Gorge Journal · Land & Title
When a Red River Gorge lot is sold off an unapproved plat, Kentucky law can void the deed itself. KRS 100.277 states that an instrument transferring a subdivision lot by reference to a plat that has not received final planning commission approval and been recorded “shall be void and shall not be subject to be recorded.” The contract to buy that same lot survives. That asymmetry is the whole story for anyone buying a split-off parcel in Lee, Wolfe, Powell or Menifee County.
What does KRS 100.277 actually prohibit?
Two separate things: subdividing land without planning commission approval of a plat, and selling a lot by reference to a plat that is not yet approved and recorded.
The first half is aimed at the owner and the county clerk. Under KRS 100.277, Commission approval required for subdivisions, no person or agent may subdivide land before securing planning commission approval of a plat designating the areas to be subdivided, and no subdivision plat inside the planning unit’s jurisdiction may be recorded by the county clerk until the commission has approved it and entered that approval in writing on the plat.
The second half is the one that reaches a buyer. The same statute says no person owning land composing a subdivision, or their agent, shall transfer or sell any lot “by reference to, or by exhibition, or by any other use of a plat of such subdivision” before that plat has final approval and has been recorded. The consequence is written into the statute: the instrument of transfer is void and is not subject to be recorded.
The deed can be void while the contract that produced it is perfectly good. Kentucky wrote the escape hatch into the same sentence as the trap.
If the deed is void, is the purchase contract void too?
No. KRS 100.277 expressly preserves an executory contract or option to purchase made by reference to an unapproved plat, or by a metes and bounds description.
This is the provision most people miss. The statute allows any person or agent to agree to sell a lot within a subdivision by reference to an unapproved or unrecorded plat, or by reference to a metes and bounds description of that lot. Such an executory contract of sale or option to purchase may itself be recorded, and the statute says it “shall be valid and enforceable” so long as the subdivision contemplated is lawful and the plat subsequently receives final approval. The statute also preserves “all rights of such purchaser to damages” where a void transfer has already been attempted.
Read in order, the statute describes a sequence rather than a prohibition: contract now, approve and record the plat, then deed. A seller who runs that order backwards hands the buyer an unrecordable deed.
How do I tell whether a Gorge parcel is a subdivision lot at all?
Check two things: whether the county has a planning commission with jurisdiction over the parcel, and whether the deed’s description points to a plat or to metes and bounds.
KRS 100.277 only bites inside a planning unit’s jurisdiction. Gorge-region parcels sit across four counties, and planning jurisdiction is not uniform across them, so the same informal family split can be regulated in one county and unregulated in the next. A deed that calls out “Lot 4 of the Smith Subdivision, Plat Cabinet 2, Slide 118” is referencing a plat. A deed that runs courses and distances is a metes and bounds conveyance, which is the form the statute expressly leaves available for contracts.
Where a plat does exist, KRS 100.283, Recording final plats, is the section that governs getting it on record. Reading the recorded plat is a separate skill, and it is worth doing before you tour: here is how to read a Kentucky plat before you buy Gorge land.
What this looks like in practice on Gorge land
In my work as a listing and buyer’s agent on rural Kentucky land, the pattern that produces this problem is almost never bad faith. It is a family that has been treating a hand-drawn division as real for twenty years, a handshake about where the line runs, and a seller who assumes that because the county clerk accepted a deed once, the division is settled. The professional habit worth building is simple: before writing an offer on a parcel that is visibly a piece of something larger, ask the seller which recorded instrument created the parcel, and read that instrument rather than the listing description. If the answer is a plat, ask whether the planning commission signed it. If the answer is a surveyor’s description, you are in the lane the statute leaves open.
Related diligence on the same parcel usually runs in parallel: whether you need a survey to buy Red River Gorge land, and the owner-side checklist for buying Red River Gorge land for sale by owner.
None of this is legal advice, and I am not your attorney. A Kentucky real estate attorney reads the plat, the deed and the planning commission’s minute book; my job is to make sure the question gets asked before earnest money moves.
Can a void deed be fixed after closing?
KRS 100.277 says the instrument “shall not be subject to be recorded unless the subdivision plat subsequently receives final approval of the planning commission.” So the statute contemplates a cure: get the plat approved, then record. Whether that is achievable on a specific parcel is a question for the planning commission and your attorney.
Does this apply if the land is not in a subdivision?
The prohibition is written around lots “located within a subdivision.” A single tract that has never been divided is not reached by this section. The threshold question is whether the act of selling the piece you are buying is itself a subdivision under the local regulations.
Who approves a plat in the Red River Gorge counties?
The planning commission with jurisdiction over the parcel, under KRS Chapter 100. Because jurisdiction and the existence of a commission vary by county and city in the Gorge region, confirm which body governs the specific parcel before assuming a plat needs — or does not need — approval.
Last updated October 5, 2026.
By Marcos Gil, REALTOR® — Keller Williams Commonwealth · KY Real Estate License No. 296259 · Call or text (859) 310-1209.
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