Articles — state legislation

What’s up, gang. I’m back with another Legislative Update.   In last week’s update I told you about HB 250, the Squatters Bill that you need to support. If you missed that update, you can find it here. Today I’m going to talk about five other bills, one that you’ll likely want to support and four that I suspect you’ll want to oppose.   First, let’s talk about the one you need to support, House Bill 173.   HB 173   HB 173 prohibits any local government from adopting or enforcing an ordinance that creates or maintains a registry of...

Over the last couple of years you’ve likely heard a lot of talk, especially coming from the West Coast, about squatters and the idea of “squatters’ rights”. There were some horror stories out of California about people breaking into high-dollar homes and taking up occupancy and tying up the property for years because courts would not remove them.   And there’s no doubt that here in Kentucky certain people have attempted to abuse the idea of “squatters’ rights”. In most cases, they’ve moved in with the consent of a current tenant, then refused to leave later on, claiming that they...

Howdy, gang. It’s been a while, but I’m back with a few updates on issues that are important in the landlord-tenant space. We’re going to look at three topics today: The state of the law on Source of Income New swimming pool legislation Notice requirements for CARES Act properties The state of the law on Source of Income As most of you know, the city of Louisville passed a local ordinance in 2021 that required housing providers to accept Section 8 vouchers for tenants who otherwise meet the provider’s Tenant Selection Policy. Early in 2024, Lexington’s city government did the...

  Earlier this month, Lexington's Urban County Council passed an ordinance that would prohibit housing providers from discriminating based on a tenant's "source of income". That ordinance is set to take effect tomorrow, March 1. The upshot of the ordinance is that if a tenant applies and qualifies to live at your rental property, you could not reject that tenant because part of their income includes a housing voucher, such as Section 8 vouchers. However, the state legislature has been considering two bills that would prohibit local governments from adopting or enforcing such ordinances. The two bills were merged into...

The Kentucky General Assembly recently wrapped up its 2023 Legislative Session. There was no movement on most of the bills that would have been detrimental to rental owners, but one bill was passed into law that is concerning.  KRS 376.010 is known as the Mechanic's Lien Statute. You can read it here. It lays out the terms under which a contractor has the right to put a lien on real estate because he provided labor or materials to improve the property but was not paid for his work. Liens were available if the contractor provided the labor or materials under an agreement with...