Virginia's 2026 General Assembly session made nine changes to the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act that matter if you rent out a single-family home. They arrive in three waves: five took effect July 1, 2026, two more start January 1, 2027, and the rest land July 1, 2027. If you own a rental in Virginia and you haven't touched your lease or your notice templates since last spring, several of them are already wrong.
This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice. Confirm anything that affects your property with your attorney or property manager.
At a glance
| Change | Bill / Code section | Effective | Lease or form update needed? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nonpayment cure period goes from 5 days to 14 days | HB 15 (Ch. 353) / SB 48 (Ch. 354), § 55.1-1245 | July 1, 2026 | Yes, notice template |
| No charging tenants for maintenance or repairs | HB 1005 (Ch. 722) / SB 313 (Ch. 723), § 55.1-1208 | July 1, 2026 | Yes, lease |
| Central AC becomes an "essential service" | HB 519 (Ch. 624), § 55.1-1200 | July 1, 2026 | No, but changes response times |
| Localities can sue you on a tenant's behalf | HB 14 (Ch. 542) / SB 290 (Ch. 543), § 55.1-1259 | July 1, 2026 | No |
| Updated state tenant-rights statement | DHCD form, § 55.1-1204 | July 1, 2026 | Yes, lease attachment |
| Tenants can file a rent-escrow claim while behind on rent | § 55.1-1244 | January 1, 2027 | No |
| Broader anti-retaliation protections | § 55.1-1258 | January 1, 2027 | No |
| Must accept check and money order, must give receipts | § 55.1-1204 | July 1, 2027 | Yes, lease |
| Screening and application-fee disclosures before you collect | § 55.1-1203 | July 1, 2027 | Yes, application |
1. The nonpayment notice is now 14 days (effective July 1, 2026)
If rent is unpaid, you serve written notice telling the tenant what they owe and that you'll terminate if they don't pay. That window used to be 5 days. As of July 1, 2026, it's 14.
The practical effect is nine extra days on every nonpayment timeline before you can file an unlawful detainer. On a $2,400 rental, that's about $720 in additional unpaid rent accruing per incident, and it stacks on top of the court backlog you were already waiting through.
There's a second trap here. A notice that says "5 days" doesn't just delay you, it can get your case dismissed and force you to start the clock over. The same 14-day rule applies to the bounced-check version of the notice.
What you need to do: Pull every pay-or-quit template you have, including the one saved in your email drafts and the one your last attorney sent you, and change 5 to 14. Do this before the next time rent is late, not during.
2. You can't charge tenants a maintenance or repair fee (effective July 1, 2026)
Virginia Code § 55.1-1208 now says that unless the tenant's own violation caused the problem, you cannot require a tenant to pay any fee for the maintenance or repair of the unit.
This used to apply only to public housing authorities. It now applies to every landlord in the Commonwealth. If your lease carries a flat "maintenance fee," a "repair coordination fee," a per-work-order charge, or anything that bills routine upkeep back to the tenant, that clause is unenforceable as of July 1.
Damage the tenant caused is still chargeable. A tenant who cracks a countertop or lets a toilet overflow through neglect has violated the Act, and you can bill for that. Replacing a failed water heater is upkeep, and it's on you.
What you need to do: Read your lease and strike any fee that attaches to normal maintenance. If you've collected one since July 1, refund it. A prohibited provision is unenforceable, and if you try to enforce it the tenant can recover actual damages plus attorney fees.
3. Central air conditioning is now an "essential service" (effective July 1, 2026)
The definition in § 55.1-1200 now reads: 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.
That puts a broken AC in the same legal category as a broken furnace. When an essential service goes out, the tenant can sue in General District Court and get a hearing within five calendar days, and the court can order you to restore service and award damages and attorney fees.
This applies to central air you supply that was working, or that you said was working, when the lease started. Window units the tenant owns don't count. If the house never had central air and the lease doesn't claim it does, nothing changes.
What you need to do: Have an HVAC contractor you can reach in summer, and respond in days rather than weeks. Also check your listing copy, because advertising central air on a house where it barely works is now a much more expensive kind of optimistic.
4. Your city or county can sue you on a tenant's behalf (effective July 1, 2026)
Under the amended § 55.1-1259, a locality can bring an action for injunction and damages against you, on behalf of a tenant, when a condition in the unit is a fire hazard or a serious threat to life, health, or safety. The statute names rodent infestation and the loss of heat, running water, electricity, or adequate sewage disposal as examples.
Two conditions protect you. The property has to be inside that locality's boundaries, and the locality has to notify you or your managing agent of the violation and give you a reasonable time to fix it before filing.
This change means a letter from a county code office is no longer just a code matter you can let sit. It's now the first step in a lawsuit where a local government, with a local government's resources, is the plaintiff.
What you need to do: Make sure code enforcement correspondence reaches a human who will act on it. If your rental is registered to an old address or a mailbox you check quarterly, fix that now. When a notice arrives, document what you did and when.
5. The state tenant-rights statement was reissued (effective July 1, 2026)
Section 55.1-1204 requires you to give tenants the Statement of Tenant Rights and Responsibilities that DHCD publishes, and to have them acknowledge receipt. DHCD reissued that statement on July 1, 2026 to reflect this year's changes.
The form is version-dated, and the acknowledgment page says the statement is current as of the date signed. Attaching last year's PDF to a new lease means you've delivered a document that misstates the law you're operating under.
What you need to do: Download the current version from the DHCD landlord-tenant resources page and replace whatever is sitting in your lease packet. Check it again each July, because DHCD updates it after each session.
6. Tenants can file a rent-escrow claim while behind on rent (effective January 1, 2027)
A Tenant's Assertion is how a tenant asks the court to intervene over conditions you haven't fixed. Today a tenant has to be current on rent to file one. Starting January 1, 2027, they don't.
Rent that comes due still gets paid into court escrow. What changes is that falling behind no longer blocks the courthouse door, so a habitability dispute and a nonpayment case can now run at the same time.
What you need to do: Nothing to your lease. Close out repair requests in writing and keep the paper trail. Under the old rule, a tenant behind on rent had no realistic way to raise conditions. After January 1, 2027, unresolved repair tickets can show up as a defense in your own eviction case.
7. Anti-retaliation protections get broader (effective January 1, 2027)
Section 55.1-1258 expands on January 1, 2027 to cover more tenant activity, including Fair Housing complaints, participation in tenant organizations, and certain communications with the media. It also widens what counts as retaliation.
The law still protects legitimate business decisions. You can act on an actual default, a prior notice, or a lease term. What gets harder is timing: raising rent or declining renewal shortly after a tenant complains will draw scrutiny it wouldn't have drawn before.
What you need to do: Document the business reason for rent increases and nonrenewals when you make the decision, not after a tenant challenges it. A rent increase you applied across your properties on a schedule is defensible. One that lands three weeks after a complaint is not.
8. Payment methods, receipts, and processing fees (effective July 1, 2027)
Starting July 1, 2027, you have to accept rent and security deposit payments by check and money order. You have to give a written receipt whenever a tenant pays in cash or by money order. And you can't charge a fee to collect or process a payment unless you also offer a payment method that carries no added fee.
If you run rent collection through a portal that charges tenants a convenience fee and accepts nothing else, that setup stops working in July 2027.
What you need to do: You have time, so use it. Confirm your portal supports a fee-free option and can record check and money-order payments. If you self-manage and collect by app only, plan for a mailing address or drop-off method.
9. Application and screening disclosures come before the fee (effective July 1, 2027)
Also on July 1, 2027, § 55.1-1203 requires you to give prospective tenants disclosures about application fees, your screening criteria, the consumer reports you'll pull, and what will disqualify an applicant, before you collect an application or any payment.
The sequencing is the point. Today most owners publish criteria after an applicant asks, if at all. Starting July 1, 2027, the disclosure has to come first.
What you need to do: Write down your screening criteria in a form you'd be comfortable handing to every applicant: income multiple, credit floor, criminal and eviction history standards, and what the $50 application fee covers. You'll need it in 2027, and writing it down now is good fair housing practice regardless.
The bottom line
Five of these are already binding. If you do one thing this week, change your pay-or-quit template from 5 days to 14, because using the old one can cost you the case. Then read your lease for maintenance or repair fees and strike them, and swap the DHCD tenant-rights statement in your lease packet for the July 2026 version. Those three are lease-and-form work you can finish in an afternoon.
The AC change and the locality enforcement change don't require new paperwork. They change how fast you have to respond when something breaks or when a code notice arrives.
The 2027 items can wait, with one exception. If you're signing leases now that run past July 1, 2027, the payment-method and receipt rules will apply mid-term, so it's easier to write them in today than to amend later.
If Doorstead manages your property
We handle this for you. Our notice templates, lease documents, and required state disclosures update when the law does, so the 14-day notice and the July 2026 DHCD statement were already in place on July 1. Maintenance requests route to vendors on a clock that treats an AC failure like the essential-service issue it now is, and code correspondence reaches someone who acts on it.
Sources
- § 55.1-1245, Noncompliance with rental agreement (14-day notice), 2026, cc. 353 (HB 15), 354 (SB 48)
- § 55.1-1208, Prohibited provisions in rental agreements, 2026, cc. 722 (HB 1005), 723 (SB 313)
- § 55.1-1200, Definitions ("essential service"), 2026, c. 624 (HB 519)
- § 55.1-1259, Actions to enforce chapter, 2026, cc. 542 (HB 14), 543 (SB 290)
- Virginia Statement of Tenant Rights and Responsibilities, updated July 1, 2026 (DHCD)
- § 55.1-1244, Tenant's assertion; rent escrow (effective January 1, 2027)
- § 55.1-1258, Retaliatory conduct prohibited (effective January 1, 2027)
- § 55.1-1204, Terms and conditions of rental agreement (effective July 1, 2027)
- § 55.1-1203, Application; notice, deposit, fee (effective July 1, 2027)