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Today’s track: High and Dry — Jamie Cullum (his cover of the Radiohead song)

If you've ever talked yourself out of buying your first rental, I'd bet the fear wasn't the roof.

It wasn't the furnace or the property taxes or even the interest rate.

It was one question: what happens if somebody stops paying, and I can't get my house back?

That's the fear that keeps more people on the sidelines than anything else. Out-of-state investors ask it. First-time landlords ask it. Folks who've owned rentals for twenty years still think about it when they're writing an offer.

So today I want to walk you through exactly how it works in Louisville. Step by step, in plain English. Because once you see the process, the fear gets a lot smaller.

Quick note before we start: I'm a realtor, not a lawyer. This is how the process works, explained the way I'd explain it to a friend. It's not legal advice. Before you file anything, talk to an attorney (I'll tell you who I use at the bottom).

In Louisville, renting a home runs on a set of rules called the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. Everybody calls it URLTA (you-are-ell-tee-ay). It's part of Kentucky's state laws, which are called the Kentucky Revised Statutes, or KRS.

Here's a quirk most people don't know: URLTA isn't automatically the law everywhere in Kentucky. A city or county has to choose to adopt it. Louisville did, decades ago, and so did Lexington and a few dozen other places. So if you own rentals in both Louisville and a small county an hour away, the rules can be different. Check before you assume.

An eviction case in Kentucky has an old-fashioned legal name: a forcible detainer. That just means "this person is keeping my property and won't give it back." It gets heard in Jefferson District Court, the local court for smaller cases.

And it's busy. About 15,000 eviction cases were filed in Jefferson County in 2025, according to the Louisville Bar Association's February issue of Bar Briefs. The court runs multiple eviction dockets every day of the week, and you can show up in person or on Zoom.

Add it all up, and a clean, uncontested nonpayment case in Louisville usually runs somewhere around three to five weeks from notice to keys. That's a ballpark, not a promise. A tenant can appeal, paperwork can be wrong, the sheriff's calendar can be full. But that's the shape of it.

Now compare that to the places a lot of my out-of-state buyers are coming from. In New York, a tenant who knows the system can stretch a nonpayment case to six months or more through delays and counterclaims. Some California cases run months too.

Three to five weeks versus half a year. When you're carrying a mortgage on that property, that difference is real money.

I want to be honest about the last few years, because some of you lived through them.

March 2020 hit and the whole thing stopped. Kentucky's Supreme Court suspended eviction filings. The Jefferson County Sheriff stopped doing set-outs. Then came a governor's order against set-outs and a federal moratorium on top of that.

When the courts reopened, Louisville got Kentucky's first eviction diversion pilot. Every eviction case got put on hold after the first hearing, first for 7 days, then for 14, to give time to apply for rental assistance. The rental assistance helped a lot of people. And the holds were real time a lot of small landlords were carrying a mortgage with nothing coming in.

Then the hearings went to Zoom. In early 2021, the court changed its Zoom call-in information, and a lawsuit followed saying hundreds of tenants weren't told where their hearing was. Everybody lost in that one. Tenants missed hearings. Landlords got delays.

Meanwhile, the paperwork was still a lot of paper.

And here's the one that drove people crazy: squatters. A supporter of the fix said it plainly on KET (Kentucky Educational Television) while the bill was moving. Under the old law, it was harder to remove a squatter, somebody with no lease and no right to be there at all, than it was to evict a tenant who'd signed one. Owners had to run a squatter through the same court process as a tenant.

Every one of those things was friction. Friction is time, and time is carrying costs. Carrying costs are the mortgage, taxes and insurance you pay while the house isn't paying you. That's how deals die.

Here's the good news. Piece by piece, most of that friction is gone.

The paperwork went digital. Since June 2023, the Kentucky Supreme Court has required attorneys to file eviction cases electronically. Since March 2024, judges have been entering their orders electronically too. No more running papers across town.

The pandemic holds are history. Those were emergency orders, and the emergency ended. The court runs eviction dockets every day of the week.

And the squatter gap is closed. In March 2025, Kentucky passed House Bill 10. It passed the House 93 to 5 and the Senate 37 to 0. That's about as close to everybody agreeing as Frankfort gets. Now, under the right circumstances, a property owner or their agent can ask law enforcement to remove an unlawful occupant right away, without going through months of court. The law told the Kentucky State Police to create a standard form for the request, and it spelled out that damage a squatter causes counts as criminal mischief. Before you use it, have your attorney make sure your situation fits, because a person with a lease is a tenant, and tenants still go through court.

Put that all together and you can take massive action in a way you couldn't five years ago. Buy the house. Lease it right. And if a lease goes sideways, you know what the road back looks like and about how long it takes.

The eviction process is one reason. It's not the only one.

There's no rent control in Kentucky. Louisville doesn't have a just-cause eviction rule, which in some cities means you can't decline to renew a lease without a reason from an approved list. No mandatory grace period. And our prices still make sense. Remember from last Monday, Louisville's typical rent is the lowest of the 50 biggest metros Zillow tracks, and our typical home is worth about 24% less than the national number. Rents that make the math work for a family, and prices that make the math work for an investor.

Landlord friendly doesn't mean tenant hostile, by the way. The 7-day notice gives a tenant a real shot to catch up. The one-week standard agreement gives them another. A large majority of Louisville cases get settled under that agreement. The system works when everybody follows it.

The biggest slowdown in Louisville evictions isn't the court anymore. It's landlords tripping over their own paperwork.

Three to know:

If your property is in an LLC (a limited liability company, the business you hold property in for protection), you need an attorney to file. You can only represent yourself if the property is in your own personal name.

Your notice has to be right. The Legal Aid Society says the majority of its eviction cases that get dismissed are tossed over an improper notice.

And check your lease for an attorney-fee clause. URLTA bans lease language that makes the tenant pay the landlord's attorney fees. Legal Aid has found more than 50 form leases around Louisville that still include it, and a notice that demands those fees can get your case tossed. Then you start over. That's a month you don't get back.

Clean paperwork is the fastest eviction there is. This is exactly the kind of thing I meant when I wrote about becoming the expert in your field.

Here's the part that gets me excited. The friction is coming out of other parts of the process too.

AI in the permit office. AI is short for artificial intelligence. In January, Mayor Greenberg's office announced Louisville's first AI pilot, with a company called Govstream.ai, aimed at the permitting process. The goal is to catch missing or wrong information on a permit application before it ever reaches a reviewer, instead of weeks later. The mayor's press secretary told Stateline that early testing could cut avoidable resubmissions by 50% or more. Humans still make every decision. The AI just helps get your application right the first time. If you've ever had a rehab sit for weeks over one missing page, you know why that matters. It's still a pilot, so watch for the results.

More housing types in more places. This summer, the city's Office of Planning released a draft change to the Land Development Code, which is the rulebook for what you can build and where. They're calling it Neighborhood Housing. It would allow duplexes, townhouses and small apartment buildings in more neighborhoods where the streets, sewers and services are already in place, with a simpler review for projects that follow the rules. It goes to the Planning Commission first, then the Metro Council. It's not law yet, and there are strong feelings on both sides. Some of this has already happened, too. Most accessory dwelling units, which are small second homes on the same lot like a garage apartment or a backyard cottage, can now get approved by city staff instead of going through a longer hearing process.

Faster permits from Frankfort, maybe. This one's my favorite to watch. In the 2026 session, the House version of Senate Bill 9 had a whole list of things that would've made building and renovating faster. Building departments would have had 5 days to tell you if your application was complete, 10 days to review your plans, and 5 days to inspect once you asked. You could've used a qualified third-party inspector instead of waiting on the city's schedule. Apartments and mixed-use buildings would've been allowed in commercial zones. It also locked in the rules on the day you apply, so they can't change on you halfway through, and it limited how much local governments could restrict short-term rentals, the Airbnb-style kind.

It died at the very end. The House and Senate couldn't agree on a final version. But ideas that get that far usually come back, and the next session starts in January.

To be fair, that same bill also carried a change tenant advocates have pushed for, which would clear an eviction filing off someone's record if the case gets dismissed. That one's likely back too. It wouldn't change how fast you get your property back. It'd change what shows up on a background check, which matters if you screen applicants.

And one that's already done: as of July 1, 2026, a Kentucky law says local zoning can't keep qualified manufactured homes out of residential areas where single-family homes are allowed. One more option for affordable housing on lots that used to be off-limits.

None of these are guaranteed. Some will pass, some won't, some will change. But the direction is clear: less waiting, more building, fewer surprises.

If you've been sitting out because of the "what if they don't pay" fear, now you know the road. About three to five weeks, a sheriff who shows up, and a law that handles squatters.

If you're an out-of-state investor looking at Louisville, this is one of the best stories we've got. Tell your friends in California.

If you already own rentals, pull out your lease today and look for that attorney-fee clause. Then make sure you've got an attorney before you need one. I have a bunch of great ones in my tool book, hit me up if you need me! My attorney for my lawsuit with Joe and Kim Worth has been great. Hate I need them, but glad I have them!

Because the worst time to find a lawyer is the week you need one.

Kentucky won't leave you high and dry. Just don't leave yourself there.

📊 Friday's poll, "What would you do with 4 million square feet underground?": a data center nobody can hear took it at 34%. An underground bourbon rickhouse (a warehouse where the barrels age) came next at 26%, then storage at 23%, and the world's biggest haunted house at 17%. You all picked the practical ones. I'd still buy a ticket to the haunted house.

Today's poll:

Results tomorrow.

🏆 Want something to put a lease on? Every morning I rank the five best deals on the Louisville MLS and the five most ripe for a lowball, with the number I'd offer. If there aren't five great ones, I don't send five. I can't blast other agents' listings to a list, but I can send them to you. Reply "FIVE."

With Enthusiasm,
Rob Bergeron

Owner–Realtor at Award-Winning Winner Realty
Winner Realty: (502) 305-8915
Winner Realty | OffMarket.deals | Property Partner Data Company

Schedule time to discuss your goals, bottlenecks, or whatever’s on your mind — book me here.

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PS: If you own rentals in Louisville and don't have an eviction attorney yet, get one now. I send everybody to Michelle Rawn at Rawn Law Firm. She handles all of mine, and she's the best in the business for our market. Happy to connect you.

PSS: Want to see the numbers before you buy one? Our free tools have a mortgage calculator, a BRRRR (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat) calculator, a house hacking calculator and more. Questions about any of this? Text Robby, our AI assistant at Winner Realty, at (502) 305-8915, day or night.

PSSS: "He who sit on hot stove will rise again." -- Confucious