How much notice must a landlord give before entering in West Virginia?

Verified July 11, 2026 All West Virginia topics →

West Virginia has no statute requiring landlords to give any advance notice before entering a rental unit — no notice period, no list of permitted reasons, and no emergency exception exists in state law, so entry rights come entirely from the lease.

The statutes that do mention entry are narrow: a landlord may enter after a tenant abandons the property owing rent, but only after posting a written notice giving the tenant one month to pay, and an officer executing a distress warrant may enter in the daytime. A tenant's rental agreement entitles them to occupy 'to the exclusion of others,' so a landlord entering without lease authority or consent risks trespass and breach of quiet enjoyment rather than violation of an entry-notice rule. Guides telling West Virginia landlords to give '24 to 48 hours' notice are stating good practice or typical lease terms, not law — write the entry terms you need into the lease.

West Virginia entry notice at a glance

Advance notice required	No fixed statutory period (see notice standard)
Notice standard	No West Virginia statute requires any advance notice before landlord entry, and none enumerates entry rights — access is governed by the lease, the tenant's statutory right to occupy 'to the exclusion of others' (37-6A-1(16)), common-law quiet enjoyment, and trespass law. Secondary guides advising '24-48 hours notice' describe custom or lease practice, not any WV legal requirement.
Permitted reasons	Not enumerated by statute; whatever the lease provides. The only statutory entry rights are situational: entry after abandonment with rent in arrears, following a posted one-month written notice to pay (37-6-6(a), with a housing-authority variant in (b)); an officer executing a distress warrant or attachment may forcibly enter in the daytime (37-6-14); and reentry/forfeiture machinery for breach (37-6-19 et seq.). None covers routine inspections, repairs, or showings.
Emergency exception	Not addressed by statute
Time-of-day restrictions	Not addressed by statute

Notes and caveats

notice_hours null: VERIFIED NEGATIVE — full official text of ch. 37 art. 6 (all 31 sections, read end-to-end 2026-07-11) contains entry language only in 37-6-6 (abandonment), 37-6-14 (officer executing distress warrant, daytime), and 37-6-19/24/26/27 (reentry/forfeiture/ejectment); 37-6-30 (habitability) and all of art. 6A and art. 15 contain no access provision. emergency_exception null: no statute creates or denies one; an emergency-entry right is an expected lease term. The 37-6-6(a) abandonment procedure is itself load-bearing for landlords: posted written notice demanding rent within ONE MONTH before possession vests, then a 30-day (60-day if tenant on active military duty) mailed-and-posted notice before disposing of left-behind personal property. Trap: the WV code site's search tool is unreliable for negative checks (a control query for text known to exist returned zero results); the sweep here used the official full-article email-view texts instead. HB 5334 (2026, 'lease termination and tenant privacy') would have legislated in this space but died in House Judiciary at sine die 2026-03-14.

Statute citations

W. Va. Code ch. 37, art. 6 (full-article text, all 31 sections — swept; contains no landlord-access or entry-notice provision) Official source
W. Va. Code § 37-6-6 (abandonment entry only) (a) Official source
W. Va. Code § 37-6-30 (habitability duties — swept; contains no entry or access language) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official WV Legislature code site (code.wvlegislature.gov): sections 37-6A-1, 37-6A-2, 37-6A-5, and 37-6-5 each read at least three times across two distinct official presentations (individual section pages fetched twice — once via rendered fetch, once via raw curl — plus the official whole-article 'email view' pages /email/37-6A/ and /email/37-6/), with all load-bearing figures matching verbatim (60-day/45-day whichever-shorter return window, 15-day contractor-itemization extension, 1.5x annoyance/inconvenience damages, one-full-period month-to-month termination notice, 6-month hold and 72-hour delivery rules). All of article 6A additionally reconciled character-for-character against the enrolled Committee Substitute for HB 3202 (2011) on wvlegislature.gov — approved by the Governor 2011-04-01, Chapter 149, Acts 2011, effective 2011-06-10 — proving the 1.5x penalty is original 2011 text with no later amendment. Verified negatives (no deposit cap, no interest, no separate account, no late-fee or grace-period statute, no entry-notice statute, no rent-increase-notice statute, no rent-control or preemption statute) run against the full official texts of ch. 37 arts. 6 (all 31 sections), 6A, and 15. Bill outcomes verified on official Bill_Status action tables: dead bills SB590 (2022), SB147 (2023, House-rejected Roll No. 638), SB165 (2024), HB4695 (2006), HB4570/HB4432/HB5155/HB5334 (2026), HB2537/HB2648/HB2828/HB2903 (2025); enacted 2025 acts HB2434 (Stop Squatters Act, Ch. 219, eff. 2025-07-10) and HB3272 (eviction hearing scheduling, Ch. 1, eff. 2025-07-11) confirmed off-topic. 2026 regular session adjourned sine die 2026-03-14 with no on-topic bill passing. Legal Aid WV pages used as corroboration only.