Free Kentucky Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Kentucky residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF — and the only one that asks whether Kentucky’s landlord-tenant act applies to your property at all. Built to KRS 383.500 to 383.715, and to the general law that governs everywhere the Act was never adopted.

Kentucky KRS 383 Local Option Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Kentucky residential lease agreement sits on top of a question that almost no other state forces you to ask: does the state’s landlord-tenant act apply to this property? Kentucky enacted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act at KRS 383.505 to 383.715, but KRS 383.500 made it a local option — the General Assembly authorized cities, counties and urban-county governments to adopt it, in their entirety and without amendment, and it binds only where a local government has done so. Adopting jurisdictions include Louisville/Jefferson County, Lexington-Fayette and Oldham County. In the rest of Kentucky the Act’s two-day entry notice, seven-day pay-or-quit, separate deposit account and retaliation presumption are not law at all, and the general provisions of KRS chapter 383 and Kentucky common law govern instead. Every ranking Kentucky lease page we examined states the Act’s rules as though they were statewide. This form asks the scope question first, and the generated lease branches on the answer.

Complete the fields below to generate a Kentucky residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, and the generated lease cites the controlling Kentucky section at each point — starting with the scope question that decides whether those sections bind you. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening. Pair the signed lease with a Kentucky move-in / move-out checklist, which in this state does double duty: it is your condition record and, if you use it properly, the comprehensive damage listing KRS 383.580 requires you to sign before you take a single dollar of deposit.

Only if the local government adopted it. KRS 383.500 is short enough to quote nearly in full, and it is the single most important sentence in Kentucky residential tenancy law: the General Assembly 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, those provisions shall be adopted in their entirety and without amendment; and no other ordinance shall be enacted by a city, county or urban-county government relating to the subjects the Act embraces.

Three consequences follow, and they matter to drafting. First, adoption is all or nothing — a Kentucky city cannot take the deposit rules and leave the entry rule, and cannot soften a period it dislikes. Second, an adopting local government is then preempted from legislating separately on the same subjects, which is why the Act reads identically from one adopting jurisdiction to the next. Third, in a non-adopting jurisdiction there is nothing to apply: KRS 383.505 to 383.715 is not partly in force, it is simply not in force.

The Act’s own general provisions confirm the picture. KRS 383.505 sets out its purposes and directs that it be liberally construed to encourage landlords and tenants to maintain and improve the quality of housing and to make the law uniform among the states that enact it. KRS 383.510 provides that, unless displaced by the Act, the principles of law and equity supplement it — and where the Act is absent altogether, those principles do the whole job. Our Kentucky landlord-tenant laws guide covers the wider framework.

Note one further limit that survives even inside an adopting jurisdiction. KRS 383.535 excludes seven arrangements from the Act: residence at an institution incidental to detention or to medical, geriatric, educational, counselling or religious service; occupancy under a contract of sale by the purchaser or a successor; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in a portion of a structure run for its benefit; transient occupancy in a hotel or motel; occupancy by an employee whose right to occupy is conditional on employment about the premises; occupancy by a condominium owner or a cooperative proprietary lessee; and — the one that matters most in Kentucky — occupancy of a dwelling unit located on land devoted to the production of livestock, livestock products, poultry or poultry products, or the growing of tobacco or other crops including timber. A farm tenancy in Jefferson County is outside the Act even though Jefferson County adopted it.

Several, and there is no official list. Kentucky maintains no central register of adopting jurisdictions, which is precisely why stale lists circulate. Rather than repeat one, we verified adoption by reading the local codes themselves, and we recommend you do the same for your own address.

• Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government. Louisville Metro Code of Ordinances Chapter 151 is titled Landlord and Tenant Code, and section 151.01 provides that the chapter “shall be known and may be cited as the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act.” Its sections track the statute one for one — prohibited provisions, security deposits, disclosure, the landlord’s maintenance obligations, right of access — and it carries a statutory reference to KRS 383.500 through 383.705. Adopted by Jefferson County Ordinance 22-1984, effective 24 July 1984, and amended by Louisville Metro Ordinance 134-2006.
• Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government. Section 12-54 of its Code of Ordinances, headed Landlord-tenant act adopted, provides that “the urban county government hereby enacts the provisions of the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act as set forth in the Kentucky Revised Statutes,” by Ordinance 98-84, adopted 28 June 1984. An editor’s note in the same chapter records that Lexington repealed its own earlier landlord-tenant sections in favour of the Act. Section 12-55 separately codifies the retaliation prohibition.
• Oldham County. Section 150.020 of the county code, Adoption by reference, adopts the Act “in their entirety and without amendment in order to codify the law respecting contracts between residential landlords and tenants,” and states that the law encompasses all of the county, by Ordinance KOC 90-920.180 passed 16 October 1990.

Other Kentucky cities and counties have adopted the Act as well, and any of them may adopt or repeal in future. The reliable method is procedural rather than list-based: ask the city clerk, the county clerk or the urban-county government for the address of the property whether the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act has been adopted, and read the local code. It takes one phone call, and it is the difference between a lease that describes your obligations and one that describes somebody else’s.

The lease, plus the older general provisions of KRS chapter 383, plus common law. This is the half of Kentucky that no ranking template addresses, and the statute itself marks it out. KRS 383.195 begins: “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.” That is the non-adopting default for ending an open-ended tenancy, and it is longer than the Act’s thirty days for a month-to-month tenancy.

KRS 383.160 governs holding over beyond a term and works quite differently from the Act. For a term or tenancy of a year or more, a tenant who holds over acquires no right to remain, and possession may be recovered without demand or notice if proceedings are instituted within ninety days; if they are not, no proceeding is allowed until one year has expired, at which point a year-to-year tenancy has effectively arisen. For a tenancy of less than a year the equivalent windows are thirty days and sixty days. A landlord who lets those windows lapse can find a new tenancy has come into being by operation of statute.

What is absent matters as much. In a non-adopting Kentucky jurisdiction there is no statutory security deposit procedure, no statutory notice period before entry, no statutory habitability duty of the KRS 383.595 kind, no statutory repair-and-deduct, and no statutory retaliation presumption. That does not leave the tenant with nothing — contract terms, local housing and building codes, and general principles of law and equity all still operate — but it does mean the lease is the primary source of rights. That is why the generator, when you tell it the Act does not apply, does not simply delete the protections: it re-states the Act’s standards as express contractual undertakings that the tenant can enforce as terms of the agreement.

One thing does not change with adoption. Kentucky’s forcible entry and detainer procedure at KRS 383.200 to 383.285 is not part of the Act and applies statewide. A forcible detainer includes the refusal of a tenant to give possession after the expiration of the term, or of a tenant at will or by sufferance after the determination of the will. Possession is recovered through that proceeding in every county, and never by lockout or utility shut-off. See Kentucky eviction notice laws.

Any amount — Kentucky sets no statutory maximum. Neither KRS 383.580 nor any other Kentucky statute caps a residential security deposit. What KRS 383.580 does instead is impose a procedure, and it is stricter than most states’ caps because the sanction for skipping it is total.

The account rule comes first. Under KRS 383.580(1), all landlords of residential property requiring security deposits before occupancy must deposit all tenants’ security deposits in an account used only for that purpose, at a bank or other lending institution subject to regulation by the Commonwealth of Kentucky or by an agency of the United States government. And — this is the part templates omit — prospective tenants shall be informed of the location of the separate account and the account number. Not that an account exists. The location and the number.

Then the sanction, at KRS 383.580(4): no landlord shall be entitled to retain any portion of a security deposit if the deposit was not deposited in a separate account as subsection (1) requires and the initial and final damage listings required by subsections (2) and (3) were not provided. A landlord who commingles the deposit and skips the listings can be facing a unit with genuine damage and still have no right to keep a cent of it. Our Kentucky security deposit laws guide goes through the section subsection by subsection.

Kentucky sets no return deadline at all. This surprises people, and it is where competitor pages most often go wrong. KRS 383.580 contains no number of days within which a deposit must be returned. The two periods it does contain govern something else entirely.

Under KRS 383.580(6), if a 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 any excess to the debt owing. Under KRS 383.580(7), if the tenant leaves owing no rent and a refund is due, the landlord sends notice of the amount of the refund to the tenant’s last known or reasonably determinable address; if no response arrives within sixty days of that notice, the landlord may remove the deposit from the account and retain it free of any claim by the tenant.

Both are rules for unclaimed deposits: the first lets a landlord clear an abandoned deposit against arrears, the second lets a landlord close the file on a tenant who never responded. Neither is a deadline for paying a tenant back. A landlord should still account promptly — the move-out listing is due at termination of occupancy in any event — and a tenant should give a forwarding address in writing, because the sixty-day clock in subsection (7) starts from a notice sent to whatever address the landlord can reasonably determine. Use our Kentucky security deposit itemization form and deposit return letter.

They are the heart of KRS 383.580, and they bind both sides. Under subsection (2), before the tenant tenders any consideration deemed to be a security deposit, the landlord must present a comprehensive listing of any then-existing damage to the unit that would be the basis of a charge against the deposit, with the estimated dollar cost of repairing that damage. The tenant has the right to inspect the premises to check the listing’s accuracy before taking occupancy. Both parties sign it, and the signatures are conclusive evidence of the listing’s accuracy — though not conclusive as to latent defects.

Under subsection (3) the same exercise runs in reverse at the termination of occupancy: the landlord inspects, compiles a comprehensive listing of damage forming the basis of a charge with estimated repair costs, the tenant may inspect to check it, and both sign.

Now the part that costs tenants their claims. If the tenant refuses to sign either listing, the tenant shall state specifically in writing the items on the list dissented from, and shall sign that statement of dissent. Under KRS 383.580(5) a tenant who disputes the final listing may bring an action in District Court, but the claim is limited to the items specifically dissented from — and a tenant who fails to sign the listing, or fails to dissent specifically, shall not be entitled to recover any damages under the section. A tenant who simply refuses to engage with the paperwork has, by statute, given up the argument.

That symmetry is unusual and worth stating plainly: KRS 383.580 punishes a landlord who skips the account and the listings by removing the right to retain anything, and punishes a tenant who skips the dissent procedure by removing the right to recover anything. Both are procedural traps, and both are avoidable by doing the paperwork in the right order.

Two days where the Act applies; none by statute where it does not. KRS 383.615(3) provides that, except in case of emergency or unless it is impracticable to do so, the landlord shall give the tenant at least two days’ notice of intent to enter, and may enter only at reasonable times. The same section makes the arrangement mutual: under subsection (1) the tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent to entry to inspect the premises, make necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements, supply necessary or agreed services, or exhibit the unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workmen or contractors.

Subsection (2) allows entry without consent in an emergency. Subsection (3) also forbids the landlord to abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant. Subsection (4) closes the door on everything else: the landlord has no other right of access except pursuant to court order, as permitted by KRS 383.665 and 383.670(2), or where the tenant has abandoned or surrendered the premises.

In a jurisdiction that never adopted the Act, none of that is law, and there is no Kentucky statute setting an entry notice period. The lease is the only source. That is why the form asks you to pick a period in both cases, and why the generated lease creates it as an enforceable contractual term with an emergency exception. See Kentucky landlord entry laws, and document each visit with a dated Kentucky notice to enter form.

One related provision is often misread. KRS 383.620 permits the rental agreement to require the tenant to notify the landlord of an anticipated extended absence in excess of seven days, no later than the first day of that absence — but only if the agreement says so. KRS 383.670(1) then gives the landlord actual damages where the tenant willfully fails to give a notice the lease required. If the lease is silent, there is no duty and no remedy. KRS 383.670(2) separately allows entry at times reasonably necessary during any tenant absence exceeding seven days.

KRS 383.595 sets five duties, and the fifth carries dates that no generic template contains. The landlord shall comply with the requirements of applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition; keep all common areas clean and safe; maintain in good and safe working order all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and other facilities and appliances, including elevators, supplied or required to be supplied by the landlord; and supply running water and reasonable amounts of hot water at all times, and reasonable heat between October 1 and May 1.

That heating season has two express carve-outs on the face of the statute: where the building that includes the dwelling unit is not required by law to be equipped for that purpose, and where the unit is so constructed that heat or hot water is generated by an installation within the tenant’s exclusive control and supplied by a direct public utility connection. Subsection (2) adds a priority rule: where the building-code duty in paragraph (a) is greater than a duty imposed by another paragraph, the code duty controls.

KRS 383.595 also permits shifting some maintenance to the tenant, on conditions. For a single-family residence the parties may agree in writing that the tenant performs the paragraph (e) duties and specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations and remodelling, but only if the transaction is entered into in good faith and not for the purpose of evading the landlord’s obligations. For any other dwelling unit, subsection (4) adds three further conditions: the agreement must be in a separate writing signed by the parties and supported by adequate consideration, it must not cover work needed to cure a building-code noncompliance, and it must not diminish the landlord’s obligations to other tenants.

The tenant’s side is at KRS 383.605: comply with tenant obligations under building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; keep the occupied part of the premises as clean and safe as its condition permits; dispose of ashes, garbage, rubbish and other waste in a clean and safe manner; keep plumbing fixtures as clean as their condition permits; use all facilities and appliances reasonably; not deliberately or negligently destroy, deface, damage, impair or remove any part of the premises or knowingly permit anyone to do so; and not disturb neighbours’ peaceful enjoyment. KRS 383.610 lets the landlord adopt rules concerning the tenant’s use and occupancy, and KRS 383.590 requires the landlord to deliver possession at the commencement of the term. More at our Kentucky habitability laws guide.

Where the Act applies, Kentucky gives a tenant four distinct routes, and choosing the wrong one can foreclose the others.

Terminate under KRS 383.625. For a material noncompliance with the rental agreement, or a noncompliance with KRS 383.595 materially affecting health and safety, the tenant delivers written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than thirty days after receipt if the breach is not remedied in fourteen days. If the landlord remedies it in time, the lease does not terminate. If substantially the same breach recurs within six months, the tenant may terminate on at least fourteen days’ notice. The tenant may not terminate for a condition caused by the tenant, the tenant’s family or a guest. Subsection (2) separately allows damages and injunctive relief, and subsection (4) requires the landlord to return all prepaid rent on termination.

Repair and deduct under KRS 383.635. Available where the landlord willfully and materially fails to comply, the noncompliance materially affects health and safety, and the reasonable cost of compliance is less than one hundred dollars or an amount equal to one-half of the monthly rent, whichever is greater. The tenant gives written notice of intent to correct at the landlord’s expense; if the landlord willfully fails to comply within fourteen days, or as promptly as an emergency requires, the tenant may have the work done in a workmanlike manner and, after submitting an itemized statement for work actually done and paid in full, deduct the actual and reasonable cost from rent up to that limit. Not available where the tenant or the tenant’s household caused the condition.

Essential services under KRS 383.640. Where the landlord willfully fails to supply heat, running water, hot water, electric, gas or another essential service, the tenant gives written notice and may then procure reasonable amounts of the service and deduct the actual and reasonable cost from rent; or recover damages based on the diminution in the fair rental value of the unit; or procure reasonable substitute housing and be excused from rent for the period of noncompliance — in which case the tenant may also recover reasonable attorney’s fees. Crucially, subsection (3) provides that a tenant who proceeds under this section may not proceed under KRS 383.625 or 383.635 as to that breach. The routes are alternatives, not a menu to combine.

Defend and counterclaim under KRS 383.645. In an action for possession based on nonpayment, or an action for rent while the tenant is in possession, the tenant may counterclaim for any amount recoverable, and the court may order rent paid into court pending determination and then apportion it. If no rent remains due after that exercise, judgment is entered for the tenant in the possession action. But if the tenant’s defence or counterclaim is without merit and not raised in good faith, the landlord may recover reasonable attorney’s fees.

Two backstops sit behind all four. KRS 383.655 gives the tenant, where the landlord unlawfully removes or excludes the tenant or willfully interrupts an essential service, the right to recover possession or terminate and, either way, recover up to three months’ periodic rent plus a reasonable attorney’s fee. KRS 383.690 forbids the landlord to recover or take possession by action or otherwise, including by willful diminution of services, except on abandonment or surrender or as the Act permits. Kentucky has no self-help eviction.

Seven days for unpaid rent, where the Act applies. Under KRS 383.660(2), if rent is unpaid when due and the tenant fails to pay within seven days after written notice by the landlord of the nonpayment and of the landlord’s intention to terminate if the rent is not paid within that period, the landlord may terminate the rental agreement. Two details are routinely lost: the seven days run from the notice, not from the due date, and the notice must actually state the intention to terminate. Use our Kentucky seven-day notice to pay rent or quit.

For any other material noncompliance by the tenant, KRS 383.660(1) is more awkward than any summary admits. It requires written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt — and then, in the very next sentence, provides that the agreement terminates as stated in the notice if the breach is not remedied in fifteen days. The two figures do not line up. Because the statute gives the tenant fifteen days to cure, a Kentucky notice that sets a termination date only fourteen days out invites an argument the landlord does not need. The safe practice, and the one this generator adopts, is to set a termination date at least fifteen days after receipt. A repeat of substantially the same breach within six months supports termination on at least fourteen days’ written notice. Build it with our Kentucky notice to cure or quit.

Under KRS 383.660(3), the landlord may recover damages and obtain injunctive relief for any noncompliance with the rental agreement or with KRS 383.605 or 383.610, and where the tenant’s noncompliance is willful, may recover actual damages and reasonable attorney’s fees. KRS 383.685 preserves that claim after termination: the landlord may have a claim for possession and rent, and a separate claim for actual damages and fees.

Notice terminates the tenancy; it does not deliver possession. Possession comes from the forcible entry and detainer proceeding under KRS 383.200 to 383.285, which applies in every Kentucky county whether or not the Act was adopted.

Where the Act applies, KRS 383.695 sets three notice periods, not two, and almost every summary prints only the first two.

• Week-to-week — seven days. Either party may terminate by written notice given at least seven days before the termination date specified in the notice.
• Month-to-month — thirty days. Either party may terminate by written notice given at least thirty days before the periodic rental date specified in the notice.
• A tenancy that began on the termination of a written lease — ten days. Either party may terminate on at least ten days’ written notice before the termination date specified — except that if that tenant fails to pay rent within ten days after the day it becomes due, the landlord may terminate the tenancy at any time without notice.

The holdover remedy is unusually strong and rankers omit it. Under KRS 383.695(4), if the tenant remains in possession without the landlord’s consent after expiration or termination, the landlord may bring an action for possession; and if the holdover is willful and not in good faith, the landlord may also recover an amount not more than three months’ periodic rent or three