What a contractor registry means for a Kentucky board

Kentucky communities get hit, and the pattern after a hail, wind or flood event is familiar to every manager in the Commonwealth: within days, unfamiliar crews are knocking on doors in the subdivision, offering to handle the insurance claim, asking for a signature on the spot.

Associations sit in the middle of that in two capacities at once. The association is a customer — it hires roofers and remediation contractors for common elements. And it is a gatekeeper, because the solicitation is happening on streets and common areas the association controls, to owners who will later ask the board whether the contractor was legitimate.

This regulation would give a board something it has never had in Kentucky: a single, verifiable answer to “is this contractor allowed to be here.”

What the registry would actually let you check

• Approved registration, by name. The prohibition is on performing services without approval, so a crew working an emergency area without it is acting unlawfully — a much cleaner test than judging a business card.
• $200,000 of liability cover or a bond. This is the floor an association would otherwise have to verify itself, contractor by contractor, from certificates that are easy to fake and easy to let lapse.
• Workers' compensation. Relevant to premises exposure when uninsured crews work on common elements.
• A named person in control. This is the provision most useful to a manager. It gives the association someone accountable for “all employees and solicitors” in the area — a name to escalate to when a subcontractor's crew is soliciting door to door.

The exemption that will be argued about

Note the first exemption carefully, because it is the one a solicitor will invoke: work performed under a contract executed before the emergency declaration is outside the registration requirement.

That is sensible — it protects the contractor already mid-job when the storm hits. But it also means a signature obtained early is a signature that carries the work outside the registry. For an association, the practical consequence is that owners who sign quickly, before a declaration issues, are the owners least protected by this regulation.

The second exemption matters mostly in Louisville and Lexington, where local requirements may already exceed the state's; there the local rules govern and the state registry does not apply.

How this sits on top of the statutes Kentucky already passed

The registry is the newest layer on a scheme the General Assembly has been building for two sessions, and it reads best as a whole.

HB 233 (2025), 2025 Ky. Acts ch. 15, effective 27 June 2025, rewrote KRS 367.620 to 367.628. The change that matters most to associations is one of scope: the previous scheme reached only residential property of one to four families and only roofing contractors. HB 233 redefined “real estate” as “any parcel of real estate located in this state that is used for any purpose” — which brings condominium buildings and association common elements inside it — and redefined “contractor” to reach anyone providing goods or services relating to real estate, including repair, replacement, construction, reconstruction, improvement and tree or debris removal.

Two provisions of that scheme are worth memorising:

• A cancellation right. A person “may cancel the contract prior to midnight of the fifth business day after the person has received written notice from the insurer that all or part of the claim is not a covered loss.” The clock runs from the insurer's coverage decision, not from signature.
• A lien bar. A contractor may not “[f]ile or claim a mechanic's lien pursuant to KRS 376.010 against an insured by reason of the insured's failure or refusal to pay any excess charge over and above the amount paid or expected to be paid by an insurer.”

SB 153 (2026), 2026 Ky. Acts ch. 54, signed 8 April 2026 and effective 15 July 2026, tightened the same sections further: contractors must furnish an assignment-of-benefits notice before contracting, unenforceable cancellation fees are barred, and certain violations are made a fraudulent insurance act under KRS 304.47-020 and first-degree criminal mischief.

What a board can do this month

The comment window is open now and closes on 30 September. Comments go to the contact person named in the filing, Stephen B. Humphress, at the Office of the Attorney General in Frankfort. Anyone wishing to speak at the 22 September hearing must notify the Attorney General in writing at least five working days beforehand — and the filing warns the hearing may be cancelled if nobody gives notice.

Separately, and regardless of what happens to the regulation, two things are worth doing before the next storm: adopt a written solicitation policy for common areas, and put the KRS 367.620 to 367.628 cancellation right in front of owners in a newsletter. The five-business-day clock is short, it starts on an event owners do not expect, and it is worth nothing to an owner who learns about it afterwards.