Articles

“All the laws favor the tenants” is a phrase I hear often in the rental industry. As a Kentucky attorney who only represents landlords, I spend close to 150 days a year in court advocating for landlords, and many hours consulting and giving advice to landlords on how to structure their leases and applications, and how to deal with their tenants. While my practice is located near two jurisdictions that have adopted the URLTA (Lexington and Georgetown), I do plenty of work in surrounding counties that have not. As a result, I have had to develop expertise in landlord-tenant relationships...

  Philosopher John Stuart Mill famously said that landlords “grow rich in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing”. While it’s debatable whether that was true in Mill’s day, the “without risking” portion of Mill’s quote is certainly false today. My blog posts on Kentucky’s strict liability standard for landlords in dog-bite cases alone should make that clear. However, when you combine broad liability for dog bites with the dramatic increase in tenants with Assistance Animals, landlords often feel like they’re darned if they do and darned if they don’t. When you add in the fact that many Assistance Animals...

“There he is again! This is the fourth day in row!” Becky says, as she notices a tall red-haired man leaving Unit 58. The man gets in his car and drives off, presumably going to work. Becky manages a 90-unit apartment complex, which is small enough that she knows most of her tenants fairly well and is able to keep up with the latest news around the property. While there have been no major issues lately at the property, Becky keeps noticing this tall red-haired man leaving Unit 58 each morning. Her tenants have told her that the man comes...

Katie is the property manager for a new 300-unit luxury apartment complex. During the construction phase, Katie worked with the property owners to develop a Resident Selection Policy (RSP) that would ensure that only top-notch tenants would be approved as residents. As a result, the RSP prohibited any residents who had been arrested for or charged with committing a crime from being approved. Johnny Football's Application As luck would have it, Katie was floored to receive an application one day from a Jonathan Paul Manziel. Katie had family in Texas and is a huge football fan, so this application caught...

Merle is property manager at Opry Village, a 250-unit property in Muskogee. He has been managing property for many years and recently guided the property through a massive renovation. Through the years, he has worked with the property owners to develop a resident selection policy that brings in the best tenants to the property, as well as rules and regulations that keep the property safe, orderly, and clean for all the residents. When the renovations were completed, Merle enacted a no-pet policy in order to prevent damage to the newly renovated units. One afternoon Merle is a bit surprised to...