Request By:
The Honorable John L. Arnett
City Attorney
128 West Dixie Avenue
Elizabethtown, Kentucky 42701
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Richard O. Wyatt, Assistant Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of February 10, 1978, in which you request an opinion as to whether a tenant may waive by a lease provision, any requirement there might otherwise be as to notice to terminate upon violation of the lease and establish in its stead a ten-day notice.
First, it is noted that KRS 383.505 to KRS 383.715 governing landlord-tenant relations, applies only to cities of the first class and to urban-county governments. Secondly, the statutory provisions of KRS 383.140, requiring a thirty-day notice, has been repealed.
Kentucky case law specifically permits the landlord and tenant to contract for a time period for notice to terminate that would be less than thirty days. Aetna Oil Co. v. Robertson, 258 S.W.2d 464 (Ky. 1953). Nonpayment of rent may be a condition to allow forfeiture of the leasehold if such is specifically stipulated in the lease agreement. Goodwin v. Beutel, 256 S.W.2d 532 (Ky. 1953).
Therefore, it is our opinion that in those areas of Kentucky not covered by KRS 383.505 to KRS 383.715, a tenant may contract for a ten-day notice to terminate upon violation of the lease.