Kentucky Landlord-Tenant Laws
Local rent regulation in Kentucky
Kentucky law reserves rent control on private property exclusively to the General Assembly, barring cities and counties from enacting it, except for publicly assisted housing that local governments manage through housing authorities or federal programs.
Cited to Ky. Rev. Stat. § 65.875 · Verified August 12, 2026 · Full Kentucky rent-increase rules →
Kentucky Security deposits
Kentucky has no statewide security-deposit law: the deposit statute, KRS 383.580, applies only in the cities and counties that have adopted Kentucky's optional Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act by local ordinance — including Louisville-Jefferson County, Lexington-Fayette, Campbell County, Covington, and roughly eighteen other documented adopters — and everywhere else the lease alone governs deposits.
Kentucky Rent increase notice
Kentucky has no statute requiring advance notice of a rent increase, no limit on how large an increase can be, and no limit on how often rent can rise — anywhere in the state.
Kentucky Late fees
Kentucky has no statutory cap on residential late fees and no mandatory grace period — neither in the jurisdictions that have adopted the state's optional Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act nor in the rest of the state, where no landlord-tenant fee statute exists at all.
Kentucky Entry notice
Kentucky landlords must give at least two days' notice before entering a rental — but only in the cities and counties that have adopted the state's optional Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, such as Louisville, Lexington, Covington, and the other documented adopters; in most of Kentucky there is no entry statute at all, and absent an emergency or a lease clause the landlord needs the tenant's permission.
Kentucky Eviction process
In Kentucky, a landlord must give a 7-day written notice to pay or quit before filing to evict for unpaid rent - but only in the cities and counties that have adopted the state's Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, because Kentucky never made that law statewide.
Kentucky Application fees
Kentucky does not regulate rental application or tenant screening fees anywhere in state law: no statute caps the fee, ties it to what a report costs, or requires a receipt, a refund, or any disclosure before an applicant pays.
Kentucky mobile home park laws
Kentucky has no manufactured home community tenancy act, and which rules reach a lot tenancy depends on where the community sits: the Kentucky Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, KRS 383.500 to 383.715, is in force only in the cities, counties and urban-county governments that have adopted it in its entirety by ordinance, and everywhere else the general landlord and tenant sections of KRS Chapter 383 and the common law govern.
Lot-rent, closure, park-sale and home-sale rules with statute citations →
Kentucky Fair Market Rents (FY 2026) — HUD's benchmark rents for every Kentucky metro area and county.
How this record was verified: Every section these answers rest on read verbatim from official Kentucky LRC statute PDFs at apps.legislature.ky.gov (KRS 383.500, 383.580, 383.615, 383.695, 383.565, 383.570, 383.660, 383.535, 383.195, 383.198, 383.199, and 65.875), each with an independent second read on the FindLaw mirror (current through 2025-01-01) that matched. A third corroborating read of 383.565/.570/.580/.615/.695 came via the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission's booklet of Ordinance No. 98-84 (the LFUCG URLTA adoption), whose reproduced text matched. The URLTA adopter list is from the Fort Knox Legal Assistance Office brief (US Army, government source) corroborated by a Kentucky landlord-side attorney's published list; no official registry exists. 2026 Regular Session (adjourned sine die 2026-04-15) swept via official bill pages and the LRC chapter listing, which is current through the 2026 RS and shows no amendments to any section used here. Louisville Metro Code ch. 151 was read directly 2026-07-10 on the American Legal Publishing code library (codelibrary.amlegal.com, supplement 2026 S-47, current through ordinances of 2026-05-20) — § 151.01 titles the chapter the 'Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act' with an express statutory reference to KRS 383.500-383.705, ordinance lineage Jefferson County Ord. 22-1984 (adopted and effective 7-24-1984), recodified as 1994 Jeff. Code ch. 151, continued post-merger by Lou. Metro Am. Ord. No. 134-2006 (approved 8-23-2006); § 151.26 (security deposits) read in full and tracks KRS 383.580 verbatim in substance, including the separate-account/account-number disclosure, signed move-in/move-out damage listings with written dissent, the forfeiture-only penalty, and the 30-day (F) / 60-day (G) TENANT-side windows — confirming the reading given here that those windows are forfeiture rules, not landlord return deadlines. Metro-only additions beyond the URLTA text (eviction-court legal-representation §§ 151.60-151.61) noted and out of v1 scope.