Kentucky Adverse Possession (Squatters)

These adverse-possession statutes apply statewide, unlike URLTA. KRS 413.010 provides that "an action for the recovery of real property may be brought only within fifteen (15) years after the right to institute it first accrued": the general 15-year clock. KRS 413.060 sets a shorter 7-year bar for an occupant who "has a connected title thereto in law or equity, deducible of record from the Commonwealth," and occupies "under such title, for seven (7) years." Kentucky courts also require open, notorious, continuous, exclusive, and hostile possession. Because a tenant occupies with permission, that possession is not hostile, so renters and holdover tenants cannot ripen into owners; landlords remove true squatters through ejectment or eviction.

No specific statutory penalty. A successful claimant after 15 years (or 7 with record color of title) bars the owner's recovery action and may quiet title; short of that, the occupant is a trespasser removable by ejectment or forcible-detainer eviction.