Kentucky's New Custody Laws: Stronger Protections for Children

Good morning everybody!

I hope as summer begins to wind down and the school year begins, that we are all able to reflect on what an eventful summer this was. In Kentucky’s Family Courts, there were a few major changes to our statutes that took effect in July 2026. These changes affect how our courts determine custody and timesharing in meaningful ways, and it's worth understanding how they may impact custody and timesharing determinations going forward.

Under the current version of KRS 403.270, courts must now consider, before weighing any other custody factor, allegations of domestic violence and abuse, and findings of abuse or neglected on child as defined in KRS 600.020. The court must make written findings on the record addressing the impact of those allegations on the child before moving on to the remaining best-interest factors.

KRS 403.270(4) also adds a new factor to the court's best-interest analysis: a finding that a party has maliciously made an intentionally false allegation of child abuse that had no basis in fact, and which the party knew had no basis in fact.

KRS 403.315 has also changed, and this appears to be a major caveat to Kentucky's presumption in favor of joint custody and equal time sharing...

When a court finds a party has committed two or more acts of domestic violence or abuse, there's now a rebuttable presumption that joint custody and equally shared parenting time are NOT in the child's best interest — a reversal of the general presumption that otherwise governs most Kentucky custody cases. A party who meets that threshold generally cannot obtain unsupervised visitation, let alone custody, until completing a batterer's intervention program, parenting classes, and substance use/mental health assessments — followed by supervised visitation and a court hearing.

As you can see, our Legislature and our Courts are committed to protecting the children of Kentucky from domestic violence, as well as neglect or abuse. I believe these are issues we can all be on the same page about, and we can thank our local legislators for buying into this framework.

Have a good week!