Free Virginia Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Virginia residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act — the fourteen-day rent notice every template still gets wrong, the first-page fee statement, and the two-month ceiling that also caps insurance premiums.

Virginia Va. Code Title 55.1 ch. 12 14-Day Rent Notice Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Virginia residential lease agreement is the written contract governed by the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, codified at Va. Code Title 55.1, Chapter 12 and running from section 55.1-1200 to 55.1-1262. Virginia is one of the hardest states in the country to template correctly, for three reasons. The Act was renumbered out of Title 55 in 2019, so the section numbers circulating in most free forms point at nothing. Its nonpayment notice is fourteen days, not the five that every ranking Virginia template still prints. And nine of its sections are currently published in more than one version, with amendments queued for 1 January 2027, 1 July 2027 and a floating date in 2028 or later — so reading the wrong block on the official site publishes law that is not yet in force. On top of that, Virginia regulates the first page of the lease itself: section 55.1-1204.1 requires an itemization of every move-in charge there, under a sentence the statute writes for you. The generator below builds a lease that reflects each of those rules as the statute actually reads, verified against the official Code of Virginia and its own 2026 sections-affected table on 2026-08-06.

Complete the fields below to generate a Virginia residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations, the unit-count answer, the drafting-conditional elections, and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling Virginia section at each point. Before you hand keys to anyone, run proper tenant screening — the lease governs the relationship, screening decides whether you want it. Pair the signed lease with a Virginia move-in / move-out checklist, because the statutory move-in report under 55.1-1214 is due within five days and is deemed correct if nobody objects.

The Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, usually shortened to the VRLTA, is the statute that supplies the terms a Virginia residential lease cannot contract around. It sits at Va. Code Title 55.1, Chapter 12, sections 55.1-1200 through 55.1-1262, divided into seven articles: general provisions, landlord obligations, tenant obligations, tenant remedies, landlord remedies, retaliatory action, and the Eviction Diversion Program.

Two structural facts about the Act do more work than any single rule. The first is reach. Va. Code 55.1-1201(A) says the chapter applies to all jurisdictions in the Commonwealth and may not be waived or otherwise modified, in whole or in part, by the governing body of any locality or by the courts, and 55.1-1201(E) says it supersedes all other local ordinances or regulations concerning landlord and tenant relations and the leasing of residential property. Virginia therefore has no local rent control, no local just-cause eviction regime, and no city-specific lease addendum requirements of the kind that complicate drafting in other states. What a locality can do is narrow: establish a purely reconciliatory mediation commission, and enforce local property maintenance codes.

The second is scope. Va. Code 55.1-1201(B) applies the chapter to occupancy in all single-family and multifamily dwelling units in the Commonwealth. The exclusions in 55.1-1201(C) are a closed list of eight, and not one of them turns on how many units the landlord owns: residence at a public or private institution incidental to detention or to medical, geriatric, educational, counseling, religious or similar services; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in a portion of a structure operated for the organization’s benefit; occupancy by an owner of a condominium unit or the holder of a proprietary lease in a cooperative; occupancy in a campground; occupancy by a tenant who pays no rent; occupancy by an employee of the landlord whose right to occupy a multifamily dwelling unit is conditioned on employment about the premises, or by a former employee whose occupancy continues less than sixty days; occupancy under a contract of sale by the purchaser or a successor to that interest; and occupancy in a recovery residence as defined in Va. Code 37.2-431.1.

That matters because Virginia forms still circulate describing a small-landlord escape hatch. Before 2019 the Act carried exemptions that let certain owners opt out and instead be governed by a thinner set of general landlord-tenant provisions. Those exemptions were repealed. A landlord renting a single condominium in Arlington and a landlord running four hundred units in Chesterfield County are both inside the same Act. What varies by portfolio size is not whether the Act applies but four specific rules inside it, discussed below.

Hotels, motels, extended stay facilities, vacation residential facilities, boardinghouses and similar transient lodging get their own regime in 55.1-1201(D). A guest who does not use the lodging as a primary residence is not a tenant, is exempt from the chapter, and may be removed by self-help without an unlawful detainer action. Someone who does use it as a primary residence for ninety consecutive days or less is still outside the chapter, but the owner must give a five-day written notice of nonpayment before using self-help. Once a person resides there as a primary residence for more than ninety consecutive days, or is subject to a written lease for more than ninety days, the lodging becomes subject to the chapter in full.

Virginia recognises the standard range of residential arrangements, and the type determines how the tenancy ends and what notice is needed. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period and expires on its own terms; twelve months is the common choice and the length the Act assumes where no written agreement is offered. A month-to-month tenancy renews each period until either side gives at least thirty days’ written notice prior to the next rent due date. A week-to-week tenancy takes seven days on the same measure. Va. Code 55.1-1204(F) supplies the default: except as the written rental agreement provides, the tenancy is week-to-week for a tenant who pays weekly rent and month-to-month in all other cases.

Beyond those, a room rental or roommate agreement covers a tenant renting one room in an occupied dwelling. Virginia has a specific definition for that situation: 55.1-1200 defines a roomer as a person occupying a dwelling unit that lacks a major bathroom or kitchen facility, in a structure where one or more major facilities are used in common by occupants of other dwelling units. A major bathroom facility means a toilet and either a bath or shower; a major kitchen facility means a refrigerator, stove or sink. A roomer is a tenant under the Act, so the whole chapter applies.

A sublease transfers some but not all of the interests created by the rental agreement, and an assignment transfers all of them — the Act distinguishes the two by name in 55.1-1200. Where the lease contains a provision letting the landlord approve or disapprove a sublessee or assignee, Va. Code 55.1-1204(G) puts the landlord on a clock: approve or disapprove within ten business days of receiving the written application on a form the landlord supplies, and failure to act within ten business days is evidence of approval. That is a rule with real consequences for a manager who leaves an application sitting.

A lease-to-own arrangement bolts a purchase option onto a tenancy and should be drafted with counsel, because a lease with an option to buy pulls the transaction into the Virginia Residential Property Disclosure Act at Va. Code 55.1-701 and its separate sale-side disclosure regime. A commercial lease is not governed by chapter 12 at all; nonresidential tenancies sit in chapter 14, beginning at 55.1-1400. A manufactured home lot rental is governed by chapter 13, beginning at 55.1-1300 — a distinction that turns out to matter enormously, because the most widely repeated wrong statement about Virginia lease renewal is lifted straight out of that chapter.

One drafting point specific to Virginia. Va. Code 11-2(6) requires a writing signed by the party to be charged for any contract for the lease of real estate for more than a year. A tenancy of a year or less can therefore rest on an oral agreement, and chapter 12 governs it all the same. There is also a codified fallback for imperfect signing. Va. Code 55.1-1207 provides that where the landlord does not sign and deliver a written rental agreement the tenant signed and delivered, acceptance of rent without reservation gives it the same effect as if the landlord had signed; and where the tenant does not sign one the landlord signed and delivered, acceptance of possession or payment of rent without reservation does the same. An agreement given effect that way is effective for one year only, no matter what term it recites.

This is where the widely repeated “Virginia five-day grace period” actually comes from, and why stating it as a general rule is wrong. Va. Code 55.1-1204(B) obliges a landlord to offer a prospective tenant a written rental agreement. Where the landlord does not, 55.1-1204(C) does not leave the parties to work it out. It writes a tenancy into existence by operation of law with seven fixed terms:

• the provisions of chapter 12 apply to the dwelling unit being rented;
• the duration is twelve months and is not subject to automatic renewal, except for a month-to-month lease under 55.1-1253(D);
• rent is paid in twelve equal periodic installments in an amount agreed between the parties, and at fair market rent if no amount is agreed;
• rent payments are due on the first day of each month and are considered late if not paid by the fifth;
• if rent is paid after the fifth, the landlord is entitled to charge a late charge as provided in the chapter;
• the landlord may collect a security deposit not exceeding two months of rent; and
• the parties may enter into a written rental agreement at any time during that twelve-month tenancy.

Read the fourth and fifth of those in isolation and you get the sentence two ranking template pages print: that Virginia gives tenants a five-day grace period before a late fee can be charged. It does not. That subsection only operates where no written rental agreement was offered. Where there is a written lease — which is the situation anyone using this page is in — the due date and any grace period are what the lease says, subject only to the ten percent cap in 55.1-1204(E). One ranking page states the grace period as universal; another says flatly that Virginia has no grace period at all, citing a subsection of the eviction section. The accurate answer is the conditional one, and only the deepest ranker gets close to it.

Two months’ periodic rent. Va. Code 55.1-1226(A) is blunt: no landlord may demand or receive a security deposit, however denominated, in an amount or value in excess of two months’ periodic rent. Three consequences follow that most templates miss.

First, a pet deposit is a security deposit. Va. Code 55.1-1200 defines “security deposit” to mean any refundable deposit of money furnished by a tenant to secure performance of the terms and conditions of a rental agreement, as security for damages to the leased premises, or as a pet deposit. A Virginia landlord charging one month’s rent as a deposit and another month as a pet deposit is at the ceiling, not below it.

Second, the ceiling reaches insurance premiums collected up front. Va. Code 55.1-1208(A)(7) makes it a prohibited lease provision for a tenant to agree to pay, before the commencement of the tenancy, a security deposit plus insurance premiums for damage insurance plus insurance premiums for renter’s insurance that together exceed two months’ periodic rent. Va. Code 55.1-1206(C) says the same thing from the insurance side and adds the one relief valve: the landlord may add a monthly amount as additional rent to recover further renter’s-insurance premium costs. Because 55.1-1208(B) makes a prohibited provision unenforceable and hands the tenant actual damages plus attorney fees where the landlord sues to enforce it, this is not a technicality. The form on this page therefore collects the deposit, the pet deposit, the damage-insurance premium and the renter’s-insurance premium as four separate fields, and the generated lease prints the combined pre-commencement total against the statutory ceiling so the overshoot is visible at signing.

Third, “however denominated” does not sweep in everything. Va. Code 55.1-1200 excludes from the definition of security deposit any damage insurance policy or renter’s insurance policy purchased by a landlord to provide coverage for a tenant, and 55.1-1206(A) and (B) say such premiums shall not be deemed a security deposit but shall be rent. Prepaid rent is likewise rent, not a deposit — but 55.1-1205 gives it its own regime, discussed below. An application deposit is a deposit only until the commencement date of the rental agreement, at which point it becomes a security deposit.

Forty-five days — from the later of two dates. Va. Code 55.1-1226(A) requires the landlord to itemize the security deposit and every deduction, damage and charge in a written notice given to the tenant, together with any amount due to the tenant, within forty-five days after the termination date of the tenancy or the date the tenant vacates the dwelling unit, whichever occurs last. Ranking pages state it as forty-five days from “lease termination” or from “move-out”, picking one of the two triggers. The statute picks the later of them, which in a mid-term departure or a hold-over is a materially different date.

The deposit may be applied only to four things: accrued rent including the reasonable late charges specified in the rental agreement; the amount of damages suffered by reason of the tenant’s noncompliance with 55.1-1227, less reasonable wear and tear; other damages or charges as provided in the rental agreement; and actual damages for breach of the rental agreement under 55.1-1251.

Several mechanics inside 55.1-1226 appear in no ranking Virginia template:

• The third-party contractor extension. Where damages to the premises exceed the deposit and require the services of a third-party contractor, the landlord must give written notice of that fact to the tenant within the forty-five day period, and then has an additional fifteen days to provide an itemization of the damages and the cost of repair (55.1-1226(E)).
• Deductions during the tenancy carry their own thirty-day clock. The landlord must notify the tenant in writing of any deduction made during the course of the tenancy within thirty days of determining it, itemized in the same manner. No such notice is required for a deduction made less than thirty days before termination. Where the landlord willfully fails to comply, the court shall order return of the deposit together with actual damages and reasonable attorney fees — unless the tenant owes rent, in which case the court credits an amount equal to the deposit against the rent due.
• Two years of records, open to inspection. Va. Code 55.1-1226(F) requires the landlord to maintain and itemize records of all deductions for the preceding two years and to permit the tenant, or the tenant’s authorised agent or attorney, to inspect them at any time during normal business hours.
• One cheque, payable to all tenants. Where more than one tenant is subject to the rental agreement, unless every tenant agrees otherwise in writing, disposition is made with one check payable to all of them, sent to a forwarding address provided by one. Where no forwarding address is given, the landlord may hold the deposit in escrow, and after one year from the end of the forty-five day period may remit it to the State Treasurer as unclaimed property (55.1-1226(B)).
• Utility balances need advance warning. The landlord may withhold a reasonable portion for a final water, sewer or other utility balance the tenant owes a third-party provider, but only after advising the tenant of the rights and obligations under the subsection in a termination notice, in a written notice confirming the vacating date, or in a separate written notice given at least fifteen days before disposition. On payment the landlord must confirm in writing within ten days with any balance due (55.1-1226(C)).
• Expedited disposition is available, for a fee, on strict conditions. Va. Code 55.1-1226(D) allows the landlord to dispose of the deposit before the forty-five days expire and charge an administrative fee for expedited processing — but only where the rental agreement so provides and the tenant requests it in a separate written document. Both conditions, or no fee.

Yes, and the landlord has to tell them so in writing. Va. Code 55.1-1226(G) is one of the strongest tenant-side procedural rights in the chapter and it appears on none of the nine ranking Virginia template pages.

Upon the landlord’s request that the tenant vacate, or within five days after receipt of the tenant’s notice of intent to vacate, the landlord shall provide written notice to the tenant of the tenant’s right to be present at the landlord’s inspection for the purpose of determining the amount of deposit to be returned. If the tenant wants to be present, the tenant advises the landlord in writing; the landlord must then notify the tenant of the date and time of the inspection, and the inspection must be made within seventy-two hours of delivery of possession. Following the inspection the landlord provides a written security deposit disposition statement including an itemized list of damages.

The subsection then closes a loophole in both directions. If the landlord discovers additional damage after the disposition has been made, nothing prevents recovery of those damages against the tenant — but the tenant may put the move-out report in evidence to show that the damage did not exist at the time of the move-out inspection. That is precisely why the move-out inspection, like the move-in report under 55.1-1214, should be documented on a form rather than from memory.

Yes, and the switch runs one way only. Va. Code 55.1-1226(I) permits the landlord to allow damage insurance coverage in lieu of a security deposit, subject to five criteria: the provider is licensed or approved by the Virginia State Corporation Commission; coverage is effective on payment of the first premium and remains effective for the entire lease term; coverage per claim is no less than the amount the landlord requires for security deposits; the provider agrees to approve or deny payment of a claim; and the provider notifies the landlord within ten days if the policy lapses or is cancelled.

Then comes the part that changes negotiating positions. Va. Code 55.1-1226(J): a tenant who initially opts to provide damage insurance in lieu of a deposit may, at any time and without the consent of the landlord, opt to pay the full security deposit instead — and the landlord shall not alter the terms of the lease because the tenant does so. A landlord whose business model rests on an insurance programme cannot price a tenant out of leaving it.

Va. Code 55.1-1206 adds the surrounding rules for both damage insurance and renter’s insurance. Either may be required as a condition of tenancy. Premiums are rent, not a deposit. The landlord must notify the tenant in writing of the right to obtain a separate policy, and if the tenant does, the tenant supplies written proof and maintains coverage throughout the term. Where the landlord obtains coverage on the tenant’s behalf, the policy must cover the tenant as an insured, the landlord recovers actual costs plus administrative fees, and the landlord must give the tenant a summary or certificate before execution — and for renter’s insurance that summary must state whether the policy contains a waiver of subrogation provision. Where a tenant lets a required renter’s insurance policy lapse, the landlord may place its own coverage and charge the premiums as rent until the tenant documents reinstatement. For a tenant who opts out of the landlord’s damage insurance programme, the landlord must allow that tenant to provide their own policy or pay the full security deposit.

Virginia is one of a small group of states that regulates the physical first page of the lease document, and this is the single most under-reported Virginia lease rule in circulation. Va. Code 55.1-1204.1, the fee disclosure statement, was added by 2024 Acts chapters 788 and 826 and amended by 2025 Acts chapter 567. It requires the landlord to provide, beginning on the first page of the written rental agreement, an itemization of all charges to the tenant that comprise:

• the security deposit;
• the amount of rent due per payment period pursuant to the lease period; and
• any additional one-time charges due prior to the commencement date of the rental agreement, or that will be included in the first rental payment.

And immediately above that itemized list, the written rental agreement shall state, in the statute’s own words: No additional security deposits or rent shall be charged unless they are listed below or incorporated into this agreement by way of a separate addendum after execution of this rental agreement.

That is prescribed wording in a prescribed position. A lease that buries a move-in cost summary in a schedule at the back does not comply, and neither does one that paraphrases the sentence. The generator on this page emits the sentence verbatim and the itemization directly beneath it, on page one of the PDF, before the parties clause.

One honest limitation, and it is worth stating plainly rather than inventing a number. Section 55.1-1204.1 prescribes wording and placement but attaches no penalty of its own. Its near-identical twin in the Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act, Va. Code 55.1-1302(B), does: where the landlord tries to collect a charge, fee or deposit not listed in the itemization or in a separate valid written contract, the tenant recovers actual damages, statutory damages of five hundred dollars per occurrence, and reasonable attorney fees. The dwelling-unit section has no equivalent sentence. The consequence of non-compliance is therefore the chapter’s general one — the charge is not one the agreement supports, and the tenant has the remedies in 55.1-1259 and elsewhere — rather than a fixed sum. We say that rather than borrowing the manufactured-home figure, which is exactly the kind of cross-chapter transplant this page exists to correct.

It is a plain-language summary of the VRLTA that the Commonwealth writes and the landlord must hand over, and it is the closest thing Virginia has to a document that can stop an eviction before it starts.

The duty runs through two statutes. Va. Code 36-139(26) requires the Director of the Department of Housing and Community Development to develop a statement of tenant rights and responsibilities explaining in plain language the rights and responsibilities of tenants under the VRLTA, and to maintain it on the Department’s website. The Director must also develop and maintain a printable form to be signed by the parties acknowledging that the tenant has received the statement. The statute specifies the presentation: the statement shall contain a plain-language explanation of tenants’ rights and responsibilities in at least fourteen-point type, and shall provide the telephone number and website address for the statewide legal aid organization, directing tenants with questions to contact it. The Director may amend the statement and the form at any time.

Va. Code 55.1-1204(B) then puts the duty on the landlord. A landlord shall offer a prospective tenant a written rental agreement and shall provide with it the statement developed under 36-139. The parties to a written rental agreement shall sign the Department’s acknowledgment form. Because the Director can amend the statement at will, the subsection adds a requirement that no ranking page mentions: the form shall be current as of the date of delivery. Using last year’s printout is not compliance.

If the tenant refuses to sign, the landlord is not stuck — but the landlord must create a record. Va. Code 55.1-1204(B) requires the landlord to record the date or dates on which he provided the form to the tenant and the fact that the tenant failed to sign such form. The landlord may, but is not required to, offer the form again later in the tenancy.

Va. Code 55.1-1204(H) has a second limb that also goes unreported: the landlord shall provide the tenant with an additional hard copy of the rental agreement once per year on request, or maintain the agreement in an electronic format that can be easily accessed by or shared with the tenant on request — and any additional electronic copy must be provided at no charge.

Because the Director may amend the statement at any time, this page deliberately does not name an edition or a revision date. Get the current version from the Department of Housing and Community Development’s own website on the day you deliver it, and keep the signed acknowledgment with the lease file.

This is the most consistently mis-stated rule on the Virginia SERP, and the mis-statements run in opposite directions. Here is what Va. Code 55.1-1229(A)(4) actually provides, sentence by sentence:

• The landlord may enter without the tenant’s consent in case of emergency.
• The landlord shall not abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant.
• Except in case of emergency, or if it is impractical to do so, the landlord shall give the tenant notice of the intent to enter and may enter only at reasonable times. There is no hour figure attached to ordinary entry.
• Unless impractical to do so, the landlord shall give at least seventy-two hours’ notice of routine maintenance to be performed that has not been requested by the tenant.
• That routine maintenance shall be performed within fourteen days of delivery of the notice, and the notice shall state the last date on which the maintenance may possibly be performed.
• If the tenant makes a request for maintenance, the landlord is not required to provide notice to the tenant.

Set that against the SERP. The deepest ranking Virginia lease page says: “For requested maintenance, landlords must give tenants 24 hours’ notice. For routine maintenance that the tenant did not request, they must provide 72 hours’ notice.” The first half is inverted — the statute says no notice is required where the tenant requested the maintenance, and the twenty-four hour figure appears nowhere in 55.1-1229. A second ranking page goes the other way and states the seventy-two hours as a general entry rule, which reads as more protective than the statute and is equally wrong. And not one of the nine ranking pages mentions the fourteen-day performance window or the requirement that the notice name the last possible date, which are the two drafting requirements that actually bite when a landlord sends an entry notice.

Three further limits on access sit alongside that subsection and are worth writing into the lease because they define its edges:

The closed list. Va. Code 55.1-1229(C) says the landlord has no other right to access except by court order, or that permitted by 55.1-1248 (repair after a tenant’s health-and-safety violation) and 55.1-1249 (absence exceeding seven days), or where the tenant has abandoned or surrendered the premises. There is no residual power to enter.

Abuse cuts both ways. Va. Code 55.1-1210 gives the landlord injunctive relief plus actual damages and reasonable attorney fees where the tenant unreasonably refuses lawful access, and gives the tenant injunctive relief plus actual damages and reasonable attorney fees where the landlord makes an unlawful entry, a lawful entry in an unreasonable manner, or repeated demands for entry that are otherwise lawful but have the effect of unreasonably harassing the tenant. Either party may instead terminate.

The exhibition clause is drafting-conditional. Va. Code 55.1-1229(A)(3) lets the landlord recover damages, costs and reasonable attorney fees where a tenant without reasonable justification declines to permit the landlord or managing agent to exhibit the unit for sale or lease — but only if the rental agreement so provides. Leave that clause out and the entitlement does not exist. The subsection also defines “reasonable justification” to include a tenant’s reasonable concern for their own health, or that of an authorised occupant, during a Governor-declared state of emergency in response to a communicable disease of public health threat, provided the tenant gave written notice of the concern — in which case the tenant must supply a video tour or another acceptable substitute.

Two more access provisions deserve a place in the lease. Va. Code 55.1-1229(B) lets the landlord, on the landlord’s sole determination that a nonemergency property condition requires the tenant to vacate temporarily, require the tenant to vacate on at least thirty days’ written notice for a period not exceeding thirty days, to a comparable unit or a hotel selected by the landlord at no cost to the tenant. Rent keeps running; the landlord pays all repair costs; refusal to cooperate is a breach unless the tenant agrees to vacate and terminate within the notice period. A “nonemergency property condition” is defined as one the landlord must remedy to comply with 55.1-1220, that does not need remedying within twenty-four hours, and that can only be effectively remedied by temporary relocation. Va. Code 55.1-1231 supplies a parallel thirty-day relocation power where a mold condition materially affects health or safety, at the landlord’s cost unless the mold resulted from the tenant’s own failure to comply with 55.1-1227.

Finally, Va. Code 55.1-1229(E) creates a duty no ranking page carries: upon the written request of a tenant, the landlord shall install a carbon monoxide alarm in the dwelling unit within ninety days. The landlord may charge the tenant a reasonable fee to recover the costs of equipment and labour, and the installation must comply with the Uniform Statewide Building Code. Va. Code 55.1-1229(D) separately lets the tenant install new security systems, including landlord-approved chain latch devices and fire detection devices, provided installation does no permanent damage, duplicates of all keys and operating instructions go to the landlord, and the tenant pays removal and repair costs at the end of the tenancy.

Fourteen days. Va. Code 55.1-1245(F): if rent is unpaid when due, and the tenant fails to pay the rent within fourteen days after written notice is served on him notifying the tenant of the nonpayment and of the landlord’s intention to terminate the rental agreement if the rent is not paid within the fourteen-day period, the landlord may terminate and proceed to obtain possession as provided in 55.1-1251.

The five-day figure that appears on every ranking Virginia template page is not a live rule. The fourteen-day period is new: it arrived on 1 July 2026 through House Bill 15 and Senate Bill 48, chapters 353 and 354 of the 2026 Acts of Assembly, which raised the notice from five days to fourteen. That is precisely why the five-day figure is still everywhere — it was the law until 1 July 2026, and the templates have not caught up. Serving five days now is short of the statute. Section 55.1-1245 is currently published in three complete versions — one in force until 1 July 2027, one running from 1 July 2027 until the later of 1 July 2028 or seven years after the COVID-19 pandemic state of emergency expires, and one from that later date onward. All three say fourteen days. There is no version of the section, past or future, in which subsection (F) reads five.

The same fourteen-day notice covers dishonoured payments. Where a cheque for rent is delivered drawn on an account with insufficient funds, or an electronic funds transfer is rejected for insufficient funds or because of a stop-payment order placed in bad faith, the landlord serves the same notice — requiring payment by cash, cashier’s cheque, certified cheque or a completed electronic funds transfer within the fourteen-day period.

Va. Code 55.1-1245(A) sets a paired deadline that is easy to state backwards. Where there is a material noncompliance by the tenant with the rental agreement, or a violation of 55.1-1227 materially affecting health and safety, the landlord may serve a written notice specifying the acts and omissions constituting the breach and stating that the rental agreement will terminate upon a date not less than thirty days after receipt of the notice if the breach is not remedied in twenty-one days. If the breach is remediable and the tenant adequately remedies it before the date specified, the agreement does not terminate (55.1-1245(B)). Landlords and tenants alike call this the 21/30 notice.

The mirror image exists for the tenant. Va. Code 55.1-1234 lets the tenant serve the identical 21/30 notice on the landlord for a material noncompliance with the rental agreement, or a noncompliance with the chapter materially affecting health and safety. Where the landlord commits a breach that is not remediable, the tenant serves a thirty-day notice with no cure period; and where the landlord has already remedied a breach after notice and then intentionally commits a subsequent breach of a like nature, the tenant may terminate on thirty days with no further cure opportunity. Section 55.1-1234 also carries a burden-shifting sentence that is unusual and worth knowing: the tenant shall be entitled to recover reasonable attorney fees unless the landlord proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the landlord’s actions were reasonable under the circumstances.

Three further branches sit inside 55.1-1245:

Non-remediable and criminal breaches (55.1-1245(C)). A breach that is not remediable takes a thirty-day notice with no cure period. But where a breach of the tenant’s obligations involves or constitutes a criminal or willful act that is not remediable and poses a threat to health or safety, the landlord may terminate immediately and proceed to possession. Illegal drug activity involving a controlled substance under the Drug Control Act, or any activity constituting a criminal or willful act that also poses a threat to health and safety, by the tenant, an authorised occupant, or a guest or invitee, is an immediate non-remediable violation, and the landlord need not wait for a criminal conviction. The standard is preponderance of the evidence. Where the activity is by an authorised occupant, guest or invitee, the tenant is presumed to have knowledge of it unless the presumption is rebutted. Procedurally, the initial hearing must be held within fifteen calendar days of service on the tenant, with an earlier hearing where emergency conditions are alleged, and any subsequent hearing or contested trial no later than thirty calendar days from service.

Repeat breaches (55.1-1245(E)). Where the tenant was served with a prior notice requiring a remedy, remedied it, and then intentionally commits a subsequent breach of a like nature, the landlord serves a notice referring to the prior breach and stating termination not less than thirty days after receipt — with no second cure period.

The family abuse shield (55.1-1245(D)). Where the tenant is a victim of family abuse as defined in Va. Code 16.1-228 that occurred in the dwelling unit or on the premises, and the perpetrator is barred from the dwelling unit by the landlord under 55.1-1246 on the basis of information the tenant provided, or by a protective order or as part of a criminal action, the lease shall not terminate solely due to that act of family abuse against the tenant. The tenant must supply the protective order, or the perpetrator must have been barred. No ranking Virginia page carries this subsection.

Only inside the chapter’s own carve-out, and the drafting has to reflect that. Va. Code 55.1-1208(A)(4) lists among the prohibited provisions a term by which the tenant agrees to pay the landlord’s attorney fees except as provided in this chapter. Read alone that looks like a ban. It is not, because the chapter does provide.

Va. Code 55.1-1245(H) says that in the event of a breach or noncompliance by the tenant, the landlord is entitled to recover — regardless of whether a lawsuit is filed — six categories, of which the fourth is reasonable attorney fees as contracted for in the rental agreement or as provided by law. Va. Code 55.1-1245(I) repeats the list for a pending lawsuit the landlord wins, with one addition: the attorney fee award is available unless in any such action the tenant proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the tenant’s failure to pay rent or vacate was reasonable. Those two subsections are the “as provided in this chapter” that 55.1-1208(A)(4) points at.

So Virginia belongs to a distinct regime: a ban with a statutory carve-out. A fee clause is lawful precisely to the extent the chapter authorises one, and a clause that reaches wider is exposed twice over — once under 55.1-1208(A)(4) and again under 55.1-1208(A)(1), which prohibits any provision by which the tenant agrees to waive or forgo rights or remedies under the chapter. A one-sided clause running only to the landlord reduces the tenant’s own statutory fee entitlements, of which there are many. The safe drafting, and the only clause this generator will produce, is a reciprocal prevailing-party clause.

The tenant-side entitlements are worth listing, because they are what a one-way clause would be trying to displace. The Act awards the tenant reasonable attorney fees on an application deposit wrongfully withheld (55.1-1203(A)) and on a failure to consider evidence of family-abuse victim status in mitigation of a low credit score (55.1-1203(D)); on the landlord’s action to enforce a prohibited provision (55.1-1208(B)); on abuse of access (55.1-1210); on a willful failure to comply with the deposit section (55.1-1226(E)); on landlord noncompliance, unless the landlord proves its actions were reasonable (55.1-1234); to the prevailing party in an uninhabitable-unit dispute (55.1-1234.1(C)); on a willful failure to deliver possession (55.1-1238); on a wrongful failure to supply an essential service (55.1-1239(B)); on unlawful exclusion (55.1-1243.1(D)); and in the court’s discretion on a successful tenant’s assertion (55.1-1244(G)) or a successful habitability defence (55.1-1241(E)).

Two further fee provisions run to the landlord by statute rather than by clause, so they survive whatever the lease says: 55.1-1229(A)(3), the exhibition clause, which is itself lease-conditional; 55.1-1233, an action for possession and damages where the tenant fails to vacate; and 55.1-1253(C), the holdover section, which awards actual damages, reasonable attorney fees and court costs unless the tenant proves the failure to vacate was reasonable.

Eight, listed in Va. Code 55.1-1208(A). Not one of the nine ranking Virginia lease template pages mentions the section at all, which is remarkable given that it is the provision most likely to make a downloaded form actively dangerous. A Virginia rental agreement shall not contain provisions that the tenant:

• agrees to waive or forgo rights or remedies under chapter 12;
• agrees to waive or forgo rights or remedies pertaining to the one hundred twenty day conversion or rehabilitation notice required in the Virginia Condominium Act or the Virginia Real Estate Cooperative Act, or under Va. Code 55.1-1410;
• authorizes any person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the rental agreement;
• agrees to pay the landlord’s attorney fees except as provided in chapter 12;
• agrees to the exculpation or limitation of any liability of the landlord to the tenant arising under law, or to indemnify the landlord for that liability or any associated costs;
• agrees, as a condition of tenancy in public housing, to a prohibition or restriction of any lawful possession of a firearm within the dwelling unit, unless required by federal law or regulation;
• agrees to the payment of a security deposit, damage insurance premiums and renter’s insurance premiums before the tenancy commences that together exceed two months’ periodic rent; or
• waives rights or remedies under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, 50 U.S.C. 3901 et seq., before a dispute arises. Execution of a lease may not be made contingent on such a waiver, though after a dispute arises the parties may execute a waiver as to that dispute to facilitate a resolution.

The penalty structure is short and sharp. Va. Code 55.1-1208(B): any provision prohibited by subsection A that is included in a rental agreement is unenforceable, and if a landlord brings an action to enforce any such provision, the tenant may recover actual damages sustained by him and reasonable attorney fees. The trigger is the landlord suing on the clause, not merely including it — but the clause is dead either way.

Va. Code 55.1-1208(C) adds a freestanding rule outside the list: unless necessitated by the tenant’s violation of a requirement of the chapter, no landlord shall require a tenant to pay any fee for the maintenance or repair of any dwelling unit. That is a bar on maintenance fees, service-call charges and similar recurring charges that some management templates carry as line items.

One clause type is expressly permitted and easy to miss. Va. Code 55.1-1208.1 provides that a rental agreement may contain provisions allowing the operation of child care services provided by a tenant of an apartment building that meet state and local laws and regulations. It is enabling rather than mandatory, and no ranking Virginia page mentions it.

No — and the belief that it does is the clearest example on this SERP of a rule imported from the wrong body of law.

The deepest-ranking Virginia lease template page states, under a heading about renewing a lease, that “Virginia lease agreements with terms of 1 year or longer will renew automatically with the same terms” and that landlords “must give tenants 60 days’ written notice if they plan to update the lease terms or not renew the lease.” Both statements cite Va. Code 55.1-1302.

Section 55.1-1302 exists, and it says almost exactly that. But its title is Term of rental agreement; fee disclosure statement; renewal; security deposits and it sits in Chapter 13 of Title 55.1 — the Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act. Subsection (C) provides that upon the expiration of a rental agreement with a term of one year or more the agreement is automatically renewed for the same duration on the same terms unless the tenant gives sixty days’ notice of intent not to renew or the landlord gives sixty days’ notice of a change in terms. That is the law for a manufactured home lot tenancy. It is not the law for a dwelling-unit lease.

What the VRLTA actually provides is the opposite arrangement. Va. Code 55.1-1204(A) lists automatic renewal of the rental agreement among the terms and conditions the parties may include — that is, it happens if, and only if, the lease says so. And Va. Code 55.1-1204(C)(2) makes the point unmistakable in the one situation where the statute writes the tenancy itself: where no written rental agreement is offered, the duration is twelve months and shall not be subject to automatic renewal.

For most Virginia tenancies, none is fixed by statute — and the one notice duty that does exist is narrower than it is usually reported.

Virginia has no rent control and no general rent-increase notice statute. On a periodic tenancy, a rent change is accomplished through the termination-and-new-terms mechanism: Va. Code 55.1-1253(A) requires thirty days’ written notice before the next rent due date to end a month-to-month tenancy, and a landlord who wants a different rent offers new terms. There is a separate rule for a holdover or month-to-month tenancy continuing by agreement after a term ends: under 55.1-1253(D), the terms of the terminated agreement remain in effect and govern, except that the rent is either the amount in the terminated agreement or the amount set out in a written notice to the tenant — and a new rent amount shall not take effect until the next rent due date coming thirty days after the notice.

The sixty-day duty that circulates is real, but it is Va. Code 55.1-1204(K), not 55.1-1302, and it carries three limiters. It binds only a landlord who owns more than four rental dwelling units, or more than a ten percent interest in more than four, whether individually or through a business entity, in the Commonwealth. It applies only to a tenant who has an option to renew or whose rental agreement contains an automatic renewal provision. And it covers two things: written notice of any increase in rent during the subsequent rental agreement term, and written notice of nonrenewal — each not less than sixty days before the end of the term. It does not apply to a periodic tenancy created under 55.1-1253(C).

From 1 July 2027 that subsection changes. The rent-increase notice rises to ninety days, and the notice must include a deadline by which the tenant must tell the landlord whether the tenant will renew — a deadline that shall be no sooner than thirty days after the written notice of rent increase is delivered. The nonrenewal notice stays at sixty days. That change is already on the books in the second published version of 55.1-1204 and is flagged here because a template printed today will be wrong in under a year.

Two further notice rules complete the picture. Va. Code 55.1-1253(B) creates a mass-nonrenewal duty: an owner of a multifamily premises that fails to renew the greater of twenty or more month-to-month tenancies, or fifty percent of the month-to-month tenancies, within a consecutive thirty-day period in the same multifamily premises must serve written notice on each such tenant at least sixty days before allowing the tenancy to expire — except where the tenant has failed to pay rent. And Va. Code 55.1-1204(I) forbids unilateral change generally: no unilateral change in the terms of a rental agreement by either party is valid unless notice is given in accordance with the agreement or as required by law and both parties consent in writing.

Late fee: the lesser of ten percent of the periodic rent or ten percent of the remaining balance due and owed, and only if the written lease provides for it. Va. Code 55.1-1204(E) has two limbs and templates usually report only the second. The first limb is the precondition: a landlord shall not charge a tenant for late payment of rent unless such charge is provided for in the written rental agreement. No clause, no fee. The second limb is the cap: no such late charge shall exceed the lesser of 10 percent of the periodic rent or 10 percent of the remaining balance due and owed by the tenant. The “lesser of” construction means that on a partly-paid month the fee is calculated on the arrears, not on the full rent.

Returned payment: fifty dollars, specified in the lease. Here the ranking pages cite the wrong statute. Several state a flat fifty-dollar bounced-cheque fee under Va. Code 8.01-27.1. That section is the general civil recovery provision for dishonoured cheques, and it opens with the words “Except as otherwise provided in Chapter 12 (55.1-1200 et seq.) or Chapter 14 (55.1-1400 et seq.) of Title 55.1” — it is expressly subordinate to the VRLTA in a residential tenancy. What chapter 12 provides is a definition. Va. Code 55.1-1200 defines “processing fee for payment of rent with bad check” to mean the processing fee specified in the rental agreement, not to exceed fifty dollars, assessed against a tenant for payment of rent with a cheque drawn by the tenant on which payment has been refused by the payor bank because the drawer had no account or insufficient funds.

Three practical consequences. The charge must be specified in the lease to exist at all. It is capped at fifty dollars. And by its own terms it covers a cheque refused for no account or insufficient funds — the rejected electronic funds transfer is dealt with separately, in 55.1-1245(F), as a trigger for the fourteen-day notice rather than as a fee event. Separately, 55.1-1245(F) preserves the landlord’s ability to seek costs or attorney fees under 8.01-27.1, or civil recovery under 8.01-27.2, as part of other damages requested on the unlawful detainer, provided notice was given under 55.1-1202 — and that notice may be included in the fourteen-day termination notice. So the general bad-cheque statute is not irrelevant in Virginia; it is a litigation remedy with a notice precondition, not a fee a landlord may bill.

Only with a free alternative, and only at cost. Va. Code 55.1-1204(J)(1) is a payments provision no ranking Virginia page carries, and it has four separate rules inside it:

• The landlord shall accept payment of periodic rent and any security deposit by check and money order. Those two methods are compulsory.
• The landlord shall provide the tenant with a written receipt whenever the tenant pays rent in the form of cash or money order.
• No landlord shall charge any fee for the collection or processing of any payment of rent, security deposit or any other fees, unless the landlord offers an alternative method of payment that does not include additional fees.
• Where the landlord does charge such a fee, no landlord shall require a tenant to pay any fee to submit rent or other amounts due in excess of the actual out-of-pocket expenses charged to the landlord by a third party to process a payment by credit card, debit card or electronic payment.

Va. Code 55.1-1204(J)(2) is the small-landlord relief: a landlord with four or fewer rental dwelling units, or up to a ten percent interest in four or fewer, is not required to accept payment of periodic rent or the security deposit by debit or credit card. The cheque and money order duty still applies.

Escrow it, quickly, and leave it alone. Va. Code 55.1-1205 permits the parties to agree that the tenant pay prepaid rent, and then imposes three duties. The prepaid rent shall be placed in an escrow account in a federally insured depository authorized to do business in Virginia by the end of the fifth business day following receipt. It shall remain in the account until such time as the prepaid rent becomes due. And unless the landlord has otherwise become entitled to receive some portion of it, it shall not be removed from the escrow account without the written consent of the tenant.

The definition in 55.1-1200 supplies the boundary: “rent” means all money other than a security deposit owed or paid to the landlord under the rental agreement, including prepaid rent paid more than one month in advance of the rent due date. Last month’s rent collected at signing on a twelve-month lease is therefore prepaid rent with an escrow duty attached, and it is not a security deposit — which means it does not eat into the two-month deposit ceiling but does carry a bank-account obligation most Virginia templates never mention.

Five are due in every Virginia tenancy, one is federal, and eight more are conditional. The ranking pages list between nine and thirteen disclosures and no two of their lists agree; three of them include at least one duty that comes from a statute governing something other than a residential lease. Here is the set, each traced to the section that creates it.

Due in every tenancy.

• Statement of Tenant Rights and Responsibilities — Va. Code 55.1-1204(B) and (H), with Va. Code 36-139(26). Provided with the offered written agreement, acknowledged on the Department’s signed form, current as of the date of delivery, and a precondition to filing or maintaining any action for an alleged lease violation.
• Fee disclosure statement — Va. Code 55.1-1204.1. Beginning on the first page, with the prescribed sentence immediately above the itemized list.
• Manager and owner identification — Va. Code 55.1-1216(A). In writing at or before the beginning of the tenancy: the name and address of the person authorized to manage the premises, and of an owner of the premises or other person authorized to act for and on behalf of the owner. The information must be kept current; the duty extends to and is enforceable against any successor landlord or owner; and a person who fails to comply becomes an agent of each person who is a landlord for the purposes of service of process and of receiving and issuing receipts for notices and demands (55.1-1216(D)).
• Move-in inspection report — Va. Code 55.1-1214. Within five days after occupancy, a written report itemizing damages existing at the time of occupancy, deemed correct unless the tenant objects in writing within five days of receipt.
• Visible evidence of mold — Va. Code 55.1-1215, inside that report.

Federal. The lead-based paint disclosure for housing built before 1978, under 42 U.S.C. 4852d with 24 C.F.R. part 35 and 40 C.F.R. part 745: known information disclosed, available records and reports provided, and the federally approved pamphlet given, before the tenant is obligated under the lease. Virginia adds no separate state lead-paint lease disclosure. What it adds instead is a tenant duty: Va. Code 55.1-1227(A)(11) forbids the tenant to paint, disturb painted surfaces or make alterations without the landlord’s prior written approval, but only where the unit was built before 1978, the landlord has actually provided the federal disclosures, and the lease requires prior written approval. Three conditions, all of which have to be true.

Conditional.

• Military air installation zone — Va. Code 55.1-1217. Where the property is in any locality in which a military air installation is located, the landlord discloses in writing that the property is in a noise zone or accident potential zone, or both, as designated by the locality on its official zoning map, specifying which. A disclosure with inaccurate zone information is treated as nondisclosure unless the inaccuracy came from a locality officer or employee. Remedy: the tenant may terminate at any time during the first thirty days of the lease period by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested, effective fifteen days after mailing or the date through which rent is paid, whichever is later, capped at one month from mailing. Termination is the exclusive remedy.
• Defective drywall — Va. Code 55.1-1218. On the landlord’s actual knowledge of unremediated defective drywall as defined in Va. Code 36-156.1, disclosed in writing before execution or, for an oral agreement, before occupancy. Remedy: termination within sixty days of discovering the defective drywall, on the same fifteen-day effective-date mechanics. Exclusive remedy.
• Prior methamphetamine manufacture — Va. Code 55.1-1219. On the landlord’s actual knowledge that the dwelling unit was previously used to manufacture methamphetamine and has not been cleaned up under the Va. Code 32.1-11.7 guidelines and the Title 54.1 chapter 11 licensing provisions. Remedy: termination within sixty days of discovery, same mechanics, exclusive remedy. Note the section that applies: 55.1-1219 is the tenancy provision. Va. Code 55.1-708 imposes a parallel duty on an owner selling to a purchaser, on a Real Estate Board form, and has no application to a lease.
• Condominium or cooperative filing, or a six-month displacement plan — Va. Code 55.1-1216(C). For a multifamily dwelling unit: where an application to register the property as a condominium or cooperative has been filed with the Real Estate Board, or there is within six months an existing plan for tenant displacement resulting from demolition or substantial rehabilitation, or from conversion to office, hotel or motel use or a planned unit development, that must be disclosed in writing to any prospective tenant.
• Personal property, renter’s insurance and flood risk — Va. Code 55.1-1206(D). Where the rental agreement does not require the tenant to obtain renter’s insurance, the landlord shall provide written notice before execution stating that the landlord is not responsible for the tenant’s personal property, that the landlord’s insurance does not cover it, and that the tenant should obtain renter’s insurance if they wish to protect it. The notice must also inform the tenant that renter’s insurance does not cover flood damage and advise the tenant to contact the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or visit the websites for the National Flood Insurance Program or the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Flood Risk Information System, to find out whether the property is in a special flood hazard area. Failure to give the notice does not affect the validity of the lease. If the tenant asks for a translation, the landlord may assist or refer to an electronic translation service and shall charge no fee for doing so. No ranking Virginia page carries this duty, and it is the closest thing Virginia has to a flood disclosure.
• Submetering, energy allocation, ratio utility billing and local government fees — Va. Code 55.1-1212(B) and (H). Any of those systems may be used only if clearly stated in the rental agreement, and any administrative service charge must be agreed there too.
• Nonresident owner’s resident agent — Va. Code 55.1-1211. Every lease executed by or on behalf of a nonresident property owner shall specifically designate a resident agent and the agent’s office address for service of process, notices, orders and demands. This is a disclosure that lives in the lease itself rather than a separate form.
• Mortgage default, acceleration or foreclosure sale — Va. Code 55.1-1237. For a dwelling unit used as a single-family residence, within five business days after the landlord receives the lender’s written notice.

Not required in a Virginia residential lease. Virginia mandates no radon disclosure, no bed bug disclosure, no asbestos disclosure and no sex-offender-registry notice for a residential tenancy. Two items that appear on ranking Virginia disclosure lists come from a statute that does not govern leases at all, and one of them is not mandatory even there — both are dealt with in the section below.

No, and it fails on two independent grounds.

A ranking Virginia template page lists “Tourism Activity Zone — Tenants moving into a dwelling in a tourism activity zone must be informed about potential disturbances” among eleven required disclosures, citing Va. Code 55.1-707. A second lists “Disclosure of heavy tourism activity” and “Property condition disclosure” among required lease disclosures.

The first ground is the text of the section itself. Va. Code 55.1-707 is titled Permissive disclosure; tourism activity zone, and reads: an owner of residential property located partially or wholly within a designated tourism activity zone established under Va. Code 15.2-982 may disclose in writing to any prospective purchaser or lessee that the property is within such a zone, with a description of potential impacts including special events, parades, temporary street closures, and indoor and outdoor entertainment activities. “May disclose” is not a duty.

The second ground is where the section lives. Section 55.1-707 sits in Chapter 7 of Title 55.1, the Virginia Residential Property Disclosure Act. Va. Code 55.1-701 defines that chapter’s applicability in one sentence: the provisions of the chapter apply only with respect to transfers by sale, exchange, installment land sales contract, or lease with option to buy of residential real property consisting of not less than one nor more than four dwelling units. An ordinary residential lease is not a transfer by sale, exchange, installment land sales contract, or lease with option to buy. The chapter’s definitions section, 55.1-700, speaks throughout of purchasers, ratification of a real estate purchase contract and the Real Estate Board’s website.

The same reasoning disposes of the “property condition disclosure” item: Va. Code 55.1-703 is the buyer-beware disclosure statement, addressed to purchasers, on a Real Estate Board form. This is the recurring competitor error the whole configurable-lease project keeps finding — a real section number, correctly transcribed, drawn from the statute that governs sales and applied to a lease. When a template asserts a disclosure duty, the fastest test is to open the cited section and see whether it speaks of a transferor and a purchaser or of a landlord and a tenant.

Va. Code 55.1-1220(A) sets eight duties. The landlord shall comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition; keep all common areas shared by two or more dwelling units of a multifamily premises clean and structurally safe; maintain in good and safe working order and condition all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and other facilities and appliances, including elevators, supplied or required to be supplied; maintain the premises so as to prevent the accumulation of moisture and the growth of mold and promptly respond to any tenant notice under 55.1-1227(A)(10); provide and maintain appropriate receptacles for ashes, garbage, rubbish and other waste and arrange for removal; supply running water and reasonable amounts of hot water at all times, reasonable air conditioning if provided, and heat in season, except where the unit is constructed so that heat, air conditioning or hot water is generated by an installation within the tenant’s exclusive control or supplied by a direct public utility connection; and provide a certificate to the tenant stating that all smoke alarms are present, have been inspected and are in good working order, no more than once every twelve months. The landlord, an employee or an independent contractor may perform that inspection.

Three qualifiers travel with the list. Va. Code 55.1-1220(B): the landlord is liable only for the tenant’s actual damages proximately caused by the landlord’s failure to exercise ordinary care. Va. Code 55.1-1220(C): where the code-compliance duty in (A)(1) is greater than any other duty in the subsection, the landlord’s duty is determined by reference to (A)(1). Va. Code 55.1-1220(D): the parties may agree in writing that the tenant perform the duties in (A)(3), (6) and (7) plus specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations and remodeling — but only if the transaction is entered into in good faith, not for the purpose of evading the landlord’s obligations, and it does not diminish the landlord’s obligation to other tenants.

On mold specifically, 55.1-1220(A)(5) is more demanding than a general habitability clause. Where there is visible evidence of mold the landlord shall promptly remediate in accordance with Va. Code 8.01-226.12(E), reinspect to confirm there is no longer visible evidence, and provide the tenant with a copy of a summary of the information concerning mold remediation occurring during that tenancy, making the full package of information and reports available on request except where protected by attorney-client privilege. Once mold has been remediated in accordance with professional standards, the landlord is not required to disclose the past incidence of mold to subsequent tenants. Va. Code 55.1-1200 defines “mold remediation in accordance with professional standards” by reference to named guidance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, and the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification standards, or an industrial hygienist’s protocol consistent with them.

Two further landlord duties sit outside 55.1-1220 and are missed by every ranking page:

The forty-eight hour pesticide notice. Va. Code 55.1-1223 requires the landlord to give written notice not less than forty-eight hours before applying an insecticide or pesticide in the tenant’s dwelling unit, unless the tenant agrees to a shorter period. No notice is required where the tenant requested the application. A tenant with concerns about specific products must notify the landlord in writing not less than twenty-four hours before the scheduled application, and must prepare the unit in accordance with the landlord’s written instructions. For areas of the premises other than dwelling units, the landlord must post conspicuous signs at least forty-eight hours in advance.

Locks and peepholes are a local option, not a state duty. A ranking page states that a Virginia landlord “must provide locks and peepholes on the property whenever possible.” Va. Code 55.1-1221 says something quite different: the governing body of any locality may require by ordinance that any landlord who rents five or more dwelling units in any one multifamily building install dead-bolt locks and peepholes on exterior swinging entrance doors (no peephole needed on a door with a glass panel), manufacturer’s locks with removable metal pins or charlie bars on exterior sliding glass doors at designated levels, and locking devices on all exterior windows — each meeting the Uniform Statewide Building Code. Any such ordinance must give the landlord a reasonable time to comply. Absent a local ordinance, and below five units in one building, the section imposes nothing.

Virginia gives tenants four separate self-help and court routes, and they are frequently blurred together. Keeping them apart matters, because three of them carry a precondition that defeats the remedy if it is skipped.

1. Tenant’s remedy by repair (Va. Code 55.1-1244.1). Where a condition exists that is a material noncompliance by the landlord with the lease or with law, or that if not promptly corrected will constitute a fire hazard or serious threat to life, health or safety — including rodent infestation or a lack of heat, hot or cold running water, light, electricity or adequate sewage disposal — and the tenant has notified the landlord of the condition in writing, the landlord shall take reasonable steps to repair or remedy it within fourteen days. If the landlord does not, the tenant may contract with a third-party contractor licensed by the Board for Contractors or, for a rodent infestation, a pesticide business employing commercial applicators or registered technicians licensed and registered with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The tenant is entitled to recover the actual costs incurred for the work performed, not exceeding the greater of one month’s rent or one thousand five hundred dollars, and unless reimbursed may deduct those actual costs after submitting to the landlord an itemized statement accompanied by receipts. A local government or nonprofit entity may procure the services on the tenant’s behalf without affecting the tenant’s entitlement. The tenant may not use the section where the condition was caused by the tenant, an authorized occupant or a guest or invitee; where the landlord was denied access; or where the landlord had already remedied the condition.

The deepest ranking page describes this as the tenant being able to “repair the issue themselves and withhold rent or ask for reimbursement of up to one thousand five hundred dollars, whichever is greater.” Two errors in one sentence. The statute defines “actual costs” as an amount paid on an invoice to a third-party licensed contractor or licensed pesticide business, or the amount that business donated as shown on its invoice — there is no route for the tenant’s own labour. And the mechanism is a deduction against rent supported by receipts, not a withholding.

2. Essential services (Va. Code 55.1-1239). Where, contrary to the lease or the chapter, the landlord willfully or negligently fails to supply an essential service, the tenant serves written notice specifying the breach and, after allowing a reasonable time to correct, may either recover damages based on the diminution in the fair rental value of the dwelling unit, or procure reasonable substitute housing and be excused from paying rent for the period of noncompliance as determined by the court. The tenant is entitled to reasonable attorney fees, but may not also proceed under 55.1-1234 for the same breach. No rights arise until written notice is given, and none arise at all where the condition was caused by the tenant, an authorized occupant, or a guest or invitee. Va. Code 55.1-1200 defines “essential service” as heat, central air conditioning when supplied by the landlord and operating or represented as operating as of the effective date of the rental agreement, running water, hot water, electricity and gas.

3. Tenant’s assertion and rent escrow (Va. Code 55.1-1244). The tenant may file an assertion in the general district court that a condition exists constituting material noncompliance or a fire hazard or serious threat to life, health or safety — including lack of heat or hot or cold running water (except where the tenant pays the utility and the lack is the direct result of the tenant’s own nonpayment), lack of light, electricity or adequate sewage disposal, rodent infestation, or lead-pigment paint on interior surfaces of which the landlord has notice. Two things must be shown before relief: that the landlord refused, or having a reasonable opportunity failed, to remedy the condition after written notice from the tenant or a violation or condemnation notice from a state or local agency — with a rebuttable presumption that a period in excess of thirty days from receipt is unreasonable; and that the tenant has paid the rent into court within five days of the date due. The court may terminate the lease at the tenant’s request, disburse escrow to either party, continue the escrow, abate the rent (with the burden on the landlord to show why there should not be an abatement), disburse escrow to fund repairs, refer the matter to a state or local agency, or disburse escrow to stay a foreclosure or satisfy a mechanic’s lien. The initial hearing is within fifteen calendar days of service on the landlord, sooner in an emergency. And a rule with real teeth: where an escrow is established and the condition is not fully remedied within six months, and the landlord has not made reasonable attempts to remedy it, the court shall award all moneys accumulated in escrow to the tenant — and the escrow does not terminate but begins a new six-month period on the same terms.

4. The habitability defence (Va. Code 55.1-1241). In an action for possession based on nonpayment, or an action for rent while the tenant is in possession, the tenant may assert the existence of a fire hazard or serious threat to life, health or safety as a defence, on the same thirty-day presumption. The landlord answers by showing the conditions do not exist, have been remedied, were caused by the tenant or the tenant’s household or guests, or that the tenant unreasonably refused entry to correct them. The court may reduce rent equitably, terminate at the tenant’s request, or order the landlord to remedy. Where the tenant raised the defence in bad faith the court may impose the landlord’s reasonable costs, repair costs and attorney fees on the tenant; where the tenant succeeds the court may in its discretion impose the tenant’s costs and attorney fees on the landlord.

Va. Code 55.1-1234.1, added by 2023 Acts chapter 435, is the strongest tenant remedy in the chapter and not one of the nine ranking Virginia lease pages mentions it.

If, at the beginning of the tenancy, a condition exists in the rental dwelling unit that constitutes a fire hazard or serious threat to the life, health or safety of tenants or occupants — including an infestation of rodents or a lack of heat, hot or cold running water, electricity, or adequate sewage disposal facilities — the tenant is entitled to terminate the rental agreement and receive a full refund of all deposits and rent paid to the landlord. The condition on that right is a short one: the tenant must give the landlord written notice of the intent to terminate within seven days of the date on which possession of the dwelling unit was to have transferred.

Unless the landlord asserts that the termination is unjustified, the landlord shall refund all deposits and rent on or before the fifteenth business day following the later of the day the termination notice is delivered or the day the tenant vacates. A landlord who disputes the termination must provide written notice of the refusal, with reasons, within fifteen business days of delivery of the termination notice. A tenant who has not taken possession, or who has vacated, may sue in a court of competent jurisdiction to contest the refusal and recover the deposits and rent — and in any such action the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover reasonable attorney fees.

Va. Code 55.1-1243.1 prices it, and the number is large enough that no Virginia landlord should ever be near it. Also absent from every ranking page.

A general district court shall enter an order on a tenant’s petition establishing that the landlord has willfully and without authority from the court removed or excluded the tenant from the dwelling unit unlawfully, interrupted or caused the interruption of an essential service, or taken action to make the premises unsafe for habitation. The order may require the landlord to restore possession, resume the interrupted service, or fix the willful actions that made the premises unsafe.

The timetable is fast: the initial hearing shall be held within five calendar days from the date of filing. The court may issue a preliminary ex parte order where there is good cause and the tenant made reasonable efforts to alert the landlord, with a full hearing no more than ten days later. At the full hearing the court may terminate the rental agreement at the tenant’s request and order the whole security deposit returned.

And the damages: on evidence establishing one or more of the three factors, the tenant shall recover (i) actual damages, (ii) statutory damages of five thousand dollars or four months’ rent, whichever is greater, and (iii) reasonable attorney fees.

Va. Code 55.1-1252 states the underlying prohibition: a landlord may not recover or take possession of the dwelling unit by willful diminution of services by interrupting or causing the interruption of an essential service required by the rental agreement, or by refusing to permit the tenant access unless the refusal is pursuant to a court order for possession. Va. Code 55.1-1243.2 adds a separate liability where a tenant is excluded because the unit was condemned after the tenant had given notice of a building code violation posing a substantial risk: the landlord is liable for actual damages and must return prepaid rent not yet due at condemnation, the security deposit, and any rent paid after condemnation — unless the condemnation was caused by the tenant’s own deliberate or negligent act or by an act of God, or the lease was properly terminated under 55.1-1240.

Three statutory routes, each with its own notice period and each barring liquidated damages.

Military personnel (Va. Code 55.1-1235). A member of the Armed Forces of the United States, or of the National Guard serving on full-time duty or as a civil service technician with the National Guard, may terminate on any of five triggers: permanent change of station orders; temporary duty orders in excess of three months’ duration; discharge or release from active duty, or from full-time duty or technician status with the National Guard; an order to report to government-supplied quarters resulting in the forfeiture of basic allowance for quarters; or a stop movement order in response to a local, national or global emergency that is effective for an indefinite period or for a period of not less than thirty days and that prevents the service member from occupying the leased dwelling unit for a residential purpose. The mechanics: written notice of termination effective on a stated date not less than thirty days after the first date on which the next rental payment is due and payable after the notice is given, plus a copy of the official orders or a signed letter from the commanding officer confirming them before the termination date. The landlord may not charge any liquidated damages. The tenant’s obligations under 55.1-1227 are unaffected.

Victims of family abuse, sexual abuse, stalking or trafficking (Va. Code 55.1-1236). The protected categories are family abuse as defined in Va. Code 16.1-228, sexual abuse as defined in Va. Code 18.2-67.10 or other criminal sexual assault, stalking in violation of Va. Code 18.2-60.3, and trafficking under Article 3 of Chapter 8 of Title 18.2 — trafficking having been added by 2025 Acts chapter 593. The right arises where the victim obtained a protective order during the term and gives notice during the order’s currency or an extension; where a preliminary or permanent protective order was obtained on the same basis; or where a court has convicted a perpetrator, or a magistrate, law-enforcement agency, grand jury, special grand jury or court has issued a warrant, summons, information or indictment charging a person with such a crime against the victim during the term. On the conviction route the victim may use the right to terminate the agreement in effect when the conviction order is entered and one subsequent rental agreement based on the same conviction. The notice period is unusual and specific: written notice of termination to be effective twenty-eight days after the tenant serves it, with a copy of the order, conviction order, warrant, summons, information or indictment. Rent stays payable through the effective date, the tenant’s 55.1-1227 obligations continue through it, and the landlord may not charge any liquidated damages. Co-tenants remain responsible for rent for the balance of the term; where the perpetrator is the remaining sole tenant obligated on the agreement, the landlord may terminate and collect actual damages against the perpetrator under 55.1-1251.

Fire or casualty (Va. Code 55.1-1240). Where the dwelling unit or premises is damaged or destroyed by fire or casualty to an extent that the tenant’s enjoyment is substantially impaired, or required repairs can only be accomplished if the tenant vacates, either party may terminate. In the version in force now, the tenant terminates by vacating and, within fourteen days thereafter, serving written notice of the intention to terminate, in which case the agreement terminates as of the date of vacating; and the landlord terminates by giving fourteen days’ notice on the basis of the landlord’s determination that the damage requires the tenant’s removal and that use of the premises is substantially impaired. On termination the landlord returns all security deposits under 55.1-1226 and prepaid rent plus accrued interest recoverable by law, unless the landlord reasonably believes the tenant or the tenant’s household or guests caused the damage. Rent is prorated as of the date of the casualty. This section changes on 1 January 2027 — see the effectivity section below.

Two more termination-adjacent rules complete the picture. Va. Code 55.1-1238: where the landlord willfully fails to deliver possession, rent abates until possession is delivered, and the tenant may terminate on at least five days’ written notice and recover all prepaid rent and deposits, or demand performance; where the failure is willful and not in good faith, an aggrieved person recovers actual damages and reasonable attorney fees. And Va. Code 55.1-1237(C): a successor in interest who acquires a foreclosed dwelling unit to occupy as a primary residence must give the sitting tenant not less than ninety days’ written notice to vacate, while a successor acquiring for any other purpose takes subject to the lease for the remaining term.

Va. Code 55.1-1254 lets a landlord treat personal property left in the dwelling unit, the premises or a landlord-provided storage area as abandoned after the rental agreement has terminated and delivery of possession has occurred — but only where the landlord has already given one of three specific notices, each of which must itself contain the disposal statement. That last point is what makes this a lease-and-notice drafting rule rather than a background rule:

• a termination notice under the chapter, including a statement that any items of personal property left in the dwelling unit or the premises would be disposed of within the twenty-four hour period after termination;
• the 55.1-1249 abandonment notice, including a statement that property left behind would be disposed of within the twenty-four hour period after expiration of the seven-day notice period; or
• a separate written notice, including a statement that property left behind would be disposed of within twenty-four hours after expiration of a ten-day period from the date the notice was given.

The tenant has the right to remove personal property at reasonable times during the twenty-four hour period, or at such other reasonable times until the landlord has disposed of it. During that window the landlord has no liability for risk of loss. A landlord who fails to allow reasonable access exposes himself to injunctive or other relief. Any funds the landlord receives from a sale go to the tenant’s account and are applied to amounts due, including the reasonable costs of selling, storing or safekeeping — and any remainder is treated as a security deposit under 55.1-1226, which means the forty-five day accounting mechanics attach to it. The section does not apply once an order of possession has been granted and a writ of eviction has been executed under Va. Code 8.01-470; at that point Va. Code 55.1-1255 governs, under which the sheriff oversees removal of the property to the public way, the tenant has twenty-four hours to retrieve it, and the landlord may instead designate a storage area.

Abandonment itself is defined procedurally in Va. Code 55.1-1249. Where the rental agreement requires the tenant to give notice of an anticipated extended absence in excess of seven days and the tenant fails to do so, the landlord may recover actual damages — another entitlement that exists only if the lease creates the duty. During any absence exceeding seven days the landlord may enter at times reasonably necessary to protect his possessions and property. Where the landlord cannot determine whether the premises have been abandoned, the landlord serves written notice under 55.1-1202 requiring the tenant to give written notice within seven days that the tenant intends to remain in occupancy; if the tenant does so, or the landlord otherwise determines the tenant remains, the premises are not treated as abandoned. Otherwise, on expiry of the seven days there is a rebuttable presumption of abandonment and the agreement is deemed to terminate on that date, with the landlord under a duty to mitigate under 55.1-1251.

Va. Code 55.1-1256 covers the death of a sole tenant: the agreement is deemed terminated as of the date of death, the landlord need not seek an order of possession, the estate remains liable for actual damages under 55.1-1251, and the landlord may dispose of the personal property after at least ten days’ written notice to the authorized contact person named in the rental application, lease or other landlord document — or to the tenant under 55.1-1202 if none is named. Authorized occupants, guests and invitees may not remain and must vacate before the end of the ten days.

Va. Code 55.1-1253(C) gives the landlord two things and conditions one of them on the lease.

By statute, where the tenant remains in possession without the landlord’s consent after expiration or termination, the landlord may bring an action for possession and may also recover actual damages, reasonable attorney fees and court costs — unless the tenant proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the failure to vacate as of the termination date was reasonable. That fee entitlement arises without a clause.

By contract, the landlord may include in the rental agreement a reasonable liquidated damage penalty, not to exceed an amount equal to one hundred fifty percent of the per diem of the monthly rent, for each day the tenant remains after the termination date specified in the landlord’s notice. Where the dwelling unit is a public housing unit or another housing unit subject to regulation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, that penalty shall not exceed one hundred percent of the per diem of the monthly rent set out in the lease. If the landlord consents to continued occupancy, 55.1-1204 applies and the tenancy carries on.

No, and the section is about to be rewritten. In the version in force today, Va. Code 55.1-1258(A) forbids the landlord to retaliate by increasing rent, decreasing services, bringing or threatening to bring an action for possession, or causing a termination under 55.1-1253 or 55.1-1410, after the landlord has knowledge that the tenant has complained to a governmental agency charged with enforcement of a building or housing code of a violation materially affecting health or safety; has made a complaint to, or filed an action against, the landlord for a violation of the chapter; has organized or become a member of a tenants’ organization; or has testified in a court proceeding against the landlord. The landlord may still increase rent to that charged for similar market rentals and may decrease services that apply equally to all tenants.

Two features distinguish Virginia from states that presume retaliation. First, there is no presumption and no look-back window: 55.1-1258(B) says in terms that the burden of proving retaliatory intent shall be on the tenant. Second, the safe harbours in 55.1-1258(C) are express — the landlord may terminate and bring an action for possession where the code violation was caused primarily by lack of reasonable care by the tenant, an authorized occupant or a guest or invitee; where the tenant is in default in rent; where compliance with the code requires alteration, remodeling or demolition that would effectively deprive the tenant of use of the unit; or where the tenant is in default of a lease provision materially affecting the health and safety of himself or others. Subsection (D) preserves termination for any other lawful reason unless the court finds the reason was retaliation.

The remedy is the chapter’s general one plus a defence: the tenant is entitled to the applicable remedies in the chapter, including recovery of actual damages, and may assert retaliation as a defence in any action for possession.

This is the part of Virginia law that no competing template page addresses at all, and it is the reason a Virginia form printed today needs a diary entry. Nine sections of chapter 12 are currently published in more than one version on the official Code of Virginia site, each version carrying a bracketed effective date. Reading the wrong block publishes law that is not in force. The rules stated everywhere on this page are the versions in force on 2026-08-06.

On 1 January 2027:

• 55.1-1240, fire or casualty damage, is rewritten. The tenant’s post-vacating notice window moves from fourteen days to twenty-one days, and the landlord’s notice moves from fourteen to twenty-one days — but the landlord may only give it after meeting, or making a reasonable effort to meet, the tenant to discuss the extent of the damage and any reasonable alternatives to terminating, and after determining whether a substantially similar unit in the same complex is available within a reasonable time and, if so, offering it on the tenant’s current terms. The tenant then gains a right, within seven days of receiving the notice, to make a written request that the landlord reevaluate the extent of the damage and the habitability of the unit, with the tenant involved in the reevaluation.
• 55.1-1258, retaliation, is replaced wholesale. The protected acts expand from four to five and now include a complaint to any member of a news or media outlet about noncompliance, and a written complaint or action alleging a violation of the Virginia Fair Housing Law or the federal Fair Housing Act. The prohibited responses become an enumerated list of six, including increasing fees as well as rent, selectively decreasing services or enforcing a rule, threatening, harassing or coercing the tenant, and refusing to renew a tenancy where the tenant receives Housing Choice Voucher or other rental assistance. The safe harbours grow from four to nine. Notably, the sentence placing the burden of proving retaliatory intent on the tenant does not survive into the new subsection D.
• 55.1-1212.1 commences. A landlord owning more than four rental dwelling units, or more than a ten percent interest in more than four, may not prohibit a tenant from installing a small portable solar generation device on the exterior of the tenant’s premises, though reasonable size, place and manner restrictions are allowed and the landlord may prohibit installation elsewhere on the premises. The device is capped at 1,200 watts per dwelling unit, must meet the National Electrical Code and be certified by a nationally recognised testing laboratory, and must prevent export of power during an outage. The tenant gives at least seven days’ notice before installation with documentation and the proposed location, and is responsible for any damage. A tenant in a unit subject to a ratio utility billing system may not use or install one.
• 55.1-1244 (tenant’s assertion; rent escrow) and 55.1-703 also flip to their later versions.

On 1 July 2027:

• 55.1-1204(K) — the renewal-term rent-increase notice rises from sixty to ninety days, with a tenant response deadline no sooner than thirty days after delivery. Nonrenewal stays at sixty.
• 55.1-1202 gains a new subsection E: no notice of termination of tenancy for nonpayment of rent shall be effective unless it contains a written statement of charges and payments over the tenancy or the past twelve months, whichever is shorter, plus late charges, attorney fees, costs and other contracted charges due and owing — and, where the lease uses submetering, energy allocation equipment or a ratio utility billing system, the debits and credits for energy and utility bills as well.
• 55.1-1203 gains a pre-application disclosure: before requesting or collecting any payment or information about a prospective tenant, the landlord must notify the applicant in writing or by accessible posting of the amount of any fees or application deposit and whether they are refundable, the tenant selection criteria, any criteria resulting in automatic denial, additional criteria that may result in denial, the name and address of the consumer reporting agency where a consumer report is used, and the applicant’s right to a free copy of the report on an adverse action and to dispute its accuracy.
• 55.1-1245 gains subsection G: for a landlord of more than four rental dwelling units, where rent is unpaid and the exact amount owed is less than or equal to one month’s rent plus contracted late charges, the landlord must serve a written notice stating the exact amount due and offering a payment plan in equal monthly installments over the lesser of six months or the remaining term, with no penalty for early payoff and no additional late fees during the plan while the tenant pays on time. The tenant has fourteen days to pay in full or enter the plan.
• 55.1-1209 and 55.1-1212 flip to their later versions.

On the later of 1 July 2028 or seven years after the COVID-19 pandemic state of emergency expires: the third published version of 55.1-1245 commences. That trigger is not a fixed calendar date and has to be re-checked rather than diarised.

One methodological note, because it is the reason this section can be stated with confidence. The official Code of Virginia publishes a per-session sections-affected table for each title. For the 2026 Regular Session it lists exactly sixteen chapter 12 sections as amended: 55.1-1200, 55.1-1202, 55.1-1203, 55.1-1204, 55.1-1208, 55.1-1209, 55.1-1212, 55.1-1212.1, 55.1-1235, 55.1-1240, 55.1-1241, 55.1-1244, 55.1-1245, 55.1-1258, 55.1-1259 and 55.1-1262. Every one of those sixteen was read in the codified text for this build, and every 2026 chapter number appearing in the chapter’s history lines was accounted for. That is positive proof of currency rather than an absence of evidence.

We rendered and read the nine pages currently ranking for the target query before writing a word of this one. What follows is not a general complaint about template quality; each item was checked against the section the competing page itself cites.

1. The five-day rent notice. All nine ranking pages describe a five-day notice to pay or quit, and several sell a five-day notice form alongside the lease. Va. Code 55.1-1245(F) says fourteen days, in all three of its published versions.

2. Automatic renewal and the sixty-day notice from the wrong chapter. The deepest ranker states that Virginia leases of a year or more renew automatically on the same terms, and that landlords must give sixty days’ notice to change terms or not renew, citing Va. Code 55.1-1302 — a section in the Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act.

3. Submetering cited to the nonresidential chapter. One ranking page lists a “Special Equipment, Submetering, and Systems Disclosure” and cites Va. Code 55.1-1404. That section is in Chapter 14, Nonresidential Tenancies; its own definitions section defines “building” by reference to a nonresidential tenancy, including an office building or shopping centre as those terms are defined in Va. Code 56-245.2, and it separately covers campgrounds and campsites. The residential submetering section is 55.1-1212, and the two are not interchangeable: the residential version carries the ratio-utility-billing rules, the five-dollar late-charge cap and the fifteen-day billing rule that a residential lease actually needs.

4. Repealed section numbers. The same page cites 55-248.12(A) for the owner disclosure. That number was superseded when the Act moved into Title 55.1 in 2019. Another ranking page’s source list mixes current 55.1 numbers with pre-2019 numbers on the same screen.

5. A permissive sales disclosure sold as a mandatory lease disclosure. Two ranking pages list the tourism activity zone, and one lists a property condition disclosure, as required lease disclosures. Va. Code 55.1-707 says an owner “may disclose”, and Va. Code 55.1-701 confines the whole chapter to sales, exchanges, installment land sales contracts and leases with an option to buy.

6. The grace period stated as universal. Two ranking pages state a five-day rent grace period as a general Virginia rule. It comes from Va. Code 55.1-1204(C), which applies only where the landlord offers no written rental agreement. A third ranking page says the opposite — that Virginia has no grace period at all. Both are half-right, and neither states the condition.

7. Entry notice, inverted. The deepest ranker says a landlord must give twenty-four hours’ notice for maintenance the tenant requested. Va. Code 55.1-1229(A)(4) says that where the tenant requests maintenance the landlord is not required to give notice at all, and the twenty-four hour figure does not appear in the section.

8. Locks and peepholes as a statewide duty. Va. Code 55.1-1221 is a local-option enabling statute limited to landlords of five or more units in one multifamily building, and only where a locality has adopted an ordinance.

9. The bounced-cheque fee from the general civil statute. Two ranking pages state a flat fifty-dollar fee under Va. Code 8.01-27.1. That section expressly yields to chapter 12 in a residential tenancy, and the operative rule is the definition in Va. Code 55.1-1200, which requires the fee to be specified in the rental agreement.

10. Repair-and-deduct described as self-help withholding. Va. Code 55.1-1244.1 requires a licensed third-party contractor or licensed pesticide business and creates a receipted deduction, not a withholding, and not tenant labour.

11. The mold rule garbled. The deepest ranker states that if there is additional mold the landlord has five days to remediate, and that if tenants discover mold they have five days to inform the landlord. Va. Code 55.1-1215 says something different in both halves: the landlord has five business days after the tenant asks to take possession or decides to remain in possession despite disclosed visible mold, and the tenant’s five days are the window to object in writing to the move-in report, not a reporting deadline for later discoveries. A tenant who later finds moisture or mold has a duty to notify promptly under Va. Code 55.1-1227(A)(10), with no day count.

12. Acceptance of rent with reservation listed as a lease disclosure. The deepest ranker’s thirteenth “required disclosure” is a statement that rent is accepted with reservation, citing Va. Code 55.1-1250. That section does prescribe language, word for word — but it prescribes it for a written notice to the tenant, which may be included in the fourteen-day termination notice, not for the lease. The rule it enables is real and worth knowing: a landlord may not accept full payment of rent and all other amounts owed and still obtain an order of possession for nonpayment, but may accept a partial payment and still proceed, provided the reservation notice was given. Putting the prescribed paragraph in the lease instead of the notice does not satisfy the section.

13. The prohibited-provisions section is missing entirely. Not one of the nine ranking pages mentions Va. Code 55.1-1208, the eight clause types a Virginia lease may not contain, or the damages-plus-fees exposure in subsection (B) for suing on one.

14. The small-landlord escape hatch that no longer exists. Virginia lease guidance still circulates describing the VRLTA as avoidable by a landlord below a unit threshold. The exclusions in Va. Code 55.1-1201(C) contain no unit-count test, and 55.1-1201(B) applies the chapter to all single-family and multifamily dwelling units.

Va. Code 55.1-1203 governs the stage before the lease, and it is directly relevant to anyone screening applicants. The application fee is a nonrefundable fee paid to be considered as a tenant; the application deposit is a refundable deposit, including money intended to be used as a security deposit, and it becomes a security deposit at the commencement date of the rental agreement (Va. Code 55.1-1200).

The fee cap. An application fee shall not exceed fifty dollars, exclusive of any actual out-of-pocket expenses paid by the landlord to a third party performing background, credit or other pre-occupancy checks on the applicant. Where the application is for a public housing unit or another unit subject to regulation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the ceiling is thirty-two dollars on the same exclusive-of-third-party-cost basis.

The deposit refund. Where the applicant fails to rent the unit, the landlord shall refund from the application deposit, within twenty days of the failure to rent or of the landlord’s rejection, all sums in excess of the landlord’s actual expenses and damages, together with an itemized list of those expenses and damages. Where the deposit was made by cash, certified cheque, cashier’s cheque or postal money order, and the failure to rent is due to the landlord’s rejection, the refund is due within ten days. A landlord who fails to comply is liable for the portion wrongfully withheld plus reasonable attorney fees.

What may be asked. The landlord may request information enabling a determination whether each applicant may become a tenant, may photocopy each applicant’s driver’s licence or similar photo identification containing a social security number or a Department of Motor Vehicles control number, and may require a social security number or an individual taxpayer identification number. The landlord shall not photocopy a U.S. government-issued identification so long as doing so violates 18 U.S.C. 701.

The credit-score mitigation duty. Va. Code 55.1-1203(D) requires a landlord to consider evidence of an applicant’s status as a victim of family abuse, as defined in Va. Code 16.1-228, to mitigate any adverse effect of an otherwise qualified applicant’s low credit score. The applicant may establish that status by a letter from a sexual and domestic violence programme, a housing counselor certified by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or the applicant’s attorney; a law-enforcement incident report; or a court order. A landlord who does not comply is liable for actual damages including every amount paid as an application fee, application deposit or reimbursement of the landlord’s third-party costs, plus attorney fees.

Confidentiality afterwards. Va. Code 55.1-1209(B) makes information received under 55.1-1203 a confidential tenant record that shall not be released to any person except in response to a subpoena. Va. Code 55.1-1209(A) then lists the fourteen circumstances in which any tenant information may be released at all — prior written consent, public record, a summary of the rent payment record, an unremedied noncompliance or termination notice where the tenant did not remain, a law-enforcement or public-safety request, a civil subpoena, a request by the local commissioner of the revenue, a contract purchaser who agrees in writing to maintain confidentiality, a lender financing or refinancing the property, the tenant’s commanding officer or military housing officer or military attorney, the landlord’s attorney or collection agency, an emergency, the managing agent or its successor, and a federal census request. Va. Code 55.1-1209(E) lets the tenant request a copy of their own records in paper or electronic form, and where the landlord makes records available by electronic portal the tenant shall not be required to pay for access to that portal.

One further screening restriction binds larger landlords. Va. Code 55.1-1245(J) forbids a landlord owning more than four rental dwelling units, or more than a ten percent interest in more than four, from taking adverse action against an applicant based solely on payment history or an eviction for nonpayment of rent occurring between 12 March 2020 and thirty days after the expiration or revocation of the pandemic state of emergency. A denial triggers a written notice carrying the statewide legal aid telephone number and website address, telling the applicant of the right to assert that the disqualification rested on that pandemic-period history within seven days of the postmark, and requiring the landlord to make a good faith effort to contact the generator of any consumer or tenant screening report relied on. Non-compliance costs statutory damages of one thousand dollars plus attorney fees. Because Virginia landlord-tenant duties reach this far into the screening process, run the checks properly — see our Virginia tenant screening laws guide.

Transfer of deposits on sale (Va. Code 55.1-1213). The current owner of rental property shall transfer any security deposits and any accrued interest to the new owner at the time of the transfer. Where the current owner has a written property management agreement under Va. Code 54.1-2135(E), the owner must give the managing agent written notice requesting payment of the deposits before settlement; on receipt the managing agent transfers them and gives written notice to each tenant that the deposit has been transferred to the new owner.

Cable and television access (Va. Code 55.1-1222). No landlord of a multifamily dwelling unit shall demand or accept payment of any fee, charge or other thing of value from a provider of cable television, cable modem, satellite master antenna, direct broadcast satellite, subscription television or any other television programming service in exchange for granting that provider mere access to the landlord’s tenants, or giving tenants mere access to the service. A service agreement for genuine marketing and other services facilitating delivery is permitted and may be compensated at reasonable value. The landlord may not demand payment from tenants for such service unless the landlord is itself the provider, and may not discriminate in rental charges between tenants who receive the service and those who do not. The landlord may still require the provider and the tenant to bear the entire cost of installation, operation or removal, and may demand reasonable indemnity or security for damage.

Rules and regulations (Va. Code 55.1-1228). A landlord may adopt rules concerning use and occupancy, but a rule binds the tenant only if all six conditions are met: its purpose is to promote the convenience, safety or welfare of the tenants, preserve the landlord’s property from abusive use, or make a fair distribution of services and facilities; it bears a reasonable relationship to that purpose; it applies to all tenants in the premises in a fair manner; it is sufficiently explicit to fairly inform the tenant what is required or prohibited; it is not for the purpose of evading the landlord’s obligations; and the tenant received a copy at the time of entering the rental agreement or when the rule was adopted. A rule adopted or changed after the tenant enters the agreement is enforceable only on reasonable notice, and if it constitutes a substantial modification of the tenant’s bargain it is not valid unless the tenant consents in writing.

Barring a guest or invitee (Va. Code 55.1-1246). The landlord may bar a guest or invitee of the tenant from the premises by written notice served personally on that person, for conduct on the landlord’s property that violates the rental agreement, a local ordinance, or state or federal law. A copy must be served on the tenant, and the notice must describe the conduct that is the basis for the action. The landlord may then apply to the magistrate for a warrant for trespass. The tenant may file a tenant’s assertion under Va. Code 55.1-1244 asking the general district court to review the barring.

Employee key policies (Va. Code 55.1-1209.1). A landlord who owns more than two hundred rental dwelling units attached to the same piece of real property in the Commonwealth must establish a policy requiring a pre-employment criminal history records check for any applicant whose position will have access to unit keys, and written policies and procedures for the storage, issuance and return, security, access, and where applicable the usage and deactivation, of unit keys and electronic key codes. Financial institutions as defined in Va. Code 6.2-100 and real estate licensees under Title 54.1 chapter 21 are excluded.

Eviction Diversion Program (Va. Code 55.1-1262). Any general district court in the Commonwealth may implement the Program established by Va. Code 55.1-1260, whose stated purpose is reducing evictions of low-income persons for failure to pay small amounts. A tenant is eligible who appears at the first docket call; pays at least ten percent of the amount due on the unlawful detainer as amended at that call; gives sworn testimony of income and sufficient funds and of the reasons for the shortfall; owes no outstanding rent under a payment plan executed in the last twelve months; has not defaulted on such a plan in the last twelve months; and has not participated in a diversion programme in the last twelve months. The court-ordered plan runs thirty percent by the fifth day of each of the following three months, with ongoing rent paid within five days of each due date. Full compliance means the unlawful detainer is dismissed as satisfied; a missed payment lets the landlord file a written notice and the court enters an order of possession without further hearing unless the tenant files an affidavit within ten days.

Fair housing (Va. Code 36-96.3). The Virginia Fair Housing Law protects more classes than federal law. It is an unlawful discriminatory housing practice to refuse to rent, to discriminate in the terms, conditions or privileges of rental or in the provision of services or facilities, or to make, print or publish any discriminatory notice, statement or advertisement, because of race, colour, religion, national origin, sex, elderliness, source of funds, familial status, sexual orientation, gender identity, military status or disability. Discrimination includes refusing to permit reasonable modifications at the disabled person’s expense — though on a rental the landlord may, where reasonable, condition permission on the tenant agreeing to restore the interior, reasonable wear and tear excepted — and refusing to make reasonable accommodations in rules, practices, policies or services.

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