Kentucky Lets HOAs Ban Solar Panels; Only a Recorded Solar Easement Protects Access

Kentucky is one of the states with no solar rights or solar access statute aimed at private covenants. The search ends at KRS 381.200, a section of the general property chapter whose title is "Deeds construed to include buildings and appurtenances -- Solar easements." Subsection (2) provides that a solar easement may be obtained for the purpose of ensuring access to direct sunlight, that it shall be created in writing, that it is an interest in real property acquired and transferred subject to the same recording and conveyancing requirements as other real property interests, and that it shall not be acquired by prescription. That language dates to 1982 Ky. Acts ch. 341, sec. 1, effective July 15, 1982, and the surrounding section was recodified from Ky. Stat. sec. 2357 in 1942. It has not been amended since.

Read carefully, KRS 381.200(2) is an enabling provision, not a right. It tells a Kentucky landowner that a sunlight easement is a recognized property interest if a neighbor agrees to grant one and it is put in writing and recorded. It creates nothing unilaterally. The express bar on acquiring a solar easement by prescription means that decades of unobstructed sunlight over an adjoining lot ripen into no legal claim in Kentucky, and nothing in the section reaches a homeowners association at all: an association is not the servient landowner whose sunlight you are buying, it is the body enforcing the restrictions recorded against your own lot.

The absence is deliberate rather than accidental, which is what makes it reliable. The General Assembly wrote a general homeowners association statute for the first time in 2023 Ky. Acts ch. 23, the Planned Community Act at KRS 381.785 to 381.801, effective June 29, 2023. That Act sets meeting notice periods, quorum percentages, records access, assessment procedure, fines, liens and board standards. It contains one and only one covenant-voiding provision: KRS 381.800, which bars governing documents from prohibiting the outdoor display of political yard signs, subjects all planned communities in the Commonwealth to that rule, and declares any contrary provision of an existing governing document void. The 2025 General Assembly went back into that same section in 2025 Ky. Acts ch. 32, effective June 27, 2025, and again added nothing about solar equipment. Solar collectors, solar water heaters and rooftop photovoltaic arrays are simply not in the Act.

The practical consequence for a Kentucky homeowner is that the declaration governs. If your recorded covenants prohibit rooftop equipment, prohibit anything visible from the street, or require prior written approval of exterior alterations, that language is enforceable on its own terms and the association's board may deny an application without citing a standard drawn from state law. KRS 381.786(1) reinforces the point for older subdivisions: the Planned Community Act does not invalidate any provision that was already in a governing document when it was recorded before June 29, 2023, so a 1990s covenant banning solar panels is untouched by the 2023 legislation.

What a Kentucky owner can actually do, in order of practicality. First, read the declaration for the exact wording, because many Kentucky covenants restrict "antennas and satellite dishes" or "exterior structures" without naming solar equipment, and an architectural committee cannot enforce a prohibition it does not have. Second, apply for architectural approval in writing and keep the response, since the board's own rules and the KRS 381.795 records right give you the paper trail if approval is granted to some owners and refused to others. Third, amend the declaration: under KRS 381.791(1), unless the declaration specifies otherwise, owners may amend it with the consent of 80% of the owners of all lots, in writing or at a special meeting called for the purpose, and no amendment is effective until it is filed with the county clerk. Fourth, where the obstruction is a neighbor's building or trees rather than the association, negotiate and record a written solar easement under KRS 381.200(2), which is the one tool the statute does supply.

Condominium owners have even less room. The Kentucky Condominium Act at KRS 381.9101 to 381.9207 contains no solar provision either, and a rooftop is normally a common element, so KRS 381.9167(1)(f) leaves the association regulating the use, maintenance, repair, replacement and modification of common elements.

There is no violation to report to the state, because no Kentucky agency enforces solar access against a homeowners association and no statute gives an owner a cause of action for a denied solar application. 799(1) once any portion sits unpaid for 30 days. Removal is typically sought as injunctive relief in Circuit Court, where the question is what the recorded declaration says rather than what state energy policy prefers. 791(1). 200(2) expressly forecloses acquiring one by prescription.