Kentucky lawmakers should mandate statewide adoption of the Uniform Residential Landlord-Tenant Act of 1972 (hereafter URLTA), because such a move would benefit everyone involved in landlord-tenant relations, including landlords, tenants, and the lawyers and judges in the state that participate in litigation concerning these relations

Johnson, Micah

English

University of Kentucky

Kentucky Law JournalEstablished 1913Improving Landlord-Tenant Relations inKentucky Through the URLAPosted on February 2, 2018 by Mitch Lyon • Posted in The KLJ Blog, Uncategorized • TaggedKentucky Revised Statute, Micah Johnson, Miles v. Shauntee, Uniform Residential Landlord-TenantAct of 1942, Warranty of Habitability •Micah Johnson, KLJ Staff EditorKentucky lawmakers should mandate statewide adoption of the Uniform ResidentialLandlord-Tenant Act of 1972 (hereafter URLTA), because such a move would benefiteveryone involved in landlord-tenant relations, including landlords, tenants, and thelawyers and judges in the state that participate in litigation concerning these relations.Kentucky has had a long and contentious history with the URLTA. > URLTA is modellegislation crafted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform StateLaws,  and the stated purposes of URTA include simplifying the laws governing therights and obligations of landlords and tenants, as well as encouraging uniformity ofthese laws across state borders.  Kentucky adopted much of the language of URLTA in1974, but poor legislative draftsmanship and the concomitant confusion concerningscope of the Act’s authority led to subsequent revisions and patchwork “fixes” to the law.  The resulting legislative framework is unduly burdensome for those relying on itsguidance.In 1974, Kentucky adopted KRS §§ 383.500 to 383.715.  These statutes repealedexisting legislation governing landlord-tenant relations, and replaced those statutes withnew legislation modelled closely on the language of URLTA.  Included in the Act wasKRS §383.530, which stated that the newly adopted Act “applies to, regulates, anddetermines rights and obligations under a rental agreement wherever made, for adwelling unit located in the state.”  This language matched nearly identically the modelSearch …FOLLOW KLJCONTACTKentucky Law JournalUniversity of Kentucky College of Law Lexington, KY 40506-0048(859) 257-4747editors@kentuckylawjournal.orgOnline Originals The KLJ Blog The Print ArchiveSubmissions Membership Symposium SubscriptionsAbout[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]language in URLTA §1.201,  and applied the new law “uniformly across the state – inevery city and every county.”  Oddly, however, another section of the Act, KRS §383.715, stated that the Act “shall apply to counties containing cities of the first class andurban-county governments,”  effectively limiting the applicability of the Act toLexington and Louisville only.  KRS § 383.715 seemed to directly contradict thelanguage in KRS § 383.530, which required statewide implementation, and in 1983, theKentucky Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the statute limiting the scope of theAct.The high court’s striking down of KRS § 383.715 led to two desirable results: 1) theconfusion arising in the judicial system from the Act’s two irreconcilable expressions ofscope was resolved, and 2) under KRS § 383.530 the Act applied to all jurisdictionsthroughout the state, achieving a stated goal of URLTA to “make uniform the law withrespect to the subject . . . among those states which enact it.”  Unfortunately, theKentucky legislature could not leave well enough alone, and in the 1984 regular session,they passed several amendments that restored the limited territorial application.  Inorder to clear the constitutional hurdle established in Miles v. Shauntee,  the legislaturecontinued to mandate that Lexington and Louisville abide the Act, but gave all othercities, counties, and urban-county governments the right to “opt-in” to URLTA at theirown discretion.Since the enactment of the “opt-in” provision in 1984, seventeen jurisdictions other thanLexington and Louisville have adopted URLTA, creating a patchwork of competing setsof applicable law from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.  Localities continue to consider andfiercely debate the wisdom of adopting the Act, with these debates on local adoptiontaking a prominent role in recent city commission races in the state, for example.While there are many substantive differences between URLTA and Kentucky’s commonlaw (which governs non-URLTA jurisdictions), opponents of statewide adoption ofURLTA often point specifically to the Act’s warranty of habitability, arguing thatstatewide adoption would place undue financial liability on the state’s rural landlords.A warranty of habitability is a requirement, imposed upon landlords, that “rentedpremises are and will remain habitable for the duration of the lease period.”  InKentucky jurisdictions not governed by URLTA, the doctrine of caveat emptor (or“buyer beware) holds on issues of habitability, as the Kentucky Court of Appeals hasrecently held that, absent legislation like URLTA, the state has no constitutionallygrounded implied warranty of habitability.  The state finds itself in the minority inclinging to caveat emptor in tenant-landlord relations, as Kentucky and Arkansas are theonly states that have not yet adopted a statewide warranty of habitability.  Not onlywould statewide adoption of URLTA simplify Kentucky’s inconsistent landlord-tenant[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]law, but it would also bring the state closer in line with other states that have alreadydealt with the injustices of a caveat emptor approach.In 1974, Kentucky adopted a version of URLTA, with the stated intent of making“uniform the law with respect to the subject of KRS 383.505 to 383.715 [Kentucky’sURLTA statutes] among those states which enact it.”  Instead of making the state’slaws uniform with other states that have adopted the Act, the legislature, through a seriesof half-measures, have made less uniform the law with respect to landlord-tenantrelations within the state. The statutes governing landlord-tenant relations were repealedin 1974 with the adoption of URLTA, and then URLTA’s territorial scope wassubstantially limited in 1984, leading to a reversion to common law for jurisdictions notopting to adopt URLTA. Not only does this situation make it difficult for tenants toknow their rights. Landlords who own properties in multiple jurisdictions may find thatdiffering sets of laws apply to their properties. Likewise, lawyers and judges are forced toapply differing standards to landlord-tenant disputes, depending upon the location of theproperty in question. It is high time for Kentucky to bite the bullet and adopt URLTAstatewide. Everyone involved will benefit from such a move. J.D./M.P.A. expected May 2019. See Cara L. Stewart and Ryan C. Smither, Breaking Down Barriers to Justice: Surveyingthe Practical Application of Kentucky’s Landlord-Tenant Laws and Calling for Basic Reform,39 N. Ky. L. Rev. 23, 25–30 (2012). Christopher Wm. Sullivan, Forgotten Lessons from the Common Law, The UniformResidential Landlord and Tenant Act, and the Holdover Tenant, 84 Wash. U. L. Rev. 1287,1288 (2006). Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act § 1.102(b)(1), (3), at 3 (Nat’l Conf.Commissioners on Uniform St. L. 1972). Stewart & Smither, supra note 2. Id. at 23–5. Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, 383 KRS §§ 500–715 (1974)(amended 1984). Id. George Wm. III Moss, The Kentucky Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act:Tenants’ New Lease on Life, 14 J. Fam. L. 597, 599 (1975). Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, supra note 4, § 1.201, at 5. Stewart & Smither, supra note 2, at 26. Moss, supra note 9, at 599-600. Stewart & Smither, supra note 2, at 26. See Miles v. Shauntee, 664 S.W.2d 512, 517 (1983). Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, supra note 4, § 1.201, at 5.[25][26][1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] KRS § 383.530 (West 1984). Miles, supra note 14. § 383.530. Legal Aid Network of Kentucky, Reading Your Lease (August 2009),http://kyjustice.org/node/707 See Wes Swietek, Tenant-Landlord Act in Spotlight Again, BOWLING GREEN DAILYNEWS, (Oct. 1, 2016), http://www.bgdailynews.com/news/tenant-landlord-act-in-spotlight-again/article_c1eef942-ec5e-5081-8762-7930a0b9c2d7.html See Stewart & Smither, supra note 2, at 36–42. Michael A. Brower, The “Backlash” of Implied Warranty of Habitability: Theory vs.Analysis, 60 DePaul L. Rev. 849, 849 n. 1 (2011). See Wildcat Prop. Mgmt., LLC v. Franzen, 2015 WL 4148288 (Ky. Ct. App. 2015). See Stewart & Smither, supra note 2, at 38. See Krista L. Noonan and Frederick M. Preator, Implied Warranty of Habitability: It IsTime to Bury the Beast Known as Caveat Emptor, 33 Land & Water L. Rev. 329, 333– 34(1998). KRS § 383.505 (West 1984).*Featured image licensed under Creative Commons CC0Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Skylark by Blank Themes.[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]← Circuit Split: An Efficient Rule to Governthe Sampling of Sound Recordings

Improving Landlord-Tenant Relations in Kentucky Through the URLA

https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filename=0&article=1100&context=law_kljblog&type=additional

Improving Landlord-Tenant Relations in Kentucky Through the URLA

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of Kentucky