criminal bad-cheque figure as landlord caps.
- Using the squatter statute against a former tenant. Expressly prohibited.
- Relying on a local tenant-protection ordinance. Since March 2024 conflicting local ordinances may not be adopted or enforced.
- Missing the seven-day appeal deposit obligation, which includes future rents month by month during the appeal.
Free Fillable Forms Versus the Paid Kentucky Form Sites
Kentucky’s results page is entirely commercial — no court or government page ranks at all — and, as in several states in this set, the depth sits on a law page rather than a form list. The deepest measured ranker runs to about two thousand three hundred words.
Not one of them explains the two-track structure correctly. That is the single highest-value fact about Kentucky landlord law: whether the Act applies to you determines your notice periods, your entry rule, your deposit duties and whether you still have a landlord’s lien. Getting it right is worth more than another copy of a generic lease.
Every form linked from this page is free, fills in the browser, and downloads as a finished PDF. There is no account, no trial and no upsell attached to the documents themselves. What we ask in return is straightforward: if you are about to hand keys to someone, run the screening first, because nearly every dispute described on this page is cheaper to prevent than to litigate.
Kentucky Landlord Forms: FAQ
Does Kentucky’s landlord-tenant act apply everywhere in the state?
No. KRS 383.500 authorises cities, counties and urban-county governments to adopt the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, and it applies only where adopted. KRS 383.195 confirms it: “In those jurisdictions where the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act is not in effect…”. If adopted it must be adopted in its entirety and without amendment, and no other local ordinance may be enacted on the subjects it covers.
Which Kentucky cities and counties have adopted it?
Ordinance text confirms at least sixteen, including Louisville and Jefferson County, Lexington-Fayette, Covington, Newport, Florence, Dayton, Ludlow, Taylor Mill, Bellevue, Bromley, Silver Grove, Campbell County, Fort Thomas and West Point, Oldham County and Pulaski County — three of which appear on no circulating list. There is no authoritative current list; KRS 383.500 creates no registry, and the list in circulation traces to a 2009 legal-aid handout. Absence from a code database is not evidence of non-adoption, because many cities adopted by reference without codifying. Ask the city clerk.
How many days is a Kentucky notice to pay rent or quit?
Seven days in an adopting jurisdiction, KRS 383.660(2) — and the notice must state both the nonpayment and the landlord’s intention to terminate if the rent is not paid within that period. A bare demand for rent is insufficient. Outside an adopting jurisdiction no statutory pay-or-quit period exists.
Is Kentucky’s cure period fourteen days or thirty?
Neither, exactly — it is 14 and 15. KRS 383.660(1) sets a termination date “not less than fourteen (14) days after receipt of the notice” and then provides “If the breach is not remedied in fifteen (15) days…”. Fourteen is the earliest termination date; fifteen is the cure window. The “14 to cure, 30 to terminate” formula belongs to KRS 383.625(1), the landlord-breach mirror provision.
How much notice must a Kentucky landlord give before entering?
At least two days, and entry only at reasonable times, KRS 383.615(3) — in an adopting jurisdiction. No clock hours are specified. The exception covers an emergency or where giving notice is impracticable, which are two separate escapes. Outside an adopting jurisdiction there is no entry statute at all.
Is there a security deposit cap in Kentucky?
No, and no interest requirement either — both verified across the whole of KRS 383.580. But the deposit must be held in an account “used only for that purpose”, and prospective tenants must be told the location of the separate account AND the account number before occupancy.
How long does a Kentucky landlord have to return a deposit?
There is no return deadline in Kentucky. KRS 383.580 contains no “return within X days” rule. What it has are two landlord-side retention mechanisms: after thirty days where the tenant left without paying the last month’s rent and made no demand, and after sixty days from sending a refund notification where no response comes. Pages stating a thirty or sixty day return deadline are misreading those subsections.
What are Kentucky’s mutual deposit forfeitures?
Against the landlord, KRS 383.580(4): “No landlord shall be entitled to retain any portion of a security deposit if the security deposit was not deposited in a separate account… and if the initial and final damage listings… are not provided.” Against the tenant, KRS 383.580(5): a tenant who fails to sign the listing or specifically dissent “shall not be entitled to recover any damages under this section”. The signed listings are conclusive evidence, except as to latent defects.
Can a Kentucky notice be served by first-class mail?
No. Under KRS 383.560(3)(c) notice to a tenant is received when “delivered in hand to the tenant or mailed by registered or certified mail”. There is also no add-days-for-mailing rule — the fourteen-day clock runs from receipt. Where a period is less than seven days, intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays are excluded under KRS 446.030(1).
Does Kentucky cap late fees or NSF fees?
No to both. Two figures circulate wrongly. The “twenty dollars or twenty per cent, five days late” safe harbour is KRS 359.215, the Self-Service Storage Facilities chapter — and KRS 359.210 prohibits residential use of those spaces. The “fifty dollar NSF cap” is from KRS 514.040, Theft by Deception, a criminal statute where the figure defines a merchant’s posted handling fee for the purpose of defeating a criminal presumption. Neither is a landlord fee cap.
Can a Kentucky city pass its own tenant-protection ordinance?
No, not since 6 March 2024. KRS 383.198 provides that a local government “shall not adopt or enforce any ordinance relating to landlord or tenant laws that is in conflict with any law of this Commonwealth”. Combined with KRS 383.500’s bar on any other ordinance touching the Act’s subjects, local governments cannot enact tenant protections beyond the Act. A companion provision nullified the Louisville and Lexington source-of-income ordinances.
Can a Kentucky landlord use the squatter statute on a holdover tenant?
No. KRS 383.290(9) provides that the procedures “are not applicable to, and shall not be enforced against, a person who is a current or former tenant of the premises or who once had an agreement with the property owner that permitted the person to occupy the premises”. It is available only where the occupant is not and never has been a tenant. A holdover requires a forcible detainer.
Related Kentucky Guides
- Kentucky landlord-tenant laws — the full two-track overview.
- Kentucky eviction notice laws — every notice on both tracks.
- Kentucky security deposit laws — the mutual forfeitures explained.
- Kentucky lease termination laws — thirty days, or one month.
- Kentucky breaking lease laws — early termination and casualty.
- Kentucky rent increase laws — and why there is no notice statute.
- Kentucky late fee laws — and the two figures that are not law.
- Kentucky landlord entry laws — two days, and the harassment remedy.
- Kentucky habitability laws — including the October to May heat duty.
- Kentucky pet and ESA laws — the statewide assistance-animal rule.
- Kentucky tenant screening laws — background checks and adverse action.
Published by Tenant Screening Background Check · Editorial Team
Established 2004. Our editorial team has spent two decades helping landlords and property managers run lawful tenant screening and follow state landlord-tenant codes across all fifty states. Kentucky’s official statute site serves raw files that automated tools cannot read, so we opened each one directly to get the text with its effective-date line intact. We also read sixteen adopting ordinances rather than repeating the list everyone copies — which is how we found three adopting jurisdictions that appear on no list at all, and one that turns out not to have adopted the Act.
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Last reviewed 2026. This page is general information about Kentucky landlord-tenant law, not legal advice. Kentucky is a two-track state and the rules that apply to you depend on whether your city or county has adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act — a question only the clerk’s ordinance book can settle. We deliberately publish no definitive list of adopting jurisdictions, because no authoritative one exists. Confirm your position with the clerk, or with a Kentucky attorney, before you serve a notice or file a case.
