Kentucky HOA Records Inspection

Section 1: Overview — How records inspection works in Kentucky

Kentucky sorts records-inspection rights by the kind of community you live in, and across every kind it leans on a reasonableness or availability standard rather than a fixed statutory clock. Condominiums fall under the Kentucky Condominium Act (KRS 381.9101 to 381.9207). Its records provision, KRS 381.9197, requires that "all financial and other records shall be made reasonably available for examination by any unit owner and his or her authorized agents."¹ That section governs condominiums created on or after January 1, 2011, and it also reaches earlier condominiums for events that happen after that date, so one modern standard covers condominium records no matter when the community formed.² The older Horizontal Property Law (KRS 381.805 to 381.910) still governs pre-2011 condominiums for most other purposes, but lawmakers repealed its separate co-owner examination right (former KRS 381.865) in 2012.³ Planned communities gained their first statutory records right under the Planned Community Act (KRS 381.785 to 381.801); KRS 381.795 lets an owner examine and copy the association's books, records, and minutes under reasonable standards the board sets.⁴ That Act started as 2023 SB 120 and took effect June 29, 2023.⁵ And because nearly every Kentucky association incorporates as a nonprofit, members also hold a corporate inspection right under KRS 273.233, which they can exercise for a proper purpose at a reasonable time, on top of whatever access the recorded covenants add.⁶ Hard-clock states work differently: Florida runs a 10-business-day clock backed by statutory damages,⁷ and California sets 10-business-day and 30-calendar-day clocks.⁸ Kentucky sets no fixed deadline. The table and sections below walk through each regime.

Section 2: Quick-Reference: Kentucky HOA Records Inspection

Section 3: The records-inspection framework in detail

3A. Records subject to inspection

Kentucky's records categories track three separate statutes. For condominiums, KRS 381.9197(1) tells the association to keep financial records detailed enough to comply with the resale-certificate requirement and to support financial statements under generally accepted accounting principles, and it provides that "all financial and other records shall be made reasonably available for examination by any unit owner and his or her authorized agents."¹ The phrase "all financial and other records" is broad, and no enumerated list narrows it, so what the association actually keeps sets the practical scope. The same section requires an annual financial report whose rigor scales with revenue: a cash receipts-and-disbursements statement below $100,000 in annual revenue, a CPA compilation at $100,000 to under $250,000, a CPA review at $250,000 to under $500,000, and a CPA audit at $500,000 or more, with the report made available to any unit owner.¹ This provision reaches condominiums created on or after January 1, 2011, and, by KRS 381.9103 as amended by 2012 House Bill 433, it reaches pre-2011 condominiums for events occurring after January 1, 2011, which is why the records standard runs uniform across condominium vintages even though the older Horizontal Property Law (KRS 381.805 to 381.910) still governs pre-2011 regimes for other matters.² Lawmakers repealed that law's own co-owner examination right at former KRS 381.865 in 2012, leaving KRS 381.9197 as the operative condominium records provision.³ For planned communities, KRS 381.790 requires the association to keep a complete set of financial records, records of common-expense payments received from owners, records supporting payments to contractors and suppliers, meeting minutes of the association and board, and the names and mailing addresses of owners; KRS 381.795 then grants owners the right to examine and copy the books, records, and minutes.⁵ For any incorporated association, KRS 273.233 independently opens "all books and records" to member inspection.⁶ The condominium right is statutory; the planned-community right is statutory (since 2023) and layered over the corporate right; and recorded covenants can add contract-based access on top of either.

3B. The request-and-response sequence

Standing runs broad. Condominium inspection reaches "any unit owner and his or her authorized agents."¹ Planned-community inspection reaches any owner under KRS 381.795, and the corporate right under KRS 273.233 reaches any member or the member's agent or attorney.^4,6 A proper-purpose condition shows up in only one place, the corporate statute: KRS 273.233 permits inspection "for any proper purpose at any reasonable time" and, notably, lets that right be "abolished or limited by the corporation's articles of incorporation or bylaws."⁶ The Kentucky Condominium Act imposes no proper-purpose condition, and the Planned Community Act imposes none expressly, instead letting the board set reasonable standards.^1,4 On the form of request, no statute prescribes a mandatory written demand or specific content. KRS 381.795 lets the board adopt reasonable standards in the declaration, bylaws, or rules governing the type of documents to be examined, the time and location of examination, and a reasonable copying fee, so in a planned community the governing documents, not the statute, often set the operative procedure.⁴ The response or production deadline is the central operational fact: Kentucky applies a reasonableness or availability standard in every regime and sets no fixed business-day or calendar-day deadline for answering a records request.¹ The only statutory clocks concern the annual financial report (condos: prepared within 150 days of fiscal year end, available within 30 days after preparation; planned communities: prepared within 180 days, available within 30 days).^1,5 On location and method, condominium records must be "reasonably available for examination," with a copy of the financial report provided on request; planned-community examination happens at the time and place reasonable board standards fix.^1,4 On charges, a condominium may charge a reasonable fee for a copy of the financial report, but no statutory schedule or cap covers copies of other records; a planned community may charge a reasonable fee for copying documents and must provide the financial report electronically at no charge or on paper for a reasonable fee.^1,5 No statute authorizes a separate staff-time or labor charge.

3C. Withholding, confidentiality, and the membership or owner list

The clearest withholding rules sit in the Planned Community Act. KRS 381.795(2) lets an association decline to produce, unless the board approves, five categories: personnel matters; communications with legal counsel and attorney work product on potential, threatened, or pending litigation or other property-related matters; contracts or transactions under negotiation, or information subject to a confidentiality requirement; information relating to assessment collection or listings of past-due owner names, lot numbers, plat numbers, or addresses; and information whose disclosure state or federal law prohibits.⁴ Those categories address attorney-client privilege and pending litigation head-on. The Kentucky Condominium Act carries no parallel enumerated exemptions; KRS 381.9197 simply requires reasonable availability, so an association that withholds privileged or confidential material relies on the general principles of law and equity supplied through KRS 381.9115 rather than a condominium-specific exemption list.^1,9 On the membership or owner list, the Planned Community Act requires the association to keep owner names and mailing addresses and treats only past-due owner lists as withholdable; it sets no commercial-use restriction and no opt-out, and the condominium statute says nothing about a membership list at all.^4,5 The proper-purpose screen and the power to limit inspection through governing documents come from the corporate statute, KRS 273.233, which is where a planned community's incorporated association can condition or constrain access beyond the Planned Community Act's terms.⁶

3D. Remedies and enforcement for noncompliance

None of the three statutes provides a records-specific remedy. KRS 381.9197, the Planned Community Act, and KRS 273.233 each stay silent on statutory damages, per-day penalties, and owner-side fee-shifting for a refusal to produce records.^1,4,6 The general Chapter 381 penalty section, KRS 381.990, does not reach association-records violations; it penalizes only abstract-of-title certifications and two unrelated subjects.¹⁰ So an owner whose request is refused pursues a general civil remedy, typically an action for injunctive relief, mandamus, or a declaratory judgment to compel inspection, and a court enforcing the corporate inspection right under KRS 273.233 may order production.⁶ Trial-level disputes move through the Kentucky Circuit Courts, with low-value matters available in District Court small-claims practice; appeals go to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, with discretionary review by the Kentucky Supreme Court. No administrative complaint pathway exists. The Kentucky Attorney General has confirmed that a homeowners association is not a public agency under the Open Records Act,³ and the Kentucky Real Estate Commission licenses real estate brokers and sales associates rather than community-association management, so enforcement is judicial.¹¹

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

Kentucky built its planned-community records framework with 2023 Senate Bill 120, the Planned Community Act, and that statute still controls today even though its enactment predates the trailing 24-month window. No bill enacted in the 2024, 2025, or 2026 regular sessions amended the records-inspection provisions of the Kentucky Condominium Act, the Planned Community Act, or the Nonprofit Corporation Acts.

B. Recent rulings

No published Kentucky Court of Appeals or Kentucky Supreme Court decision in the past 36 months interprets the records-inspection provisions of KRS 381.9197, KRS 381.795, or KRS 273.233 as they apply to a common-interest community. The most directly relevant primary authority is an Attorney General Open Records Decision, 15-ORD-145 (2015), which held that a homeowners association is not a public agency and so does not fall under the Open Records Act.³

C. Active legislative debates

No bill pending in the 2026 regular session would add a fixed records-request response deadline, a copy-fee cap, an electronic-records mandate, or a records penalty. Recent planned-community legislation has gone after receivership (2024 HB 472) and political-sign protections (2025 HB 27) rather than records access.¹³

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Kentucky is a split-condominium, reasonableness-standard state that has recently added a statutory floor for planned communities. Post-2011 and pre-2011 condominiums now share one modern records standard under KRS 381.9197, which applies a reasonable-availability test rather than the day-count clocks comprehensive states use; the older Horizontal Property Law still governs legacy condominiums for other matters but no longer carries its own records right.^1,3 Planned communities, which before 2023 leaned only on covenants and corporate law, now hold a statutory examination right under the Planned Community Act (KRS 381.795), still layered over the Nonprofit Corporation Acts (KRS 273.233) and recorded covenants.^4,6 Unlike Florida, which caps photocopy fees at 25 cents per page and limits personnel charges,⁷ and California, which authorizes a civil penalty of up to $500 per denied written request plus fees,¹⁴ Kentucky sets no copy-fee cap and no records-specific penalty in any regime. For a multi-state operator, the practical rule is straightforward: figure out whether a community is a condominium or a planned community, confirm a condominium's creation date only where the Horizontal Property Law still controls a non-records issue, and treat records access everywhere as a reasonableness standard the governing documents set in large part. Momentum toward a single comprehensive Kentucky common-interest statute stays limited; the General Assembly has added targeted provisions — the 2023 Planned Community Act, 2024 receivership, and 2025 sign protections — rather than a unified code.

HOA Weekly updates its Kentucky records-inspection coverage each quarter, as the General Assembly and the Kentucky courts act. Federal frameworks — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the FCC OTARD rule — also apply to Kentucky associations regardless of the state framework.

Footnotes

1. KRS 381.9197, Association records — Financial report (Kentucky Condominium Act), Kentucky Revised Statutes ↩
2. 2012 Ky. Acts ch. 99 (HB 433), amending KRS 381.9103 to apply KRS 381.9197 to condominiums created before January 1, 2011 for post-2011 events; effective April 11, 2012 ↩
3. 15-ORD-145 (Ky. Office of the Attorney General, Aug. 6, 2015) (HOA not a public agency; noting former KRS 381.865 repealed in 2012 and condominium records governed by KRS 381.9197(1)) ↩
4. KRS 381.795, Examination of records by owner (Planned Community Act), Kentucky Revised Statutes ↩
5. 2023 Ky. Acts ch. 23 (SB 120), the Planned Community Act (KRS 381.785 to 381.801), signed March 20, 2023 (Sections 6, 10, and 11 establishing records, financial report, and examination right) ↩
6. KRS 273.233, Books and records (Kentucky Nonprofit Corporation Acts), Kentucky Revised Statutes ↩
7. Fla. Stat. § 720.303(5) (records made available within 10 business days; rebuttable presumption of willful noncompliance; $50/day damages up to $500; 25-cents-per-page copy cap; $20/hour personnel cap) ↩
8. Cal. Civ. Code § 5210 (Davis-Stirling Act) (current-year records within 10 business days; prior two years' records within 30 calendar days) ↩
9. KRS Chapter 381 (listing KRS 381.9115, supplemental general principles of law applicable to the Kentucky Condominium Act, and KRS 381.803), Kentucky Revised Statutes ↩
10. KRS 381.990, Penalties (Chapter 381) (penalizing abstract-of-title certifications and unrelated subjects; no association-records penalty), Kentucky Revised Statutes ↩
11. Kentucky Real Estate Commission (licensing of real estate brokers and sales associates), krec.ky.gov ↩
12. 2024 Ky. Acts ch. 150 (HB 472), creating KRS 381.803 (city-petitioned receivership for planned communities), signed April 9, 2024, Kentucky Legislature record ↩
13. 2025 Ky. Acts ch. 32 (HB 27), amending KRS 381.800 (political yard signs in planned communities) ↩
14. Cal. Civ. Code § 5235 (Davis-Stirling Act) (reasonable costs and attorney's fees, and civil penalty up to $500 for each separate written request unreasonably denied) ↩