Kentucky

Land sold for back taxes

An unpaid tax bill becomes a certificate of delinquency, which earns 12 percent simple interest a year. County clerks sell certificates to private buyers at an annual sale on a statewide schedule, and buyers must register with the clerk at least a week ahead. After a year the holder can sue to foreclose, and has eleven years to do it. If the foreclosure sale brings less than two-thirds of the appraised value, the owner has six months to redeem, paying the price plus 10 percent a year and the buyer's costs, though the buyer takes possession at once. If nobody bids, the master commissioner deeds the land to the certificate holders.

What to do: A certificate is a debt, not land. To buy the land, watch the master commissioner's foreclosure sales, and know that a price under two-thirds of the appraisal leaves the owner six months to take it back.

Source: KRS 134.125; KRS 134.128; KRS 134.546; KRS 426.530

Septic before you build

Before any construction, the site has to be evaluated by a certified inspector at the local health department, or by a professional engineer, who flags and records the approved area and gives the applicant a drawing of the lateral field and its written limits. Then a construction permit is needed. Only a certified inspector can issue it, only to a certified installer or the homeowner, and it lasts a year.

What to do: Ask the county health department whether the parcel has a site evaluation. If it has none, get one before you close: the approved area it flags shapes where a house can go.

Source: 902 KAR 10:085

Being taxed as a farm

Ten or more contiguous acres used for livestock, poultry, tobacco or other crops, timber included, are assessed at their farm value, and horticultural land qualifies from five acres; the house, lawn and drive do not count. The property valuation administrator decides whether land qualifies. Land taxed as a farm for five years or more keeps that classification if the owner simply stops farming, but only until it is sold to anyone but a surviving spouse. Land converted to another use is taxed at full value from the next year.

What to do: If the parcel is on a farm assessment but nobody farms it any more, the assessment ends when you buy it. Budget for tax at full value unless you will farm it.

Source: KRS 132.010; KRS 132.450; KRS 132.454

Old well records

The Kentucky Geological Survey's Groundwater Data Repository holds the state's water well and spring records, updated quarterly from the Division of Water: location, use, construction, the rock drilled through and the casing. It can be searched by county, quadrangle or distance from a point.

What to do: Search a radius around the parcel and read the nearest wells for their depth and what the driller found.

Source: Kentucky Geological Survey, water well and spring search

Kentucky counties, cheapest farmland first

What farmland and its buildings were worth an acre in each of the 120 counties in the 2022 Census of Agriculture, with the median value of a home. These compare one county with another; they are not the price of any parcel.

Source: USDA, 2022 Census of Agriculture, Kentucky county data; Census Bureau, ACS 2020–2024, table B25077