If you tour a new-construction community in Union on a Saturday morning and a twenty-year-old subdivision two miles away that afternoon, both call themselves an HOA. Both hand you a packet of covenants at closing. Do they actually operate under the same set of rules?
Not necessarily. HOPB says Kentucky did not have a statewide law governing homeowners associations until the Planned Community Act took effect on June 29, 2023. Before that date, whatever a developer wrote into the original declaration was largely the law of that subdivision, full stop. After that date, new planned communities in Kentucky are built on top of a real statutory framework covering budgets, records, assessments, and liens. The catch, and the part that catches buyers off guard, is that the new law is retrospective but not retroactive. It reaches forward to govern how associations operate going forward, but it does not reach back and rewrite a declaration that was already on the books before the law existed, unless the legislature specifically says so.
For a buyer comparing two Union subdivisions with similar price tags, that distinction matters more than square footage.
Union's Own Communities Show the Split
You do not have to look far to see this play out. The original Traemore development, an 87-acre Drees Homes community adjacent to Frogtown Road, broke ground back in 2018, five years before the Planned Community Act existed. Its neighboring phase, Traemore Overlook, has been an active new-construction listing with quick move-ins available this year The same pattern shows up across Aberdeen, where Aberdeen Patio Homes, Aberdeen Glen, and Aberdeen Highlands span a builder price range from the high $300s past the $500,000 mark, each phase potentially carrying its own recording date and its own relationship to the statute.
Meanwhile, established communities like Triple Crown, built around its own golf course and country club, and Union Village, a 148-home neighborhood near the Scheben branch library, were platted long before any of this was written into Kentucky law. Their declarations run on whatever the original developer put in writing
None of that makes the older communities worse places to buy. It means the rulebook you are actually agreeing to depends on when the ink dried, not on how new the mailbox looks.
What the 2023 Law Actually Added
For planned communities that fall under the Act, Kentucky homeowners now get some real, specific protections that did not exist before. According to Kaman & Cusimano, associations have to adopt a budget, and boards have to prepare an annual financial report scaled to the association's revenue. Declarations have to spell out a defined developer control period, so it is written down when control transfers from the builder to homeowner-elected board members rather than left open-ended. Under KRS 381.799, the association gets a continuing lien for unpaid assessments, but that comes with a defined procedure attached, not an open-ended power to act however the board wants.
None of this is a small thing if you have ever lived somewhere the HOA board changed the rules mid-stream with no paper trail to point to. It is also worth knowing what the law did not do. According to FightMyHOA, Kentucky's version sets no dollar cap on HOA fines the way some states do, and, as The Pollinator Patch explains, it does not override an association's ability to restrict things like solar panels through the declaration. If a Union HOA's covenants are silent or restrictive on solar access, that silence is not something the 2023 law fixes for you.
The One Provision the Legislature Made Retroactive on Purpose
Here is where the grandfather clause gets interesting instead of just technical. When the original Act passed, its ban on prohibiting outdoor political yard signs was subject to the same "not retroactive" rule as everything else, meaning an older declaration that already banned yard signs could arguably keep doing so. Kentucky's legislature came back and closed that loophole. Effective June 27, 2025, the statute was amended to state plainly that every planned community in the state is subject to the sign protection, and any conflicting provision in an existing governing document, however old, is void.
That amendment tells you something the general rule does not: when lawmakers want a protection to reach backward into old declarations, they say so explicitly. Everywhere they have not said so, the old paperwork keeps whatever it originally said. That is the exact opposite of how most buyers assume state law works, and it is the reason two Union HOAs with nearly identical dues can still hand you different rights.
What This Means While You're Reading the Packet
If you are comparing HOA subdivisions in Union right now, the market is actually giving you room to do this homework properly. Homes in Union took an average of 206 days to sell in February 2026, compared with 43 days the year before, according to Redfin. The median sale price for the city came in at $414,774 in June 2026, down close to 10 percent from a year earlier. A market moving at that pace is not one where you need to waive due diligence to compete for a house. Estimates on Union's current price range vary by source and month, running anywhere from the low $400s into the mid $500s, which is itself a reminder that a single portal number is a starting point, not the full picture.
The same logic applies to the HOA packet. Before you assume two Union communities work the same way because they cost about the same per square foot, ask three things: when was the declaration actually recorded, is there a current budget and reserve report you can review, and what does the document say about how records requests and assessment disputes get handled. Your title company or agent can pull the recorded declaration during due diligence, and the recording date on that document tells you more about which rules actually apply than the year the model home opened.
For established neighborhoods like Triple Crown, Union Village, or Lassing Green, that might mean asking whether the association has voluntarily updated its governing documents since 2023, since nothing requires an older community to do so on its own timeline. For newer phases still selling out under builders like Drees Homes, it means confirming that the paperwork you are signing actually reflects the current statute rather than a template drafted before June 2023 and never revisited.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Sign
Does this mean older HOAs in Union offer buyers less protection? Not automatically less protection, just a different baseline. Older declarations still bind, and the association still operates under Kentucky's nonprofit corporation statute.
If I'm buying brand-new construction in Union, is the HOA automatically compliant with the current law? Being new does not guarantee anything on its own. A community platted or amended after June 29, 2023 should be operating under the current framework, but the way to confirm that is to look at the actual recorded declaration and its date, not the age of the homes being built on top of it.
How do I actually find out when a subdivision's declaration was recorded? This is standard due diligence during a real estate transaction. Your agent or title company can pull the recorded declaration from the county clerk's records as part of a title search, and that document will show its recording date along with any amendments filed since.
Union is adding new subdivisions and new phases of old ones at a pace few other Northern Kentucky communities can match right now, which means this question is only going to come up more often, not less. If you are weighing two Union communities against each other and want someone to walk through what the paperwork actually says before you write an offer, Missy Bricking and her team work through exactly this kind of comparison every week. Let's Connect.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
