Free West Virginia Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable West Virginia residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to W. Va. Code 37-6 and 37-6A and to the case law that supplies the rest — no deposit cap, a return clock that is the shorter of sixty or forty-five days, and no entry statute at all.

West Virginia W. Va. Code 37-6 & 37-6A Case Law Verified Free PDF 2026 Edition

A West Virginia residential lease agreement is governed by something most states do not have: no uniform act at all. West Virginia never adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. What it has instead is four sources that have to be read together — W. Va. Code chapter 37 article 6, a nineteenth-century Landlord and Tenant article of thirty-one sections into which a single modern habitability section was inserted in 1978; chapter 37 article 6A, a six-section security deposit article; chapter 55 article 3A, the summary possession procedure; and decided case law, which is where the tenant’s two most important rights actually live. The implied warranty of habitability comes from Teller v. McCoy and the retaliatory-eviction defence comes from Imperial Colliery Co. v. Fout. A page that recites only chapter 37 article 6 is not just thin — it is wrong about what a West Virginia tenant can do and wrong about what a West Virginia landlord owes. This page labels every rule below as STATUTE or CASE LAW on its face, because in West Virginia the distinction changes the answer.

Complete the fields below to generate a West Virginia residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, and the generated lease cites the controlling West Virginia section or case at each point — including the seven places where the statute is silent and the lease has to supply the rule. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening. Pair the signed lease with a West Virginia move-in / move-out checklist, which does unusually heavy lifting in this state: the statutory duty in 37-6-30(a)(1) is to deliver the unit in a fit and habitable condition at the commencement of the tenancy and thereafter maintain it, and the damages measure the Supreme Court of Appeals adopted in Teller v. McCoy compares the value of the premises as warranted against their value as they actually were — so a dated move-in record is evidence on both duties at once.

No. West Virginia sets no statutory maximum on a residential security deposit. W. Va. Code 37-6A-1 through 37-6A-6 are the entire Residential Rental Security Deposits article — six sections — and not one of them limits the amount. There is no number of months, no fixed sum and no formula anywhere in the article. The figure in the lease is the figure.

This matters because a cap of one month’s rent is repeated on ranking West Virginia pages as though it were settled law. It is not in 37-6A-1, it is not in 37-6A-2, and it is not anywhere else. To be sure the negative was exhaustive rather than assumed, all six sections were fetched and read individually, and the Legislature’s own full-text search was run across all sixty-four chapters of the Code for the phrase “security deposit”. Eleven sections come back. Three of them are the article 6A sections above. The rest are about utility deposits for water and sewer customers, a local board of health, unclaimed property definitions, banking definitions and the Uniform Principal and Income Act. There is no cap because there is no section that could contain one.

Two consequences follow that are worth stating plainly. For a landlord, the absence of a cap is not an invitation — the deposit is still fully refundable money held subject to a closed list of permitted uses, and a wilful failure to account for it carries a penalty described below. For a tenant, the absence of a cap means the negotiation over the amount happens before signing or not at all, because nothing in West Virginia law will reduce it afterwards.

Not a flat sixty days. W. Va. Code 37-6A-2(a) requires that, upon termination of the tenancy and within the applicable notice period, the deposit less any deductions be delivered to the tenant together with a written itemization of those damages or other charges. The whole question is what “the applicable notice period” means, and the answer is in the definitions section.

W. Va. Code 37-6A-1(7) defines “notice period” as: (A) within sixty days of the termination of the tenancy; or (B) within forty-five days of the occupation of the premise by a subsequent tenant, whichever time period is shorter. So the deadline is a moving target that depends on how fast the unit is re-let. A landlord who leaves a unit empty for three months has sixty days from termination. A landlord who has a new tenant in the unit two weeks after move-out has forty-five days from that new tenant’s occupancy, which lands well before the sixty-day date. Every ranking page examined for this build states the deadline as sixty days and stops there.

There is one extension, and it has a condition most sources omit. W. Va. Code 37-6A-2(c) provides that where damages to the premises exceed the amount of the security deposit and require the services of a third party contractor, the landlord shall give written notice to the tenant advising of that fact within the applicable notice period. Only if that notice is given as the subsection prescribes does the landlord get an additional fifteen day period to provide an itemization of the damages and the cost of repair. Miss the written notice inside the notice period and the extension is simply unavailable — the fifteen days is not a general grace period, it is the reward for a specific written step.

How delivery works, and the six-month hold. Under 37-6A-2(g) delivery of the deposit or of any notice the section prescribes may be accomplished by personal delivery, or by mailing to the tenant’s last known address or the forwarding address the tenant provides. The statute puts the burden squarely on the tenant: “It shall be the responsibility of the tenant to provide an accurate address to the landlord.” If personal delivery is not reasonably possible and a mailed deposit or notice comes back non-deliverable, the landlord must hold it for six months, to be personally delivered to the tenant or the tenant’s authorized agent or attorney at the landlord’s place of business during normal business hours within seventy-two hours after a written request.

Two further rules in the same section are worth knowing. 37-6A-2(d) makes clear that nothing in the section entitles a tenant, on termination, to an immediate credit against a delinquent rent account in the amount of the deposit — a tenant cannot simply stop paying the last month and call it even. And 37-6A-2(e) binds the holder of the landlord’s interest at the time of termination regardless of how the interest is acquired or transferred, and regardless of any contract between the original landlord and the successor. A buyer of a West Virginia rental property inherits the deposit obligation whether or not the money came with the building. Where the tenant has an assignee or sublessee, 37-6A-2(f) entitles the landlord to hold a deposit from only one party.

W. Va. Code 37-6A-2(b) is a closed list of five permitted applications — and the fifth one lets the lease widen it. On termination the deposit may be applied only to:

• (1) Rent due, including the reasonable charges for late payment of rent specified in the rental agreement.
• (2) Damages the landlord has suffered by reason of the tenant’s noncompliance with the rental agreement, less reasonable wear and tear.
• (3) Unpaid utilities that were billed to and paid by the landlord, are the tenant’s obligation under the rental agreement, and are unpaid by the tenant.
• (4) Reasonable costs for the removal and storage of the tenant’s personal property, which the landlord may then dispose of under the procedure in 55-3A-3(h).
• (5) Other damages or charges as provided in the rental agreement, including but not limited to paying for the services of a third party contractor to repair damage caused by the tenant.

Subdivision (5) is the one to notice. West Virginia is one of a small number of states whose permitted-deduction list the lease itself can widen. That cuts both ways: a landlord who wants to charge for something outside items (1) to (4) must write it into the lease before the tenancy begins, and a tenant signing a West Virginia lease should read the damages clause knowing that it is not merely descriptive — it is doing statutory work. The generator asks for those additional charges explicitly and prints them, or prints an express statement that none were agreed and the deposit is limited to items (1) to (4).

The wear-and-tear carve-out in subdivision (2) is statutory, not a courtesy. A deduction for the ordinary deterioration of paint, carpet or fixtures over the life of a tenancy is outside the permission however the invoice describes it, and cannot be rescued by subdivision (5), which reaches “damages or charges” and not the passage of time.

Records, and the seventy-two hour rule. W. Va. Code 37-6A-3 requires the landlord to maintain and itemize records for each tenant of all deductions made by reason of a tenant’s noncompliance for one year after termination of the tenancy, and either to permit the tenant or the tenant’s authorized agent or attorney to inspect those records during normal business hours within seventy-two hours of a written request, or at the landlord’s option to provide a copy in the same seventy-two hours. It is a short, hard deadline that almost no West Virginia lease mentions, and the generated lease names the address where inspection happens.

It is not double damages, and it is not automatic. W. Va. Code 37-6A-5(a) applies only where the landlord fails to comply with a provision of article 6A and such noncompliance is wilful or not in good faith. Where that threshold is met the tenant is entitled to a judgment for two things: the amount of any unreturned security deposit, and — for annoyance or inconvenience resulting from the landlord’s nonconformance — an amount equal to one and one-half times the amount wrongfully withheld.

There is a set-off built into the same subdivision that competitor summaries omit: where the tenant owes rent to the landlord, the court shall order an amount equal to any award made to the tenant to be credited against the rent due. So a tenant who is behind in rent does not walk away with cash; the award reduces the debt.

37-6A-5(b) puts jurisdiction in the magistrate court or the circuit court of the county where the residential rental premises are located — magistrate court being the practical forum for most deposit disputes. And 37-6A-5(c) provides that the section does not limit rights or remedies available to a landlord or tenant under any other law, which is the doorway through which an ordinary contract claim, or a habitability claim under Teller v. McCoy, still runs.

Yes — unless the parties expressly agree in writing that it is nonrefundable. This is the sharpest drafting trap in West Virginia landlord-tenant law and it sits in a definitions section, which is exactly why it is missed. W. Va. Code 37-6A-1(14) defines “security deposit” to mean any refundable deposit of money furnished by a tenant to a landlord to secure performance of the terms and conditions of a rental agreement, or as security for damages to the leased premises. It then says the term does not include rent, a pet fee or an application fee — “Provided, That the parties expressly agree, in writing, that a pet fee or application fee is nonrefundable.”

Read the proviso carefully. The exclusion is conditional on the writing. A West Virginia landlord who collects a pet fee without an express written statement that it is nonrefundable has not collected a fee at all — he has collected a security deposit, and every duty in article 6A attaches to it: the closed permitted-use list in 37-6A-2(b), the written itemization, the notice period, the one-year record-keeping duty in 37-6A-3, and the wilful-withholding remedy in 37-6A-5. The form above turns that written designation into a tick-box, and the generated lease prints either the express designation or an express statement that none was made and the fee is therefore a deposit.

The same definition contains a second surprise that runs the other way. Security deposit does not include prepaid rent. Several neighbouring states sweep prepaid rent or last month’s rent into the deposit and count it against a cap; West Virginia does the opposite and excludes it outright. Since there is no cap in the first place, the practical effect is on the accounting rather than on the ceiling — prepaid rent is rent, and the article 6A itemization and notice-period duties do not attach to it. The form keeps prepaid rent in its own field so the two sums are never conflated.

Finally, 37-6A-1(2) defines an “application fee” as any deposit of money, however denominated, paid by a tenant to a landlord, lessor or agent for the purpose of being considered as a tenant for a dwelling unit. West Virginia sets no ceiling on it and imposes no refund duty. The only constraint on an application fee in this state is the written-nonrefundability rule above — which means an undesignated application fee is a security deposit that has to be accounted for at the end of a tenancy that may never have begun.

STATUTE. W. Va. Code 37-6-30(a) imposes seven duties on a residential landlord, and it is worth setting them out because two of them are conditional and no ranking page separates them:

• (1) At the commencement of a tenancy, deliver the dwelling unit and surrounding premises in a fit and habitable condition, and thereafter maintain the leased property in such condition.
• (2) Maintain the property to the requirements of applicable health, safety, fire and housing codes, unless the failure is the fault of the tenant, a member of the tenant’s family, or another person on the premises with the tenant’s consent.
• (3) In multiple housing units, keep clean, safe and in repair all common areas remaining under the landlord’s control that are maintained for the use and benefit of tenants.
• (4) Make all repairs necessary to keep the premises fit and habitable, unless necessitated primarily by a lack of reasonable care by the tenant or the tenant’s household or guests.
• (5) Maintain in good and safe working order all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and other facilities and appliances, including elevators, supplied or required to be supplied by written or oral agreement or by law.
• (6) In multiple housing units, provide and maintain appropriate conveniences for the removal of ashes, garbage, rubbish and other waste.
• (7) With respect to dwelling units supplied by direct public utility connections, supply running water and reasonable amounts of hot water at all times, and reasonable heat between October 1 and the last day of April — except where the unit is so constructed that the water, heat or hot water is generated by an installation within the tenant’s exclusive control.

Subdivisions (3) and (6) turn on the definition in 37-6-30(d): a “multiple housing unit” is a dwelling containing a room or group of rooms located within a building or structure forming more than one habitable unit for occupants for living, sleeping, eating and cooking. A landlord renting a single detached house does not owe the common-area duty or the waste-conveniences duty, and a lease that recites all seven duties as though they applied to a single dwelling is overstating the obligation. The form asks the question and the generated lease states the correct set.

Subdivision (7) contains the winter-heat rule that most West Virginia tenants would name first if asked what their landlord owes them — October 1 to the last day of April — and it also contains a limitation almost nobody quotes: it applies only to dwelling units supplied by direct public utility connections, and it steps aside where the installation generating heat or water is within the tenant’s exclusive control. A rural West Virginia property on a private well and a tenant-controlled wood or propane system may sit outside subdivision (7) while every other duty still applies. The form asks whether the unit is supplied by direct public utility connections rather than flattening the point.

Two rules about the duty itself deserve their own line. First, 37-6-30(b): if the landlord’s duty under the rental agreement exceeds a duty imposed by the section, that portion of the rental agreement imposing the greater duty shall control. A maintenance promise in a West Virginia lease is enforceable above the statutory floor, not merely alongside it — which is a warning to landlords who copy generous language from another state’s template.

Second, and this is the limit no competitor carries: 37-6-30(c) provides that none of the provisions of the section shall be deemed to require the landlord to make repairs when the tenant is in arrears in payment of rent. It is a genuine statutory limit and it is directly contrary to the advice tenants are commonly given about withholding rent to force repairs. It is a limit on the section; it does not on its face cancel the duties a lease itself creates, and its relationship to the judge-made warranty described next is a question a practitioner should be asked rather than assumed away.

Both — and the case law is what supplies the remedies. This is the point at which a West Virginia page that recites only the Code goes wrong, because 37-6-30 states a duty and stops. It says nothing about what happens when the duty is broken.

CASE LAW. Teller v. McCoy, 162 W. Va. 367, 253 S.E.2d 114 (1978). On a certified question, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia held that in a written or oral lease of residential premises there is an implied warranty that the landlord shall at the commencement of a tenancy deliver the dwelling unit and surrounding premises in a fit and habitable condition and shall thereafter maintain the leased property in such condition. The Court noted that the Legislature had added 37-6-30 to the landlord-tenant law on 11 March 1978, and said in terms that the landlord’s duty under the implied warranty and the duty under the new statute are identical — so the two run together rather than competing.

What the Court did next is the part that matters, and it is entirely absent from ranking coverage of this state:

• The covenant to pay rent and the warranty of habitability are MUTUALLY DEPENDENT. Because a residential lease is to be treated and construed as a contract rather than a conveyance, the tenant’s duty to pay rent depends on the landlord’s fulfilment of the warranty.
• Breach is a DEFENCE to an action for unlawful detainer, and a defence to an action for rent or damages brought by the landlord. The landlord’s breach goes directly to the right to possession, even where the tenant is in arrears.
• The tenant may vacate and thereby terminate the obligation to pay rent, or continue paying rent and bring an action or counterclaim later to recover damages caused by the breach.
• Damages are the difference between the fair market value of the premises had they been as warranted and the fair rental value of the premises as they actually were during occupancy in the unsafe and unsanitary condition — plus damages for annoyance and inconvenience proven to have resulted from the breach.
• A waiver of the implied warranty is against public policy and therefore void. No West Virginia lease can contract out of it, and a form clause purporting to do so is ineffective.
• A trial court may require rent to be paid into court during the litigation, on request and after finding that a fact question exists, balancing the landlord’s need against the apparent merits of the tenant’s defence.

The Court was also careful about what counts as a breach. The breach must be substantial, rendering the premises uninhabitable and unfit; minor code violations or deficiencies that do not adversely affect habitability do not entitle a tenant to a rent reduction. In making that judgment a court looks at the nature of the defects, how long they persisted, their effect on safety and sanitation, the age of the structure and the amount of rent charged.

No. West Virginia has no repair-and-deduct remedy at all, and this is a negative finding with an unusually clean proof behind it. Certified Question 4(b) in Teller v. McCoy asked the Supreme Court of Appeals precisely whether a tenant may, after reasonable notice and an opportunity to the landlord to correct the defective conditions, repair the defect and deduct the cost from rent. The Court declined, holding that “the wide range of contract remedies available to the tenant are adequate to enforce fulfilment of the implied warranty” — and a separate opinion in the same case dissented on exactly that point, which puts the refusal beyond doubt.

No statute fills the gap either. A full-text search of all sixty-four chapters of the West Virginia Code for “habitable” returns six sections, of which 37-6-30 is the only landlord-tenant provision, and it creates no self-help remedy. There is no West Virginia equivalent of the repair-and-deduct sections found in most neighbouring states.

So what does a West Virginia tenant actually have? Four things, all from Teller v. McCoy: rent abatement measured as above; damages, including annoyance and inconvenience; termination by vacating, which ends the rent obligation; and the habitability defence to a possession action under chapter 55 article 3A, which is the one that decides who keeps the keys. What a tenant does not have is a right to spend money on a repair and take it off the rent, and any West Virginia template offering that remedy is offering something the state’s highest court refused to create.

The practical advice runs in both directions. A tenant should give written notice of the defect and keep the copy, because every one of the four remedies depends on proving the landlord knew and failed to act. A landlord should understand that the arrears limit in 37-6-30(c) is not a general licence to stop maintaining a property, because the judge-made warranty and its remedies are separate from the section that limit sits in.

None by statute, because West Virginia has no landlord-entry provision of any kind. That is a claim, so here is the proof rather than the assumption. All thirty-one sections of W. Va. Code chapter 37 article 6, from 37-6-1 to 37-6-31, were fetched and read individually. All six sections of article 6A were read individually. So were chapter 55 article 3 (unlawful entry or detainer), article 3A (summary possession), article 3B (factory-built home sites) and article 3C (the Stop Squatters Act). None of them creates a right of entry to a dwelling, a notice period before entry, a permitted-purpose list, an hours restriction or an emergency rule.

As a cross-check, the Legislature’s own full-text search was run across all sixty-four chapters for “landlord”, returning fifty-seven sections. The only right-of-entry provision in that list that touches a rented dwelling is 24D-2-6, and it belongs to a cable operator, not to a landlord: it lets a cable operator enter the landlord’s property to make surveys preparatory to installation, on notice to both landlord and tenant.

The consequence is that any “West Virginia entry notice period” quoted anywhere — twenty-four hours, forty-eight hours, or the vaguer “reasonable notice” — is not West Virginia law. It is either an import from another state or an invention. What a West Virginia tenant gets before a landlord walks in is exactly what the lease says, which is why the entry clause in the generator is written as a deliberate election with a stated hours figure, an emergency exception and an express bar on abusing access. A persistent breach of that clause is a breach of a leasehold covenant, which is one of the three grounds a landlord may plead under 55-3A-1(a)(3) — and, read the other way, a covenant a tenant can enforce as a term of contract. See also our guide to West Virginia landlord entry laws and the West Virginia notice to enter form.

Whatever the lease reasonably states, because West Virginia caps no residential late fee and grants no grace period. There is no residential late-fee statute. What there is, and what almost nobody cites, is an indirect hook in the deposit article: W. Va. Code 37-6A-2(b)(1) permits the security deposit to be applied to “the payment of rent due, including the reasonable charges for late payment of rent specified in the rental agreement”.

Two things follow from that wording and both are in the generated lease deliberately. A late charge that is not specified in the rental agreement cannot be taken out of the deposit at all — so an unwritten fee has no route to the money. And a late charge that is not reasonable is outside the permission however it is labelled, which gives a West Virginia tenant an argument that has nothing to do with any cap.

The two late-fee sections competitors cite are the wrong body of law. A full-text search of the Code for “late fee” returns thirty sections. Almost all are professional licence renewals and court fines. Exactly two set a rental-style ceiling, and neither governs a dwelling: 38-14-4 is the Self-Service Storage Lien Act, which lets a storage operator charge a late fee not to exceed twenty dollars or twenty per cent of the monthly rental fee, whichever is greater; and 46B-3-9 sits in chapter 46B, the act regulating the rental of consumer goods under rent-to-own agreements, and caps a dealer’s late fee at five per cent of the periodic payment or fifteen dollars, whichever is less. A West Virginia residential lease that borrows either figure is borrowing from a statute about storage units or television sets.

The returned-check charge is also misattributed. The twenty-five dollar figure quoted on West Virginia landlord pages comes from 61-3-39e, which sits in chapter 61 — Crimes and Their Punishment, in the article on Crimes Against Property. It provides that the payee or holder of a check dishonoured because of insufficient funds or credit may impose a fee of up to twenty-five dollars per worthless check, prescribes the wording of a ten-day demand notice, and provides that the fee may not be imposed or collected after a complaint for warrant has been delivered to magistrate court. It binds every payee in the state, not landlords in particular, it is about paper checks, and it is not general authority for a returned-payment charge on an electronic transfer. Our West Virginia late fee laws guide covers the point in more detail.

One full rental period for a periodic tenancy of less than a year, and three months for a tenancy from year to year — unless the lease says otherwise. W. Va. Code 37-6-5 provides that a tenancy from year to year may be terminated by either party giving notice in writing to the other at least three months prior to the end of any year, and that a periodic tenancy in which the period is less than one year may be terminated by like notice, or by notice for one full period before the end of any period.

The service rules are in the same section and are unusually flexible. Notice to the tenant may be served on the tenant or upon anyone holding under him the leased premises, or any part thereof. Notice by the tenant may be served on anyone who at the time owns the premises in whole or in part, or on that owner’s agent, or according to the common law.

Then comes the sentence that changes everything, and that no ranking page quotes. Section 37-6-5 closes: “This section shall not apply where, by special agreement, some other period of notice is fixed, or no notice is to be given; nor shall notice be necessary from or to a tenant whose term is to end at a certain time.” West Virginia’s notice periods are therefore defaults, not floors. A lease may fix thirty days, sixty days, or a different period entirely, and a fixed-term lease that simply expires on its stated date requires no termination notice at all. The form makes that an explicit election with three options, and the generated lease states which one was chosen and why.

Pages that print “thirty days to end a West Virginia month-to-month tenancy” are stating a rule the Code does not contain. The statutory measure is one full period, which for a month-to-month tenancy means a full rental month rather than a rolling thirty days — and the number the parties actually live with is whatever the lease fixed. See our West Virginia lease termination laws and breaking a lease in West Virginia guides.

There is no rent-increase notice statute in West Virginia and no rent control. A full-text search of all sixty-four chapters for “rent increase” returns nothing at all. During a fixed term the rent is whatever the lease says. On a periodic tenancy the practical mechanism is the 37-6-5 termination notice and an offer of new terms — which means the notice period the lease fixed is also, in effect, the rent-increase notice period. Our West Virginia rent increase laws guide covers the mechanics.

For nonpayment of rent: none by statute. This is one of the genuinely unusual features of West Virginia law and it is stated wrongly almost everywhere, including in a form our own library currently publishes. Chapter 55 article 3A prescribes no pre-suit notice to quit for nonpayment and no statutory cure period. A landlord who wants possession applies directly to the magistrate court or the circuit court of the county in which the property is located by verified petition under 55-3A-1.

The petition must set forth four things: that the applicant is the owner or the owner’s agent and as such has a right to recover possession; a brief description of the property sufficient to identify it; that the tenant is wrongfully occupying the property in that the tenant is in arrears in the payment of rent, has breached a warranty or a leasehold covenant, or has deliberately or negligently damaged the property or knowingly permitted another person to do so, describing the arrearage, breach, act or omission; and a prayer for possession.

Those three grounds are the whole of it. West Virginia is not a just-cause state, but neither is it a state where a landlord may evict a sitting tenant mid-term for no stated reason: the petition has to allege one of the three, and the second one — breach of a warranty — is the hook through which the implied warranty of habitability enters the case from the tenant’s side as well.

The one-month notice in 37-6-6 is not a pay-or-quit notice. Section 37-6-6 requires a posted written notice giving one month to pay, but it applies only where a tenant from whom rent is in arrears has abandoned the leased property. It is an abandonment procedure. It does not authorise a lockout of a tenant who is still in occupation, and it is not the West Virginia equivalent of a three-day or five-day pay-or-quit notice. There is no such thing in this state.

Terminating a periodic tenancy is a separate question and still requires the 37-6-5 notice — one full period, three months on a year-to-year tenancy, or whatever the lease fixed by special agreement. A landlord ending a month-to-month tenancy gives that notice; a landlord evicting mid-term for arrears files the petition. Confusing the two is the most common procedural error in West Virginia residential practice. Our West Virginia eviction notice laws guide sets out the sequence.

Fast, and on a fixed judicial timetable. Upon the filing of the petition, 55-3A-1(b) requires the court to schedule a hearing not less than five nor more than ten judicial days following the filing. Immediately upon being apprised of the time and place, the petitioner must cause notice of the hearing to be served on the tenant in accordance with Rule 4 of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure or by certified mail, return receipt requested. The notice must inform the tenant that any written defence may be filed and served upon the petitioner within five days of the tenant’s receipt of the notice. Only on receipt of the return of service or the return receipt does the petitioner file the petition and the proof of service with the court.

What the tenant may raise. Section 55-3A-2 is short and wide: a tenant against whom a petition has been brought may assert any and all defences which might be raised in an action for ejectment or an action for unlawful detainer. Under Teller v. McCoy that expressly includes breach of the implied warranty of habitability, and 55-3A-3(b) then requires the court, where the petition alleges arrearage and the tenant answers raising breach by the landlord of a material covenant on which the duty to pay rent depends, to proceed to a hearing on those issues.

What the court does. If no appearance, answer or responsive pleading has been filed at the time of the hearing, 55-3A-3(a) requires an order granting immediate possession. Continuances under 55-3A-3(d) are for cause only and are not available to either party as a matter of right; a tenant granted one must pay into court any periodic rent falling due during it. Where the court finds wrongful occupation it enters an order granting immediate possession, and under 55-3A-3(f) the order shall specify the time when the tenant shall vacate, taking into consideration the nature of the property, whether it is furnished or unfurnished, the possibility of relative harm to the parties and other material facts the court considers relevant. If the tenant stays beyond that time the sheriff removes the tenant, taking precautions to guard against damage to the property of both parties. West Virginia sets no fixed number of days to move out after judgment — the judge sets it case by case, which is a real difference from most states.

On appeal, 55-3A-3(g) provides that if the tenant prevails the relief ordered shall be for monetary damages only and shall not restore the tenant to possession where the lease term has expired — “absent an issue of title, retaliatory eviction, or breach of warranty”. Those three words are the only place the West Virginia Code mentions retaliation in a residential context, and they are the statutory foothold the Supreme Court of Appeals built on in the case discussed next.

The older unlawful entry or detainer action survives alongside the summary procedure. Under 55-3-1 it must be brought within three years of the forcible or unlawful entry or the unlawful detainer; under 55-3-3 the summons is returnable not more than ninety days after its date, must be served at least ten days before the return day, and the cause shall have precedence for trial over all other civil causes on the docket. Under 55-3-2 a plaintiff who files a statement of profits and damages with the summons may have mesne profits for a period not exceeding three years, special damages from the detention, and damages for destruction or waste assessed at the same time.

Yes — and it is CASE LAW, not a statute. West Virginia has no residential retaliation statute. What it has is Imperial Colliery Co. v. Fout, 179 W. Va. 776, 373 S.E.2d 489 (1988), in which the Supreme Court of Appeals held that retaliation may be asserted as a defence to a summary eviction proceeding under W. Va. Code 55-3A-1 et seq. if the landlord’s conduct is in retaliation for the tenant’s exercise of a right incidental to the tenancy.

The qualifier is part of the holding and it is the whole practical content of the rule. The tenant in that case had leased a house trailer lot for six years and defended an eviction on the ground that it was retaliation for his participation in a selective labour strike against a related company. The Court accepted that a retaliation defence exists, traced its development from the leading American authorities, and then held against him: rights of speech and association unrelated to the tenant’s property interest are not protected by a retaliatory-eviction defence, because they do not arise from the tenancy relationship. The Court had reached the threshold question earlier in Criss v. Salvation Army Residences, 173 W. Va. 634, 319 S.E.2d 403 (1984), which had stated without extended discussion that 55-3A-3(g) “specifically provides for the defense of retaliation”.

What is protected, on the Court’s own reasoning, is the cluster of activities that make housing and safety law work: complaining to a governmental agency charged with enforcement of a building or housing code, complaining directly to the landlord about conditions affecting habitability, and organising or joining with other tenants to protect tenancy rights. The Court put it plainly: the central theme is that a tenant should not be punished for claiming the benefits of health and safety statutes passed for the tenant’s protection, and if the right to habitability is to have any meaning it must let the tenant complain without fear of reprisal.

Because the defence is judge-made, it has no presumption period, no damages provision and no statutory list of protected acts — unlike the codified schemes in neighbouring states. A West Virginia tenant raising it is raising a common-law defence in a possession case, and the burden and the proof are argued rather than presumed.

The section competitors cite is the wrong one. Pages that name a West Virginia retaliation statute cite 37-15-7, “Retaliatory conduct prohibited”. That section is real and it does exactly what its title says — it bars a landlord from selectively increasing rent, decreasing services, or bringing or threatening a possession action after learning that the tenant complained to a code enforcement agency, complained to or sued the landlord under that article, organised or joined a tenants’ organisation, or testified in court against the landlord. But it sits in chapter 37 article 15, and 37-15-1 states that the article’s provisions “apply to factory-built homes, as defined herein, which are held as personal property situated on real property owned by another in conjunction with a landlord/tenant relationship”. It is a manufactured-home-lot statute. Citing it for an apartment or a rented house is citing the wrong body of law — the same class of error this whole page is written to avoid.

There are two separate routes, with different notices, and they are commonly conflated.

Route one — abandonment with rent in arrears (W. Va. Code 37-6-6). If a tenant from whom rent is in arrears and unpaid abandons the leased property, the landlord or the landlord’s agent shall post a notice in writing in a conspicuous part of the property requiring the tenant to pay the rent within one month. If the rent is not paid within that time the landlord is entitled to possession, may enter, and the tenant’s right to the property ends; the landlord may recover the rent owed up to that point. A parallel subsection covers a housing authority tenancy where rent is not a condition of the lease, requiring the tenant to respond in writing within one month stating that the property has not been abandoned.

To then dispose of the tenant’s personal property the landlord must give a written notice that is both posted in a conspicuous place on the property and sent by first-class mail with a certificate of mailing, in an envelope endorsed “Please Forward”, addressed to the tenant at three addresses: the leased property, any post office box held by the tenant and known to the landlord, and the most recent forwarding address provided by or known to the landlord. The notice must state that the property is considered abandoned; that any personal property left must be removed by a date not less than thirty days after mailing, or not less than sixty days where the tenant has notified the landlord that the tenant is on active duty in the Armed Forces of the United States; and that failure to remove forfeits the tenant’s ownership rights, the property becoming the landlord’s.

Route two — after a possession order (W. Va. Code 55-3A-3(h)). Where an order granting possession has issued and the tenant fails to remove personal property by the date and time the order specifies, the landlord may dispose of it without liability if the tenant has stated in writing that it is abandoned or if it is garbage; or remove and store it, disposing of it after thirty days if the tenant has not paid the reasonable costs of storage and removal and has not taken possession, or if the storage costs equal the value of the property; or leave it on the property and dispose of it after thirty days on the same conditions.

Both routes carry the same three-hundred-dollar rule, and it is worth knowing on either side. Under 37-6-6(e) and 55-3A-3(i), where the abandoned personal property is worth more than three hundred dollars and was not removed within the stated time, the landlord shall store it for up to thirty additional days if the tenant, or any person holding a security interest in it, informs the landlord of an intent to remove it — provided that person pays the landlord the reasonable costs of storage and removal.

Reletting, and the tenant’s right to get back in. Under 37-6-7 the landlord may include in the abandonment notice a further notice that after taking possession the premises will be leased to someone else, in which case the tenant remains liable for the unexpired portion of the term for the difference between the new rent and the rent under the original lease, and on any other covenants. Where that election has been made, 37-6-8 lets the tenant recover possession on paying all arrears and satisfying all accrued liabilities — except to the extent another person is already in possession or entitled to it under a lease made before the tenant notified the landlord in writing of an intention to resume possession and tendered a sufficient amount. A tenant whose lease has been lawfully forfeited otherwise has no right in law or equity to be relieved of the forfeiture.

Two older sections complete the picture. Under 37-6-19 a landlord with a right of reentry may serve a declaration in ejectment on the tenant in possession, or affix it at a conspicuous place if possession is vacant, or commence unlawful detainer — and that service stands in lieu of a demand and reentry. Under 37-6-20 a defendant who neither pays the rent in arrear with interest and costs nor files a bill in equity for relief within twelve months after execution executed is barred of all rights to be restored. And under 37-6-23, payment or tender of all rents, arrears, interest and costs at any time before trial stops all further proceedings in the action — a pay-and-stay right that exists in West Virginia by statute and is almost never mentioned.

W. Va. Code 37-6-11(b) gives the estate an early exit that cannot be contracted around, and it appears in no competitor template. Notwithstanding any other provision of the Code, upon the death of a lessee of residential premises an heir, personal representative, devisee or assignee of the deceased lessee may terminate the lease before its expiration.

The timing is precise. Termination becomes effective on the last day of the calendar month that is two months after either the date on which the notice is hand-delivered to the other party, or the date on which the notice, addressed to the other party, is deposited in the United States mail postage prepaid, evidenced by the postmark.

Termination does not wipe the slate. Under 37-6-11(b)(3) the estate remains liable for rent or other sums owed before or during the two-month notice period, and for the amounts necessary to restore the premises to their condition at the commencement of the tenancy, ordinary wear and tear excepted.

And then the part that matters most for drafting: 37-6-11(b)(4) provides that the right of termination may not be waived by a lessor, lessee or the lessee’s heir, personal representative, devisee or assignee, by contract or otherwise, and that any lease provision or agreement requiring a longer notice period than that provided by the article is VOID AND UNENFORCEABLE. A West Virginia lease with a ninety-day notice clause on death is void to that extent. The subsection applies to residential property leases entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2012.

A different notice rule takes over, and it overrides 37-6-5 by name. W. Va. Code 38-1-16 provides that, notwithstanding the notice requirements of section five, article six, chapter thirty-seven, following the conveyance of residential rental property to a purchaser by a trustee under a deed of trust, a tenancy under an unexpired written lease that is either not of record or was recorded after the deed of trust may be terminated by giving ninety days’ written notice, or by giving written notice not less than thirty days before the lease expires — whichever is shorter. A month-to-month or other tenancy may be terminated on thirty days’ written notice.

The terms and conditions of the lease remain fully enforceable during the notice period, and if the tenant fails to comply with them the new owner may proceed under chapter 55 article 3A notwithstanding the section. The tenancy of a factory-built home may be terminated only under 37-15-6.

The notice content is prescribed and a defective notice is a real risk. Under 38-1-16(b) the notice must at a minimum identify the residential real property occupied by the tenant, state the date of the trustee’s sale, state the book and page number at which the trustee’s deed to the purchaser appears of record, state the date on which the tenancy will expire, and identify the purchaser including information sufficient to make contact. Service under 38-1-16(c) is by regular mail to the tenant at the property and by one of: personal delivery, posting a copy on the front door of the rental property, or certified mail to the property address. The section took effect on 1 January 2013.

It depends entirely on which body bills the service, and the answer flips. This is the West Virginia exposure no lease template addresses, and it is worth a landlord’s attention before signing anything.

Where a municipality supplies the service, the owner is protected — conditionally. Under W. Va. Code 8-19-12a(b) (municipal waterworks) and 8-20-10(c) (combined municipal water and sewer, and stormwater), delinquent rates, fees and charges are liens on the real property served of equal dignity, rank and priority with the lien of state, county, school and municipal taxes, enforceable by civil action with court fees, costs and a reasonable attorney’s fee. But both sections carry the identical proviso: an owner of real property may not be held liable for the delinquent rates, fees or charges for services or facilities of a tenant, nor shall any lien attach to real property for the reason of delinquent rates, fees or charges for services or facilities of a tenant of the real property, unless the owner has contracted directly with the municipality to purchase such services or facilities.

Read the proviso for what it is: the protection disappears the moment the landlord puts the account in his own name. A landlord who bundles water into the rent and holds the municipal account has contracted directly, and the lien reaches the property. A landlord whose tenant holds the account is protected. Both statutes also require every new applicant for service to tell the municipality whether they are an owner or a tenant with respect to the service location, which is the mechanism that makes the proviso work.

Where a sewage works or public service district supplies the service, there is no proviso at all. Under W. Va. Code 16-13-16(a)(1) the rates, fees and charges for sewerage works are established to be paid by the owner of each lot, parcel of real estate or building connected with and using the works. A user is delinquent twenty days after charges become due under 16-13-16a(a), and 16-13-16a(e) then provides that all rates, fees or charges, if not paid when due, shall constitute a lien upon the premises served by the works, recoverable in a civil action together with a penalty of ten per cent and a reasonable attorney’s fee, and foreclosable against the lot, parcel of land or building. Nothing in chapter 16 article 13 excuses an owner for a tenant’s delinquency.

The enforcement powers are real too. Under 16-13-16a(b) the governing body may shut off water service to a delinquent user of sewer facilities ten days after the sewer charges become delinquent, and under 16-13-16a(d) water may be shut off for stormwater charges at least ninety days past due, after written notice of at least ten days, notice of the right to a deferred payment plan, and two attempts at personal contact in the preceding twenty-four hours.

So the same unpaid bill can be the tenant’s problem or the landlord’s problem depending on whether the pipe is served by a city or by a public service district. The form asks which, and asks whose name is on the account, and the generated lease states the consequence rather than leaving both parties to discover it at a lien foreclosure.

None under state law. Neither chapter 37 article 6 nor article 6A contains a disclosure section. All thirty-seven sections of the two articles were fetched and read individually to establish that, rather than inferring it from silence. There is no West Virginia radon disclosure, no flood-risk disclosure, no mold disclosure, no insect-infestation disclosure, no asbestos disclosure, no methamphetamine disclosure, no offender-registry notice and no landlord identification requirement in a residential lease.

Federal law supplies the only mandatory block. For target housing built before 1978, 42 U.S.C. 4852d and the implementing rule at 40 C.F.R. 745.113 require the lead-based paint disclosure, the delivery of any known records and reports, and the federal pamphlet. That is a federal duty in every state and it is not West Virginia law. A dedicated West Virginia lead-based paint disclosure form is available separately.

One West Virginia writing requirement behaves like a disclosure without being one. Section 37-6A-1(14) requires an express written agreement that a pet fee or an application fee is nonrefundable before either can sit outside the definition of a security deposit. It is a definitional condition rather than a disclosure duty, but its practical effect is the same: it has to appear in the lease, in writing, or the money is a deposit. The generator prints it as a block for exactly that reason.

A voluntary mold block is offered in the form and is labelled on its face as not required by West Virginia statute. Everything else — radon, flood risk, ordnance-proximity notices required in some western states, submetered-utility statements, pending demolition, offender-registry notices — belongs to other states’ law and has no place in a West Virginia lease.

Yes, and the citation almost everybody uses is repealed. The duty used to sit at 29-3-16a in the Fire Prevention and Control Act. That section, and every other section of chapter 29 article 3, now renders as “[Repealed.]” on the Legislature’s own site, because the State Fire Marshal and the State Fire Commission were moved into chapter 15A. The live section is W. Va. Code 15A-10-12, and its allocation of duties is unusual enough to matter.

Smoke detectors. An operational smoke detector must be installed in the immediate vicinity of each sleeping area within all one- and two-family dwellings, including a manufactured home, capable of sensing visible or invisible particles of combustion and meeting the specifications of the current State Fire Code and the manufacturer. Then the split: the owner shall provide, install and replace the required detectors — but to assure they keep working, in a dwelling not occupied by the owner the tenant shall perform routine maintenance on the detectors within the dwelling. Installation and replacement are the landlord’s; routine maintenance is the tenant’s. An automatic fire sprinkler system installed to the State Fire Code and the State Building Code may be provided in lieu of smoke detectors.

The accessibility provision no ranker carries. Under 15A-10-12(c), where a dwelling is not occupied by the owner and is occupied by an individual who is deaf or hard of hearing, the owner shall, upon written request by or on behalf of that individual, provide and install a smoke detector with a light signal sufficient to warn that individual of the danger of fire. The form makes the request a tick-box and the generated lease either records that it was made or tells the tenant the right exists and how to exercise it.

Carbon monoxide detectors. Under 15A-10-12(f) an operational single-station carbon monoxide detector with a suitable alarm, or a combination smoke and carbon monoxide detector, must be alternating-current powered with battery backup and installed, maintained, tested, repaired or replaced per the manufacturer’s direction in three situations: a newly constructed residential unit with a fuel-burning heating or cooking source; a residential unit connected to a newly constructed building having such a source; and either a common area to which the general public has access, or all rooms in which a person will be sleeping that adjoin and are directly below and above areas containing permanently installed fuel-burning appliances — in apartment buildings, boarding houses, dormitories, long-term care facilities, adult or child care facilities, assisted living facilities, one- and two-family dwellings intended to be rented or leased, hotels and motels. In newly constructed buildings of those types they must be hardwired with battery backup.

Two information duties and a penalty ladder. Anyone installing a carbon monoxide detector in a residential unit must inform the owner, lessor or occupants of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning and give operating instructions; and anyone undertaking repair or maintenance work on a fuel-burning heating or cooking source or a venting system in an existing residential unit must inform the owner, lessor or occupants of those dangers and recommend installation of a detector. A violation of the section is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of two hundred fifty dollars for a first offence, seven hundred fifty dollars for a second, and two thousand dollars for a third or subsequent offence. Two protective provisions round it out: a violation may not be considered evidence of negligence, contributory negligence or comparative negligence in a civil action, and may not constitute a defence in a proceeding involving an insurance policy. Finally, nothing in the section limits a political subdivision from imposing a greater duty, so a municipal ordinance can require more.

The statutes are still on the books, and no West Virginia template mentions them. Distress for rent — the landlord’s ancient right to have a tenant’s goods seized for unpaid rent — was abolished or heavily curtailed in most American jurisdictions during the twentieth century. West Virginia’s chapter 37 article 6 still carries it.

Under W. Va. Code 37-6-12, rent may be distrained for within one year after the time it becomes due and not afterwards, whether the lease be ended or not. The distress is made by a sheriff or constable of the county under a warrant from a justice founded upon the affidavit of the person claiming the rent, or that person’s agent, that the amount to be distrained for is justly due for rent reserved upon contract.

Under 37-6-13, distress may be levied on goods of the lessee, assignee or undertenant found on the premises, or removed from them not more than thirty days. Where goods brought onto the premises are subject to a lien valid against the tenant’s creditors, only the tenant’s interest is liable; where a lien is created while the goods are on the premises they are liable for not more than one year’s rent; and where the goods are subject to a perfected purchase money security interest as chapter 46 defines it, they are liable only to the extent of the unencumbered interest. No goods other than those the section names are liable. Section 37-6-17 adds a related attachment for rent where a tenant is removing or has within thirty days removed effects from the premises.

This page states the statutes as written, and states the caution with them. Distress statutes elsewhere have been curtailed on due-process grounds, and no West Virginia decision validating a modern residential distress was located in the research for this build. The generated lease therefore records that the sections exist, records that nothing in the lease authorises the landlord to seize a tenant’s goods without lawful process, and tells both parties not to act on those sections without counsel. That is the honest position: the law is on the books, and the risk of using it is a question for a West Virginia attorney rather than for a form.

Not a tenant, and not a holdover tenant — and the distinction is now spelled out twice in the Code. W. Va. Code 37-6-31 defines a “squatter” as a person occupying a dwelling unit who is not so entitled under a rental agreement or who is not authorized by the tenant to occupy that dwelling unit, and states expressly that the term does not include a tenant who holds over in a periodic tenancy as described in 37-6-5. Occupancy by a squatter is not governed by article 6, and no court of the state may require the utilization of eviction, or a similar procedure, by an owner removing a squatter.

The Stop Squatters Act at chapter 55 article 3C carries the same definition at 55-3C-2, adds an owner to the exclusions, and provides that squatting is synonymous with trespass and is a criminal act under 61-3B-2 or 61-3B-3. Squatters are not considered tenants for purposes of the Code and are not entitled to the eviction proceedings afforded to lawful tenants; a court shall not require the use of the procedures under 55-3A-1 et seq. or 55-3B-1 et seq. to remove one.

55-3C-3 then supplies a limited law-enforcement removal remedy on a verified complaint, and the conditions are the protection. All eight must be met: the requesting person is the owner or an authorized agent; the property includes a residential dwelling or commercial building; unauthorized persons are unlawfully occupying it; the property was not open to the public at the time of entry; the owner or agent has directed them to leave; the unauthorized person is not a current or former owner or a current or former lawful tenant; the person is not an immediate family member of the owner or tenant; and no pending litigation related to the property exists between the owner and the occupants. Law enforcement conducts preliminary fact-finding, which may include reviewing any alleged lease agreement, before serving a notice to immediately vacate.

Two further sections matter to anyone signing a lease. 55-3C-5 exposes an owner who knowingly submits a bad-faith complaint to prosecution for false swearing and to an indemnity for the law-enforcement agency’s costs, and gives a person wrongly removed a civil cause of action for wrongful removal with remedies including restoration of possession, actual costs, damages and attorney fees. And 55-3C-6 makes it a felony, punishable by one to ten years in the penitentiary or up to a year in jail and a fine, for any person to knowingly list or advertise residential real property for renting without legal title or authority — the lease-fraud provision, and a direct answer to the rental-listing scams that prompted the Act.

The takeaway for a landlord is simple and important: the moment the occupant is or was a lawful tenant, or is holding over under a periodic tenancy, the squatter route is closed and the only lawful path is the summary possession procedure in chapter 55 article 3A.

West Virginia has no URLTA-style prohibited-provisions section listing confession of judgment, exculpation, indemnity and attorney fees the way Alabama, Arizona, Iowa and a dozen other states do. What it has instead are three separate voiding rules, drawn from two statutes and one case, and they are the ones that actually bite:

• Waiver of article 6A rights — W. Va. Code 37-6A-4. A rental agreement may not contain a provision that the tenant agrees to waive or forego rights or remedies under the security deposit article. Any such provision is unenforceable. And if the landlord brings an action to enforce one, the tenant may recover actual damages sustained and reasonable attorney’s fees.
• A longer notice period on the death of a tenant — W. Va. Code 37-6-11(b)(4). The estate’s right to terminate on two months’ notice may not be waived by anyone, by contract or otherwise, and any lease provision requiring a longer notice period is void and unenforceable.
• Waiver of the implied warranty of habitability — Teller v. McCoy. The Supreme Court of Appeals held that waivers of the implied warranty are against public policy. A West Virginia lease cannot contract out of habitability, and a clause that tries is void.

The West Virginia attorney-fee regime, stated precisely. No West Virginia statute entitles a residential landlord to attorney fees, and no statute bans a fee clause. What exists is a one-way, tenant-side award triggered by the landlord’s own conduct: 37-6A-4 hands the tenant fees where the landlord sues to enforce a prohibited waiver. Two further one-way awards sit outside the landlord-tenant articles — 16-13-16a(e) gives a sewage works a reasonable attorney’s fee when it sues on delinquent charges secured by a lien on the premises, and 55-3C-5(b) gives a person wrongfully removed under the Stop Squatters Act attorney fees.

Because the only statutory fee exposure in a West Virginia residential lease runs against a landlord who over-drafts, the safe form of the clause is the reciprocal one. The generator offers an attorney-fee option and emits it only as a prevailing-party clause running to whichever party wins, so that it cannot itself operate as a one-sided waiver of the tenant’s article 6A remedies and cannot be the provision 37-6A-4 punishes.

What West Virginia does not void is as instructive as what it does. Confession of judgment, exculpation and indemnity clauses are not addressed by any residential landlord-tenant statute in this state, which means their enforceability is a general contract question rather than a statutory one — and a question worth putting to a West Virginia attorney rather than resolving from a form.

It is worth collecting the silences in one place, because they are the reason a West Virginia lease deserves more attention than a lease in a heavily regulated state. On each of the following the Code supplies no rule at all, and whatever the parties end up with is whatever the lease says:

• The maximum security deposit. No cap anywhere in article 6A.
• Where the deposit is held. No trust account, no escrow, no interest requirement.
• Landlord entry. No entry statute of any kind, so no notice period, no permitted purposes, no hours, no emergency rule.
• Late fees and grace periods. No cap and no grace period; only the “reasonable charges specified in the rental agreement” hook in 37-6A-2(b)(1).
• Rent increases. No notice statute and no rent control; the mechanism is the 37-6-5 termination notice, which the lease may itself reset.
• Notice before an eviction for nonpayment. None, and no statutory cure period.
• Repair and deduct. Refused by the Supreme Court of Appeals and supplied by no statute.
• Lease disclosures. None required by the state; only the federal lead-based paint rule applies.
• Application fee ceiling. None — the only rule is the written-nonrefundability condition in 37-6A-1(14).
• Attorney fees for a landlord. No statute grants them; 37-6A-4 grants them to the tenant in one situation.
• Holdover damages. No double-rent or multiplier statute of the kind several neighbouring states have.
• Casualty and condemnation abatement. Supplied by 37-6-28 and 37-6-29, but expressly subject to a contrary lease term.

Every one of those is an election in the form above, or a figure the form asks you to set. That is the design principle of this page: where the statute speaks, the generated lease quotes it; where a case supplies the rule, the lease says so and names the case; and where both are silent, the lease says that too and then makes the choice explicit, so that neither party discovers the gap for the first time during a dispute.

• Printing a one-month security deposit cap. There is none. Sections 37-6A-1 through 37-6A-6 contain no limit of any kind.
• Treating the deposit deadline as a flat sixty days. Section 37-6A-1(7) makes it the shorter of sixty days from termination or forty-five days from a subsequent tenant’s occupancy.
• Assuming the fifteen-day contractor extension is automatic. Section 37-6A-2(c) requires written notice to the tenant inside the notice period first.
• Charging a pet fee without designating it nonrefundable in writing. Section 37-6A-1(14) then makes it a security deposit, with every article 6A duty attached.
• Calling the deposit penalty double damages. Section 37-6A-5 is the unreturned deposit plus one and one-half times the amount wrongfully withheld, and only where the failure was wilful or not in good faith.
• Quoting a West Virginia entry-notice period. There is no entry statute; the number has to come from the lease.
• Leaving entry out of the lease entirely. With no statutory default, silence means no agreed notice at all.
• Offering repair-and-deduct. Teller v. McCoy declined to create it and no statute supplies it.
• Telling a tenant to withhold rent for repairs. The remedies are abatement, damages, termination and the habitability defence — not self-help.
• Ignoring 37-6-30(c). The statutory repair duty does not require repairs while the tenant is in arrears of rent.
• Printing “thirty days” for a month-to-month termination. Section 37-6-5 says one full period, and three months for a year-to-year tenancy — unless the lease fixes something else.
• Serving a West Virginia five-day or three-day pay-or-quit notice. No such notice exists in this state; chapter 55 article 3A goes straight to a verified petition.
• Using 37-6-6 as a pay-or-quit notice. It applies only where the tenant has abandoned the premises with rent in arrears.
• Citing 37-15-7 as the West Virginia retaliation statute. It governs factory-built home sites under 37-15-1.
• Citing 5-11-1 for West Virginia fair housing. That article was repealed; the live sections are 16B-17-9 and 16B-18-5.
• Citing 29-3-16a for smoke detectors. Repealed and re-enacted at 15A-10-12, which also splits installation and maintenance between owner and tenant.
• Borrowing a late-fee cap from 38-14-4 or 46B-3-9. Those are storage units and rent-to-own goods, not dwellings.
• Treating 61-3-39e as a landlord fee rule. It is a criminal-code provision binding every payee of a dishonoured check.
• Using a generic casualty clause. It can silently contract out of the rent abatement 37-6-28 and 37-6-29 would otherwise supply.
• Writing a ninety-day notice clause for termination on a tenant’s death. Section 37-6-11(b)(4) makes any longer period void.
• Ignoring who holds the water account. It decides whether 8-19-12a and 8-20-10 protect the owner, or whether 16-13-16a liens the premises.
• Treating a holdover tenant as a squatter. Sections 37-6-31 and 55-3C-2 both exclude a holdover periodic tenant from the definition.
• Charging a tenant for cable access. Section 24D-2-3 forbids taking payment for permitting cable service and forbids rent discrimination between tenants who take it and those who do not.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is one. West Virginia puts more weight on the lease than most states, because the statutory floor beneath it is thin and because the tenant’s strongest rights come from decided cases rather than from a checklist a landlord can work through. Verifiable income, a clean payment history and no prior eviction filings remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background and employment verification, and West Virginia tenant screening laws covers what you may and may not ask — including the point that West Virginia sets no ceiling on an application fee but does require a written nonrefundability designation before that fee stops being a security deposit. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease. If pets are on the table, read West Virginia pet and assistance animal laws before you write the clause, and see our West Virginia security deposit laws and West Virginia habitability laws guides for the detail behind the sections above.

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