Free West Virginia Notice of Non-Renewal

▶ Watch overview

Free West Virginia Notice of Non-Renewal — overview

A West Virginia Notice of Non-Renewal is the written notice a landlord uses to end a periodic tenancy or to communicate that a fixed-term lease will not be renewed at expiration. W. Va. Code § 37-6-5 sets the notice-period requirements where the lease does not: for a periodic tenancy of less than one year, one full rental period before the end of a period (about 30 days for a month-to-month tenancy); for a tenancy from year to year, three months. The same section supplies the service rule — the notice is served on the tenant, or on anyone holding under the tenant the leased premises — and prescribes no particular method, so use one you can prove. Getting the notice right is high-stakes work: a defective notice cannot support an eviction action, and the landlord must start over with a corrected notice — pushing recovery of possession back by months. The form on this page handles the mechanics; the rest of this guide walks through the requirements.

▶ Watch: West Virginia Notice of Non-Renewal — § 37-6-5 explained

What a Notice of Non-Renewal does

A West Virginia Notice of Non-Renewal is the document that ends a residential tenancy without alleging tenant fault. It is the formal communication that the tenancy will not continue past the date specified in the notice. Two distinct scenarios trigger its use: (1) ending a periodic (month-to-month) tenancy, and (2) declining to renew a fixed-term lease at expiration.

The notice is procedurally similar to other West Virginia eviction-related notices, but substantively different. A pay-rent-or-quit notice alleges nonpayment. A cure-or-quit notice alleges a curable lease breach. A notice of non-renewal does not necessarily allege any wrongdoing — it simply ends the tenancy at the end of the notice period.

What the notice accomplishes practically: it establishes the date on which the tenant’s legal right to occupy the premises ends. After that date, if the tenant has not vacated, the landlord may file an unlawful detainer or eviction action to recover possession. The non-renewal notice is the precondition to the eviction action — without it (or with a defective version), the landlord cannot lawfully recover possession of a tenancy that has not otherwise been forfeited.

The form on this page produces a Notice of Non-Renewal that satisfies W. Va. Code § 37-6-5 and complies with West Virginia’s notice-period requirements. The mechanical accuracy of the document is critical: a notice that gets the period wrong, omits required information, or fails proper service is unenforceable, and the landlord must start over.

West Virginia legal framework

West Virginia non-renewal of a residential tenancy operates under several layered sources of law. Three primary frameworks apply to most non-renewal notices in this state.

1. W. Va. Code § 37-6-5 — the notice-period statute, and a default rule. This is the primary statute setting the required advance notice for terminating a residential periodic tenancy, and it tiers the period by the length of the rental period, not by how long the tenant has occupied the unit. A tenancy from year to year takes at least three months notice before the end of any year. A periodic tenancy in which the period is less than one year takes notice for one full period before the end of any period — for a month-to-month tenancy, a full rental month, which in practice runs about 30 days and must expire at a rental-period boundary. The period runs from the date of delivery to the termination date stated in the notice, not from the date the notice was prepared. Critically, the section closes by providing that it does not apply where, by special agreement, some other period of notice is fixed, or no notice is to be given — so the lease, not the statute, is the first place to look.

2. Service — also governed by § 37-6-5 itself. West Virginia has no separate statute prescribing how a termination notice must be delivered. The service rule lives in § 37-6-5’s own sentence: when the notice is to the tenant, it may be served upon the tenant or upon anyone holding under the tenant the leased premises, or any part thereof. There is no ladder, no priority order, no posting requirement and no mailing supplement. W. Va. Code § 55-3A-1 is a different animal — it is the landlord’s summary petition for wrongful occupation, and the only service it governs is service of the court’s hearing notice, which § 55-3A-1(c) allows under Rule 4 of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure or by certified mail, return receipt requested. Because the termination-notice statute prescribes no method, the practical test is provable delivery.

3. Implied covenant of quiet enjoyment. Independent of any specific statute, every West Virginia residential lease carries an implied covenant that the tenant will have peaceful, exclusive possession of the premises for the duration of the tenancy. A non-renewal notice that is part of a pattern of harassment, retaliation, or discrimination breaches this covenant and exposes the landlord to claims for damages, attorney’s fees, and equitable relief.

Anti-retaliation protections. West Virginia does not have a strong statutory anti-retaliation framework specific to landlord-tenant relationships. However, federal law (42 U.S.C. § 3617 and related provisions) and common-law principles still prohibit a landlord from retaliating against a tenant for exercising fair-housing rights. A non-renewal that follows protected tenant conduct (fair-housing complaint, code-enforcement contact) can support a federal retaliation claim.

Anti-discrimination protections — federal Fair Housing Act and West Virginia fair housing law. A non-renewal notice that targets a tenant based on a protected class (race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status, disability, and source of income in some jurisdictions) violates fair housing law regardless of whether the technical notice-period requirements are met. Disparate-impact analysis can also reach facially neutral policies that disproportionately affect a protected class.

Notice period under § 37-6-5

W. Va. Code § 37-6-5 sets the notice period for terminating a residential periodic tenancy in West Virginia — but only where the lease has not fixed its own. The statute tiers the requirement by the length of the rental period: a tenancy from year to year takes at least three months notice before the end of any year; a periodic tenancy in which the period is less than one year takes notice for one full period before the end of any period. For the common month-to-month tenancy that means a full rental month — in practice about 30 days — and the notice must be timed so that it expires at the end of a rental period rather than counting off a rolling 30 days from the delivery date.

The clock starts at delivery. The notice period runs from the date the tenant has actual or presumed notice — typically the date of personal delivery, or the date the tenant signs for a certified-mail copy. The notice must specify a termination date that falls at or after the end of the required period, and for a periodic tenancy that date should be the last day of a rental period. A notice that calculates the date wrong (for example, counting from the date of preparation rather than the date of service) is defective and unenforceable.

The period of the tenancy controls — not how long the tenant has lived there. § 37-6-5 has no occupancy-length tier at all. What the statute asks is what the rental period is: if rent is reserved and paid monthly, the tenancy is month to month and one full month’s notice ending at a period boundary is the requirement; if weekly, one full week; if the tenancy is from year to year, three months before the end of the year. A tenant of eleven years in a month-to-month tenancy and a tenant of eleven months in the same arrangement get the same notice. Landlords go wrong here in both directions — giving a long-term tenant a longer period the statute never required, and giving a year-to-year tenant a single month when the statute demands three.

Fixed-term leases — non-renewal vs. termination. A fixed-term lease typically expires by its own terms on the last day of the term. If the lease itself requires the landlord to give advance notice of non-renewal, failing to give that notice may convert the tenancy to month-to-month on the same terms. Check the lease before assuming the fixed term simply expires.

The lease controls — § 37-6-5 is a default rule that yields to it. The section ends by providing that it does not apply where, by special agreement, some other period of notice is fixed, or no notice is to be given. That makes the lease’s own termination clause the first thing to check, not the last. A West Virginia lease may lawfully fix a longer notice period, a shorter one, or dispense with notice altogether, and where it does, the agreed period governs and § 37-6-5 simply drops out. The statutory tiers supply the period only where the lease is silent. (This is the opposite of the rule in many states, and it is a common source of error for landlords working from out-of-state templates.)

A longer lease period is equally enforceable. A lease that requires the landlord to give 90 days notice of non-renewal is enforceable — the landlord must give the longer period the lease specifies. Longer-notice lease provisions are common in larger rental developments and corporate-owned properties. Whichever direction the lease departs in, the practical rule is the same: read the termination clause, follow it, and use § 37-6-5 only to fill a gap.

Authorized delivery methods

The service rule for a non-renewal notice comes from W. Va. Code § 37-6-5 itself, and it is a single sentence: when the notice is to the tenant, it may be served upon him or upon anyone holding under him the leased premises, or any part thereof. That is the whole of it. West Virginia prescribes no ladder, no priority order, no posting requirement and no mailing supplement for this notice, and it imposes no proof-of-service formality. What actually decides a contested case, therefore, is not which box the landlord ticked but whether delivery can be proved. Choose the method that leaves the best record, and keep that record.

Personal delivery is the cleanest and most defensible. Whenever practical, deliver the notice personally to the tenant. Document the date, time, and circumstances of delivery — ideally with a witness or photo, and best of all with the tenant’s signature on a duplicate copy. Personal delivery starts the notice clock immediately, eliminating any dispute about when the period began.

Certified mail with return receipt is the strong second choice. Because § 37-6-5 prescribes no method, mailing is not disqualified — the objection to plain first-class mail is evidentiary, not statutory: it proves nothing about receipt. Certified mail, return receipt requested, cures exactly that problem, and it is the method the Legislature itself accepted in § 55-3A-1(c) for serving the notice of the eviction hearing. Send it to the rental address, and to any forwarding address the tenant has given, and file the receipt with the notice. Where the tenant refuses the certified envelope, the tracking record of the attempted delivery is itself useful evidence — pair it with a first-class copy and, if you wish, a posted copy.

Posting is a supplement, never the statutory step. West Virginia does not require a landlord to post a termination notice, and posting on its own is a thin record. Its value is corroborative: if the tenant later claims never to have received anything, a dated photograph of a notice on the unit door alongside a certified-mail receipt is a much harder story to contradict. Post it where the tenant would reasonably discover it — the front door of the unit is standard — and never in a way that discloses the tenancy dispute to neighbours.

Document delivery rigorously. Whatever method is used, the landlord should document the date, time, method, and circumstances of delivery. The landlord’s defense in any later challenge to the notice — including in an unlawful detainer or eviction proceeding — depends almost entirely on this documentation. Keep delivery documentation in the property file for the duration of the tenancy plus the applicable statute of limitations.

Required information for the notice

W. Va. Code § 37-6-5 does not specify a precise content requirement for non-renewal notices, but settled West Virginia practice and case law establish a minimum set of elements the notice must contain.

Termination date must be calculated correctly. The date stated in the notice as the termination date must be at least the statutory required number of days after the date of delivery. A notice that says “tenancy terminates X days from the date of this notice” without identifying a specific calendar date creates ambiguity and is on weaker enforcement ground. Pick a specific calendar date and verify the math.

The landlord’s identity must be unambiguous. If a property-management company is serving the notice on behalf of an owner, the notice should make that relationship clear. A notice signed in an ambiguous capacity invites disputes about authority.

Documentation supports the notice. Beyond the notice itself, the landlord should retain a copy of the lease (showing the tenancy duration and terms), a record of delivery (proof of service), and any communications with the tenant about the non-renewal. These documents become evidence if the tenant disputes the notice.

Common mistakes that void the notice

Calculating the notice period from the wrong date

The notice period runs from the date of delivery, not from the date the notice was prepared, signed, or dated. A notice signed on March 1, served on March 15, with a termination date that does not account for the service date as the start of the clock is defective. The miscalculation is one of the most common reasons notices fail in unlawful detainer or eviction proceedings.

Not aligning the notice with the end of a rental period

This is the West Virginia mistake that catches the most landlords. § 37-6-5 does not give a periodic tenant a rolling number of days; it requires notice for one full period before the end of any period. A notice served on 12 March for a month-to-month tenancy whose rental periods run from the first of the month does not validly terminate on 11 April — it terminates at the end of April, because the first full rental period after service is April. Landlords who count 30 days forward from the service date and stop there routinely name a termination date that falls mid-period, and the notice fails.

Treating a year-to-year tenancy as if a month’s notice were enough

The tiering in § 37-6-5 is by the length of the rental period, and a tenancy from year to year requires three months notice before the end of the year — not thirty days. Farm leases, ground leases, and residential arrangements where rent is reserved annually all fall here, as do tenancies that have rolled over annually by conduct. A one-month notice on a year-to-year tenancy is void, and the landlord loses a full year. Conversely, how long the tenant has cumulatively occupied the unit is irrelevant in West Virginia: there is no occupancy-length tier in the statute, so a fifteen-year month-to-month tenant gets exactly the same notice as a six-month one.

Serving in a way you cannot later prove

§ 37-6-5 does not tell the landlord how to deliver the notice — only that it be served on the tenant, or on someone holding under the tenant. That freedom is a trap, because the burden of proving service still sits with the landlord. Ordinary first-class mail with nothing else in the file is the classic example: perfectly lawful, and worth very little if the tenant testifies that nothing arrived. Use personal delivery with a signed acknowledgment, or certified mail with return receipt requested, and keep the proof with the notice.

Relying on email or text as the whole record

§ 37-6-5 calls for written notice served on the tenant. A landlord who sends only an email or a text has to prove the tenant received and read it, which is a fight worth avoiding — and if the lease is silent on electronic notice, the tenant will argue the notice was never served at all. Send electronic copies as a courtesy if you like, but let personal delivery or certified mail carry the service.

Issuing a non-renewal during a protected period

West Virginia does not have a state-statutory anti-retaliation framework, but federal law and common-law principles still apply. Avoid issuing a non-renewal that follows tenant fair-housing or habitability assertions without a documented legitimate reason. Issuing a non-renewal within the protected period without a documented legitimate reason invites a retaliation claim and shifts the burden of proof to the landlord.

Targeting a tenant in a protected class

Even where the technical notice-period requirements are met, a non-renewal that targets a tenant based on race, religion, national origin, familial status (including pregnancy or having children), disability, source of income, or other protected characteristics under federal and West Virginia fair housing law is illegal. Disparate-impact analysis can also reach facially neutral patterns. A pattern of non-renewals concentrated in one demographic exposes the landlord to fair housing claims.

Failing to identify all tenants on the notice

Every adult tenant named on the lease should be named on the non-renewal notice. A notice that omits one of the named tenants is on weaker ground and may not support an eviction action against the omitted tenant. Some courts also require service on each named tenant individually.

Wrong termination date for the rental period

For periodic tenancies, the termination date should fall at the end of a rental period, not in the middle. A notice that terminates the tenancy mid-month for a month-to-month tenancy may not support an eviction until the end of the next rental period. West Virginia courts vary on how strictly this is enforced, but the safer practice is to align termination with the end of a rental period.

Not retaining a copy of the notice and proof of service

The notice and proof of service are the landlord’s primary evidence in any later eviction proceeding. Failing to retain copies leaves the landlord without the foundation to prove proper notice was given. Maintain the notice, proof of service, and any related communications in the property file.

Tenant remedies for defective notice

A West Virginia tenant who receives a defective non-renewal notice — wrong period, improper service, missing required information, or retaliatory or discriminatory motive — has multiple potential remedies. Understanding these helps landlords appreciate why getting the notice right matters.

Affirmative defense in eviction proceedings

The most common scenario: the landlord serves a defective notice, the tenant does not vacate by the termination date, the landlord files an eviction action, and the tenant raises the defective notice as an affirmative defense. If the defense succeeds, the action is dismissed and the landlord must serve a corrected notice and start over. The tenant typically remains in possession during the do-over and may be entitled to attorney’s fees if the lease has a fees clause.

Anti-retaliation damages

West Virginia does not have a state-statutory retaliation cause of action specific to landlord-tenant. However, federal Fair Housing Act protections (42 U.S.C. § 3617) provide remedies for retaliation tied to fair-housing rights. State common-law contract and tort theories may also support claims based on landlord misconduct that includes retaliatory non-renewal.

Fair housing claims — federal FHA and West Virginia fair housing law

A non-renewal that targets a tenant based on a protected class violates state and federal fair housing law independent of any notice-period issue. Remedies include actual damages, statutory penalties, attorney’s fees, and injunctive relief. HUD accepts complaints; private actions are also available.

Constructive eviction and quiet-enjoyment claims

A non-renewal that is part of a pattern of harassment — repeated baseless notices, threats, illegal entry, utility shutoffs — supports a constructive-eviction claim and a breach of the implied covenant of quiet enjoyment. These claims provide damages independent of the notice itself and can be raised in any eviction action or in a separate civil action.

Bottom line for landlords: the cost of getting a non-renewal notice right is small; the cost of getting it wrong can be substantial. A defective notice typically delays recovery of possession by several months (during the redo plus any eviction proceeding), exposes the landlord to attorney’s fees, and may trigger fair-housing or retaliation claims if the defects suggest bad faith. The form on this page handles the mechanics; the analysis above is the legal context.

West Virginia statute reference table

West Virginia statute citations are to the official code as referenced. Local ordinances may layer additional requirements on top of state law and should be consulted independently.

Frequently asked questions

Published by Tenant Screening Background Check

Established 2004 · 20+ Years · All U.S. States & Territories · Statute-Based · Attorney-Reviewed

A Private Eye Reports™ service trusted by landlords, property managers, and attorneys.

This form and the accompanying guidance are provided for general informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. West Virginia landlord-tenant law has technical requirements that can change with legislation and case law. W. Va. Code § 37-6-5 and related provisions vary in interpretation by jurisdiction and over time. Specific situations — long-term tenancies, fixed-term leases with renewal-notice clauses, retaliation and fair-housing defenses, local ordinance overlays — depend on facts that this general guidance cannot fully address. Always verify current requirements with the West Virginia statute book, applicable local ordinances, or a qualified West Virginia landlord-tenant attorney before relying on this notice in any contested or sensitive situation. Review WV eviction notice laws.