Outline of the eviction process in Kentucky

Kentucky evictions are forcible detainer actions filed in the District Court of the county where the property sits, under KRS 383.200 to 383.285. The court procedure is the same statewide and fast: three days’ notice of trial, and a warrant for possession once seven days pass without an appeal. What differs from place to place is the notice you owe before filing. Kentucky’s Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (URLTA, KRS 383.505 to 383.715) applies only in cities and counties that have adopted it (KRS 383.500). Everywhere else, the lease, KRS 383.195 and common law govern.

The forcible detainer statutes are decades old. Recent changes are at the edges: a 2024 bar on conflicting local ordinances and a 2025 squatter-removal law.

1. Which law applies, and the grounds for eviction

URLTA is local option. KRS 383.500 authorizes cities, counties and urban-county governments to enact URLTA, but only in its entirety and without amendment, and bars any other local ordinance on the subjects URLTA covers. Kentucky’s legal aid programs (kyjustice.org) list the adopting jurisdictions as Barbourville, Bellevue, Bromley, Covington, Dayton, Elsmere, Florence, Georgetown, Lexington-Fayette County, Louisville-Jefferson County, Ludlow, Melbourne, Newport, Oldham County, Pulaski County, Shelbyville, Silver Grove, Southgate, Taylor Mill and Woodlawn. That list is not an official register and may be incomplete or out of date; confirm with the city or county clerk. Even there, URLTA excludes some occupancies, such as hotel stays, employee housing tied to the job and dwellings on farm land (KRS 383.535).

Grounds. Kentucky has no just-cause requirement and no rent control that we found. Since March 6, 2024, no local government may adopt or enforce a landlord or tenant ordinance that conflicts with state law (KRS 383.198). Grounds are unpaid rent, a lease violation, or the end of the term or periodic tenancy. Two limits apply:

• Retaliation (URLTA areas, KRS 383.705). You may not raise rent, cut services or bring or threaten a possession action because the tenant complained to a code agency or to you about maintenance, or joined a tenants’ union. The exceptions: the tenant is in default in rent, the code violation was caused primarily by the tenant’s lack of reasonable care, or code compliance requires alteration, remodeling or demolition that would deprive the tenant of the unit (KRS 383.705(3)).
• Protective orders (statewide, KRS 383.300, leases made or renewed on or after June 29, 2017). A landlord may not terminate, fail to renew or retaliate because the tenant is protected by a domestic violence or interpersonal protective order. A protected tenant may end the lease on at least 30 days’ written notice with a copy of the order, owing rent only to the termination date, and if the person named in the order is a co-tenant, the landlord may bar that person and pursue eviction against that person alone while the tenancy continues for the rest of the household.

2. Notices

In URLTA jurisdictions

• Nonpayment: 7 days (KRS 383.660(2)). A written notice of nonpayment and of your intention to terminate the rental agreement if the rent is not paid within seven days.
• Other material lease violations: 14 days (KRS 383.660(1)). A written notice specifying the acts and omissions that make up the breach, stating that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than 14 days after the tenant receives the notice. The statute then says the agreement terminates if the breach is not remedied in 15 days. Because of that mismatch, the cautious course is to allow the full 15 days before filing.
• Repeat violation: 14 days, no cure (KRS 383.660(1)). If substantially the same act or omission recurs within six months of a prior notice, you may terminate on at least 14 days’ written notice specifying the breach and the termination date.
• Ending a periodic tenancy (KRS 383.695). Week to week: written notice at least 7 days before the termination date. Month to month: written notice at least 30 days before the periodic rental date named in the notice, so a mid-month notice usually takes effect on a later rental date.
• Tenancy that continues after a written lease ends (KRS 383.695(3)). Written notice at least 10 days before the termination date named in the notice. The same subsection lets the landlord terminate without notice if the tenant fails to pay rent within 10 days after it is due; using the 7-day notice anyway is the cautious course.
• Holdover (KRS 383.695(4)). For a willful holdover not in good faith, you may also recover up to three months’ periodic rent or three times your actual damages, whichever is greater, plus a reasonable attorney’s fee.

How URLTA notices are served and counted (KRS 383.560). A person receives a notice when it comes to his or her attention. In addition, a tenant is treated as having received it when it is delivered in hand to the tenant, or mailed by registered or certified mail to the place the tenant has held out for receiving communications or, if none, to the tenant’s last known place of residence. Posting and ordinary mail are not listed, so with those methods you would have to prove the notice actually came to the tenant’s attention; do not rely on them. The 14-day period runs from receipt, so allow for mailing time.

Waiver by accepting rent (KRS 383.675). Accepting rent with knowledge of a default waives your right to terminate for that breach, unless the parties agree otherwise after the breach.

Outside URLTA jurisdictions

• Tenancy at will or by sufferance: one month (KRS 383.195). Where URLTA is not in effect, the landlord ends the tenancy by giving one month’s written notice requiring the tenant to remove.
• Tenants under a written lease. No statute sets a nonpayment or lease-violation notice period outside URLTA. The lease’s default and termination clauses control. Legal aid materials tell tenants that a silent lease means 30 days from the notice. Follow your lease exactly; if it is silent, one month’s written notice is the safe course.
• Holdover after a fixed term (KRS 383.160). A tenant who stays past the end of a term of a year or more gains no right to remain for 90 days, and possession may be recovered without demand or notice if proceedings are started within that time. For a term under a year the window is 30 days. Miss the window and no proceedings are allowed until one year (or, for the shorter terms, 60 days) from the day the term expired.

Federally backed or subsidized properties may also be subject to the federal CARES Act 30-day notice for nonpayment.

3. Filing

File a Forcible Detainer Complaint (form AOC-216) with the circuit court clerk’s office for the District Court in the county where the property is located (KRS 383.210; KRS 383.540 for URLTA claims). The form is sworn. Fees are set county by county (Kenton County lists $85.50 to file plus $60 per defendant for sheriff’s service). Forcible detainer means refusing to leave after the tenancy has ended (KRS 383.200(3)), so do not file until the notice period has fully run.

Entity landlords need a lawyer. The Kentucky Court of Appeals has twice ordered eviction cases dismissed because a non-lawyer filed the complaint for an entity: a housing authority’s executive director in Hornsby v. Housing Authority of Dry Ridge (Dec. 14, 2018) and an LLC’s property manager in Phillips v. M & M Corbin Properties, LLC (Jan. 17, 2020). An individual owner may file for himself or herself.

4. Service and the hearing

The clerk issues the eviction notice, which is the summons (form AOC-215, Notice of Eviction Hearing), to the sheriff or a constable (KRS 383.210). The officer must give each defendant at least three days’ notice of the time and place of trial. If notice was shorter, the trial is adjourned on the defendant’s motion until three days have passed, and no finding can be made against a defendant who was not notified (KRS 383.215). The return on AOC-215 lists three methods: personal delivery; delivery to a family member if the defendant cannot be found; or, if neither can be found, posting conspicuously on the premises plus regular mail.

There is no written answer requirement; the tenant defends at the hearing. The case is tried by the judge unless either side demands a jury, which can be done in writing beforehand or when the case is called (KRS 383.210(2)). In URLTA areas a tenant may counterclaim in a nonpayment case, and the court may order accrued and accruing rent paid into court (KRS 383.645).

Possession only. The statutory judgment is for restitution of the premises and court costs (KRS 383.240). It does not include back rent. Rent and damages are pursued in a separate civil or small claims action, which the eviction case does not bar (KRS 383.280).

5. Judgment and appeal

Either party may appeal to the circuit court within seven days after the finding (KRS 383.255(1)). The appealing party, in practice the tenant, must deposit with the circuit court clerk the rent owing from the start of the forcible detainer proceedings, and must keep depositing future rent as it comes due each month while the appeal is pending. Once the payment is made, the District Court stays further proceedings and sends the file to the circuit court (KRS 383.255(2)).

We found no statewide record sealing law, right to counsel, mandatory mediation, or post-judgment right to pay and stay.

6. The warrant and the set-out

Seven-day wait (KRS 383.245). If the tenant does not appeal within seven days after the judgment, the court must, on the landlord’s request, issue a warrant of restitution. The court form is AOC-220, “Eviction Notice: Warrant for Possession.” You must request it.

Who executes it. The warrant is directed to the sheriff or a constable of the county and commands the officer, with the power of the county if necessary, to put the landlord in possession (KRS 383.245). If the case went up on appeal, the warrant issues from the circuit court instead (KRS 383.270).

Tenant property. We found no Kentucky statute that sets a storage period or disposal procedure for belongings left after a set-out. Follow the officer’s instructions and photograph what is left. URLTA’s abandonment section (KRS 383.670) covers re-renting, not the tenant’s property.

Self-help. In URLTA areas a landlord may not recover possession by any means other than a court action, abandonment or surrender, and may not cut off heat, electric, water, gas or other essential services to force a tenant out (KRS 383.690). A tenant who is unlawfully removed, locked out or has services willfully cut may recover possession or terminate, and may recover up to three months’ periodic rent and a reasonable attorney’s fee (KRS 383.655). Statewide, the forcible entry definition includes a landlord’s entry upon the possession of a tenant at will or by sufferance (KRS 383.200(2)), so use the court process everywhere.

Squatters. Since June 27, 2025, KRS 383.290 lets a property owner or authorized agent present a Petition to Remove Persons Unlawfully Occupying Real Property to a law enforcement officer. It cannot be used against a current or former tenant or immediate family, and a person wrongfully removed may recover costs and attorney’s fees.

7. Louisville and Lexington

Both are URLTA jurisdictions, and neither may add its own eviction rules (KRS 383.500, 383.198). Lexington’s Housing Stabilization Program page describes pandemic-era rental assistance focused, since February 1, 2023, on tenants with an active eviction case in Fayette District Court; the page may be out of date, so confirm whether funds remain. Louisville Metro’s housing page refers tenants to Stop My Eviction. Louisville landlords should also note KRS 383.199, the 2025 owner-occupancy rule for leasing in traditional single-family zones (see Recent law changes).

Recent law changes landlords should know

• June 27, 2025. 2025 Ky. Acts ch. 63 created KRS 383.290 (squatter removal).
• June 27, 2025, Louisville-Jefferson County only. 2025 Ky. Acts ch. 56 created KRS 383.199: for new leases after that date, an owner may not lease a single-family home, multifamily unit or accessory dwelling unit on a lot in a traditional single-family zone unless the owner primarily lives on the lot, except where the lot has only one single-family home and no accessory dwelling unit.
• March 6, 2024. 2024 Ky. Acts ch. 3, sec. 3 created KRS 383.198 (conflicting local ordinances barred).
• 2026: nothing enacted on eviction procedure that we found. HB 338 and SB 83 (expungement), SB 62 (extreme weather stay), HB 239 (abandoned property) and HB 202 (URLTA) all stalled.

What actually goes wrong

• Using the wrong regime. A 7-day notice means nothing outside a URLTA jurisdiction unless your lease provides for it, and inside one a lease clause waiving the tenant’s URLTA rights is unenforceable (KRS 383.570).
• Taping the notice to the door. In URLTA areas the statute names hand delivery and registered or certified mail; with anything else you must prove the tenant actually got it (KRS 383.560).
• Filing on day 14. The cure language in KRS 383.660(1) runs to 15 days, and the 14 days start at receipt.
• A property manager filing for an LLC. The case can be dismissed as void even after you win.
• Expecting a money judgment. The judgment is possession and costs only.

When to bring in an attorney

An individual owner with a clean nonpayment notice can often handle the District Court hearing alone. You need counsel if the owner is an LLC, corporation, partnership or other entity, and should use counsel when the tenant has a lawyer, demands a jury or raises retaliation or fair housing, when the housing is subsidized, when you are outside URLTA and the lease is unclear, and for any appeal. The Kentucky attorneys listed below represent landlords in forcible detainer cases.

Sources

• KRS 383.200 to 383.285 (forcible entry and detainer); KRS 383.160 and 383.195.
• Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, KRS 383.500 to 383.715, sections as cited above.
• KRS 383.198 (2024 Ky. Acts ch. 3), 383.290 (2025 Ky. Acts ch. 63) and 383.300.
• Kentucky Court of Justice forms AOC-215, AOC-216 and AOC-220 (kycourts.gov); Kenton Circuit Court Clerk eviction page.
• Hornsby v. Housing Authority of Dry Ridge, No. 2017-CA-000718-DG (Ky. App. Dec. 14, 2018); Phillips v. M & M Corbin Properties, LLC, No. 2018-CA-001496-DG (Ky. App. Jan. 17, 2020).
• Kentucky General Assembly 2026 bill records; Kentucky Justice Online (kyjustice.org) evictions page; Lexington Housing Stabilization Program and Louisville Metro eviction prevention pages.

This guide is general information about Kentucky procedure and is not legal advice. Local practice varies and statutes change; confirm the current text before relying on any deadline.