If any person, believing himself to be the owner by reason of a claim in law or equity founded on a public record, peacefully occupies and improves any land, and the land, upon judicial investigation, is held to belong to another, the value of the improvements shall be paid by the successful party to the occupant, or the person under whom and for whom he entered and holds, before the court rendering judgment or decree of eviction causes the possession to be delivered to the successful party.
KRS 381.460
Occupant in good faith to be paid for improvements
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case Willie Belcher and Dahlia Belcher v. W. E. Elliott, Francis L. Rice, Charles Moore and W. W. Lindsey (1963)
Most recently applied in Walters v. Walters (November 1989)
Effective: October 1, 1942 History: Recodified 1942 Ky
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Kentucky General Assembly. Reproduced from public-domain Kentucky statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.