Articles

The Background For years, Kentucky law was arguably unsettled on whether a non-attorney, such as a property manager, could file evictions in court on behalf of the owner of the property. As a result, the standard practice of many property owners was to have their property managers handle evictions. By "handle", I mean completely handle. The manager would sign the Forcible Detainer Complaint, file it with the local court, then appear at the hearing to present the case against the tenant in an effort to obtain a judgment of eviction. If successful, that same manager would then obtain a writ of...

Last week we talked about one landlord’s frightening introduction to KRS 258.500, which is Kentucky’s law allowing trainers of assistance dogs to have the dog live with them in their rental unit. For those who missed it, you can find the entire post here. The law requires that the dog be licensed and vaccinated, and that the trainer carry a trainer identification card in his or her possession. However, if the trainer complies with these requirements, the dog is allowed to live in the rental unit, regardless of whether the landlord allows pets. Unfortunately, the full scope of the law remains unclear. For...

As Billy Currington so aptly noted a few years ago, "God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy". Few groups of people know this last item to be true better than landlords. For those of you who follow my Facebook page (Kentucky Landlord Law, found here) or subscribe to my e-mail list, you are familiar with an article I posted a few weeks ago about the criminal ingenuity of an evicted tenant in Spokane, Washington. For the rest of you, here’s the direct link to the article. The news wasn’t that a tenant was being evicted. That happens...

Automation is a great feature of technology. We don’t have to write checks to pay our bills each month, we can just set them up to have the amounts deducted from our bank accounts. It simplifies life for us. Except when it doesn’t. Many landlords now use software that automates many of their daily and monthly tasks. I’m all for this, as we need to make technology work for us whenever possible. But it can create new obstacles. Your software that generates notices each month when a tenant hasn’t paid the rent can kill your eviction. Here’s how it usually...

Tim and Faith own several rental properties near the local university. They’ve been in the business for five years, after long careers in the country music industry. They’ve become quite experienced in managing their properties and dealing with the typical issues that arise when renting to students. Faith manages the properties, while Tim takes care of the basic maintenance issues. A group of four students recently moved into one of the campus properties owned by Tim and Faith. The students signed a single lease in which they agreed that pets were prohibited. However, several months later, while doing a routine...