Landlord Atlas

What does Virginia law require a landlord to repair?

Verified August 29, 2026 All Virginia topics →

Virginia requires a landlord to make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition, to comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety, and to keep the electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating and air-conditioning systems and appliances it supplies in good and safe working order — with the code requirement governing wherever it is the greater duty.

Cited to Va. Code § 55.1-1220 (landlord to maintain fit premises) (A), (B), (C), (D) and 12 more cited sources · Verified August 29, 2026

The tenant has four routes when the landlord does not. Serve a 21-day cure notice terminating the lease no sooner than 30 days after receipt. Give written notice and, if the landlord takes no reasonable steps within 14 days, hire a licensed third-party contractor — or a licensed pesticide business for rodents — and deduct the actual invoiced cost up to the greater of one month's rent or $1,500. File a tenant's assertion in the general district court and pay the rent into court within five days of each due date, for a hearing within 15 calendar days and orders that can abate rent, direct repairs, or release escrow to the tenant if the condition is unfixed after six months. Or wait and raise the condition as a defense to the landlord's nonpayment case, which since July 1, 2026 no longer requires paying anything into court first. Failures of heat, running water, hot water, electricity, gas — and, since July 1, 2026, central air conditioning the landlord supplied — are treated as essential services, with damages measured by the loss in fair rental value or substitute housing at the landlord's cost, plus attorney fees. Retaliation is prohibited but Virginia gives no presumption and no time window, and the tenant carries the burden of proving retaliatory intent.

Virginia habitability & repairs at a glance

Where the duty comes from Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it
Duty source details The duty comes from the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, Va. Code § 55.1-1220, which applies to occupancy in all single-family and multifamily dwelling units in the Commonwealth. Virginia's Supreme Court has never recognized an independent common-law implied warranty of habitability for residential leases; its decisions on the subject run the other way. In Steward v. Holland Family Properties, LLC (2012), applying Isbell v. Commercial Investment Associates, Inc. (2007), the court held that the Act imposes contractual duties on landlords and did not abrogate the common-law rule that a landlord is not liable in tort for failing to repair premises under the tenant's control. The habitability duty is a statutory contract duty, and no case supplies an operative rule the statute does not.
Who is covered Statewide — no coverage split
Where the repair standards live More than one source does real work — the details on this page say which
What must be kept in repair The statute lists what the landlord must do and then subordinates its own list to the building and housing codes. The landlord must comply with the requirements of 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 common areas shared by two or more dwelling units of a multifamily premises clean and structurally safe; maintain in good and safe working order all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and other facilities and appliances, including elevators, that the landlord supplies or is required to supply; maintain the premises so as to prevent the accumulation of moisture and the growth of mold, and promptly respond to a tenant's notice, with a duty to remediate promptly where there is visible evidence of mold and then reinspect to confirm it is gone; provide and maintain 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 built 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, no more than once every 12 months, that all smoke alarms are present, inspected and in good working order. The code limb governs where it is stronger: the statute says in terms that if the duty imposed by the building-and-housing-code requirement is greater than any other duty in the list, the landlord's duty is determined by reference to the code. Liability is separately bounded — the landlord is liable only for the tenant's actual damages proximately caused by a failure to exercise ordinary care.
Heat standard type A duty to supply heat or maintain temperatures while the unit is occupied
Heat standard details Virginia states no indoor temperature figure and no dated heating season. The duty is to supply heat in season, alongside running water and reasonable amounts of hot water at all times and reasonable air conditioning where the landlord provides it. It does not apply where the dwelling unit is so constructed that heat, air conditioning or hot water is generated by an installation within the tenant's exclusive control or is supplied by a direct public utility connection, and the water, hot water, heat and air-conditioning duty is one of the three the parties may shift to the tenant by written agreement. Any actual temperature standard comes from the applicable building or housing code, which governs where its requirements are greater.
Headline repair day count 21 days
Notice and repair-window rules The headline pair is 21 and 30, and only the first is a cure period. On a material noncompliance by the landlord, or a noncompliance with the chapter materially affecting health and safety, the tenant serves written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the rental agreement will terminate on a date not less than 30 days after receipt if the breach is not remedied in 21 days; the 30 is a floor measured from receipt, not a fixed date, and if the landlord adequately remedies a remediable breach before the date in the notice, the agreement does not terminate. Where the breach is not remediable, or where the landlord intentionally repeats a breach of a like nature after having remedied one, the tenant serves notice terminating not less than 30 days after receipt with no cure opportunity. Other tracks run on their own clocks: the repair remedy gives the landlord 14 days from written notice to take reasonable steps to repair or remedy the condition; the escrow action and the defense to a nonpayment eviction leave the reasonable period to the court's discretion but carry a rebuttable presumption that more than 30 days from receipt of the notification is unreasonable; and the essential-service remedy states no number at all, only a reasonable time to correct. Notice means notice in writing, by regular mail or hand delivery, with the sender keeping sufficient proof in the form of a certificate of service; separately, a person is deemed to have notice of a fact where they have actual knowledge of it, have had verbal notice of it, or have reason to know it exists from the circumstances.
Repair and deduct Yes — authorized by statute — Limit: The tenant recovers the actual costs incurred for the work performed, not exceeding the greater of one month's rent or $1,500. Actual costs means the amount paid on an invoice to a third-party licensed contractor or licensed pesticide business by the tenant, a local government or a nonprofit entity, or the amount a contractor or pesticide business donated as reflected on its invoice — so a tenant's own labor is not a recoverable cost. — The remedy reaches a condition that is a material noncompliance by the landlord with the rental agreement or with provisions of law, or that if not promptly corrected will be a fire hazard or serious threat to the life, health or safety of occupants, including an infestation of rodents or a lack of heat, hot or cold running water, light, electricity or adequate sewage disposal. The tenant notifies the landlord of the condition in writing, and the landlord then has 14 days to take reasonable steps to repair or remedy it. 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, certified and registered with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services — and, unless already reimbursed, deduct the actual costs from rent after giving the landlord an itemized statement accompanied by receipts for purchased items and contractor or pest control services. A local government or nonprofit entity may procure the work on the tenant's behalf without affecting the tenant's right to reimbursement or deduction. The remedy is unavailable where the condition was caused by an act or omission of the tenant, an authorized occupant or a guest or invitee, where the landlord was denied access to the unit and so could not remedy it, or where the landlord had already remedied the condition before the tenant contracted for the work.
Rent withholding or escrow Yes — at least one lawful path exists — How: a court or agency escrow program; withholding raised as a defense once the landlord sues — Two routes, and since July 1, 2026 they carry different price tags. The affirmative route is the tenant's assertion: the tenant files a declaration in the general district court for the locality asserting a condition that is a material noncompliance, or that if not promptly corrected will be a fire hazard or serious threat to life, health or safety — the statute names lack of heat or hot or cold running water, lack of light, electricity or adequate sewage disposal, rodent infestation, and lead-pigment paint the landlord knows about. Before any relief the tenant must show that the landlord refused, or having had 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 more than 30 days from receipt is unreasonable, and must have paid the rent called for by the rental agreement into court within five days of each due date unless the court modifies the amount. The initial hearing is held within 15 calendar days of service on the landlord, sooner where emergency conditions such as failure of heat in winter are alleged. A tenant who proceeds this way may not proceed under any other section of the article as to that breach. The defensive route is the answer to the landlord's own suit: in an action for possession based on nonpayment, or an action for rent while the tenant is in possession, the tenant may assert the condition as a defense on the same notice-and-reasonable-time showing — and the requirement that the tenant first pay rent found due into court was deleted from that section effective July 1, 2026, so the defense now costs nothing to raise. Separately, where the tenant asks a court to continue the landlord's unlawful detainer or set it for contested trial, the court must on the landlord's request order the rent then due paid into the court escrow account first — but not where the court finds the tenant has asserted a good faith defense.
Termination over habitability failures Yes — a statute states the right — Three statutory exits. The general one runs on the 21-and-30 notice: the tenant serves written notice specifying the breach and stating that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than 30 days after receipt if the breach is not remedied in 21 days, with no cure opportunity where the breach is not remediable or is an intentional repeat of a like breach the landlord had already remedied once; a tenant who terminates this way is entitled to reasonable attorney fees unless the landlord proves by a preponderance of the evidence that its actions were reasonable, and the security deposit is returned under the deposit rules. The second covers a unit that is uninhabitable when the tenancy starts: where a condition at the beginning of the tenancy is a fire hazard or serious threat to life, health or safety, including rodent infestation or a lack of heat, hot or cold running water, electricity or adequate sewage disposal, the tenant may terminate and receive a full refund of all deposits and rent paid, provided written notice of intent to terminate is given within seven days of the date possession was to transfer; the landlord refunds by the fifteenth business day after the notice is delivered or the tenant vacates, whichever is later, unless the landlord serves a written refusal with reasons within 15 business days, which the tenant may contest in court with fees to the prevailing party. The third is fire or casualty: where damage substantially impairs the tenant's enjoyment of the unit or repairs can only be done with the unit vacant, either party may terminate — the tenant by vacating and serving written notice within 14 days after, the landlord by giving 14 days' notice on a determination that the damage requires the tenant's removal and use is substantially impaired — with deposits and prepaid rent plus accrued interest returned and rent prorated as of the date of the casualty. A court may also terminate the agreement at the tenant's request in the escrow action or on the habitability defense.
Essential-service remedies Yes — distinct statutory remedies for essential-service failures — Essential services have their own section and, since July 1, 2026, a wider definition. Where the landlord willfully or negligently fails to supply an essential service contrary to the rental agreement or the chapter, the tenant serves written notice specifying the breach and, after allowing the landlord a reasonable time to correct it, may recover damages based on the diminution in the fair rental value of the dwelling unit, or procure reasonable substitute housing for the period of the noncompliance, in which case the tenant is excused from paying rent for that period as determined by the court. A tenant who proceeds this way is entitled to recover reasonable attorney fees, and may not also proceed under the general termination section as to that breach; the rights do not arise until written notice is given, and none arise where the condition was caused by a deliberate or negligent act or omission of the tenant, an authorized occupant or a guest or invitee. Essential service is defined chapter-wide and the list is inclusive rather than closed: 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. Air conditioning was added to that definition effective July 1, 2026, which routes an air-conditioning failure in a qualifying tenancy into this section's remedies. The section states no day count — only a reasonable time — and one should not be read into it.
Retaliation protection Protected by a general retaliation statute — Virginia's protection keys on the landlord's knowledge rather than on any period of time: there is no presumption of retaliation and no protected window of days after the tenant acts. A landlord may not retaliate by increasing rent, decreasing services, bringing or threatening to bring an action for possession, or causing a termination of the rental agreement, once the landlord has knowledge of a protected act. If the landlord does, the tenant is entitled to the chapter's applicable remedies, including recovery of actual damages, and may assert the retaliation as a defense in any action for possession — but the burden of proving retaliatory intent is expressly on the tenant. Four grounds take the landlord outside the section and let it terminate and sue for possession anyway: the code violation the tenant complained of was caused primarily by the tenant's, an authorized occupant's, or a guest's lack of reasonable care; the tenant is in default in rent; code compliance requires alteration, remodeling or demolition that would effectively deprive the tenant of use of the unit; or the tenant is in default of a lease provision materially affecting the health and safety of themselves or others. The section also does not prevent the landlord from raising rent to what similar market rentals charge or from decreasing services that apply equally to all tenants, and the landlord may terminate for any other reason not prohibited by law unless the court finds the reason was retaliation. — Four acts are protected in the current text: complaining to a governmental agency charged with enforcing a building or housing code about a violation applicable to the premises materially affecting health or safety; making a complaint to, or filing an action against, the landlord for a violation of any provision of the chapter; organizing or becoming a member of a tenant's organization; and testifying in a court proceeding against the landlord.
Damages, penalties, and defenses Damages are capped by a care standard rather than by a dollar figure: the landlord performs the statutory duties in accordance with law but is liable only for the tenant's actual damages proximately caused by a failure to exercise ordinary care. Beyond damages, the tenant may obtain injunctive relief for the landlord's noncompliance, and any person adversely affected by an act or omission the chapter prohibits may sue for injunction and damages in the circuit court where it occurred. Since July 1, 2026 the locality may sue too, on behalf of a tenant or occupant injured by a material noncompliance that is a fire hazard or serious threat to life, health or safety, after notifying the landlord or managing agent and giving a reasonable time to remedy. Fee-shifting varies by route and is worth checking before choosing one: on the termination track the tenant is entitled to reasonable attorney fees unless the landlord proves by a preponderance of the evidence that its actions were reasonable; on the essential-services track the tenant who proceeds is entitled to fees; on the escrow action and the nonpayment defense fees and costs are discretionary, and on the defense they run both ways — a tenant who raises it in bad faith, caused the violation, or unreasonably refused entry can be charged the landlord's costs, repair costs and fees. The landlord's stated answers are the same across the escrow action and the defense: the alleged conditions do not in fact exist; they have been removed or remedied; they were caused by the tenant, a guest or invitee, or a family member or that member's guest; or the tenant unreasonably refused the landlord entry to correct them. On the escrow action the burden is on the landlord to show cause why rent should not be abated once the court finds the tenant entitled to relief, and where an escrow account has run six months without the condition being fully remedied and without reasonable attempts by the landlord, the court awards the accumulated money to the tenant and starts a fresh six-month period on the same terms.
Can the duty be waived or shifted A delegation provision reaches beyond the usual single-family limits
Waiver and delegation rules The landlord and tenant may agree in writing that the tenant will perform three of the landlord's listed duties — keeping shared common areas clean and structurally safe, providing and maintaining waste receptacles and arranging removal, and supplying water, hot water, heat and air conditioning — and may also agree that the tenant will perform specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations and remodeling. The agreement holds only if it is entered into in good faith and not for the purpose of evading the landlord's obligations, and only if it does not diminish or affect the landlord's obligation to other tenants in the premises. There is no single-family or building-size limit on that shift, which makes Virginia's delegation wider than the uniform-act pattern. The chapter itself 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, its boards, commissions or other instrumentalities, or by the courts.
Leading court decisions Steward v. Holland Family Properties, LLC, 284 Va. 282, 726 S.E.2d 251 (2012) — No tort duty to repair is imposed on these landlords by the common law, by the leases, or by the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. Applying Isbell v. Commercial Investment Associates, the court held that in enacting the Act the General Assembly did not abrogate the common-law rule that a landlord is not liable in tort for failure to repair premises under a tenant's control: the statutory warranty is a contract duty, not one grounded in tort.
Local rules Virginia preempts local landlord-tenant regulation. The chapter applies in every jurisdiction in the Commonwealth, may not be waived or modified by any locality, and expressly supersedes all other local ordinances or regulations concerning landlord and tenant relations and the leasing of residential property. Two local roles survive: a locality may establish or designate a commission, reconciliatory in nature only, to mediate disputes arising under the chapter by mutual agreement of the parties, and nothing bars an ordinance designed to effect compliance with local property maintenance codes — which matter, because the landlord's duty is measured by the applicable building and housing codes wherever those are stronger. Since July 1, 2026 localities also have an enforcement role they did not have before: a locality may sue a landlord in circuit court on behalf of a tenant or occupant injured by a material noncompliance that is a fire hazard or a serious threat to life, health or safety, for injunction and damages, provided the premises are within its boundaries and it first notified the landlord or the managing agent and the landlord failed to remedy the violation to the locality's satisfaction within a reasonable time. Localities enforce the state duty; they do not write their own.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Virginia Habitability & Repair Laws (verified August 29, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/habitability/virginia/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

Common questions: Virginia habitability & repairs

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

Does Virginia have an implied warranty of habitability?
Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it. The duty comes from the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, Va. Code § 55.1-1220, which applies to occupancy in all single-family and multifamily dwelling units in the Commonwealth. Virginia's Supreme Court has never recognized an independent common-law implied warranty of habitability for residential leases; its decisions on the subject run the other way.
How long does a landlord have to make repairs in Virginia?
21 days. The headline pair is 21 and 30, and only the first is a cure period. On a material noncompliance by the landlord, or a noncompliance with the chapter materially affecting health and safety, the tenant serves written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the rental agreement will terminate on a date not less than 30 days after receipt if the breach is not remedied in 21 days; the 30 is a floor measured from receipt, not a fixed date, and if the landlord adequately remedies a remediable breach before the date in the notice, the agreement does not terminate.
Can a tenant repair and deduct in Virginia?
Yes — authorized by statute — Limit: The tenant recovers the actual costs incurred for the work performed, not exceeding the greater of one month's rent or $1,500. Actual costs means the amount paid on an invoice to a third-party licensed contractor or licensed pesticide business by the tenant, a local government or a nonprofit entity, or the amount a contractor or pesticide business donated as reflected on its invoice — so a tenant's own labor is not a recoverable cost. — The remedy reaches a condition that is a material noncompliance by the landlord with the rental agreement or with provisions of law, or that if not promptly corrected will be a fire hazard or serious threat to the life, health or safety of occupants, including an infestation of rodents or a lack of heat, hot or cold running water, light, electricity or adequate sewage disposal.
Can a tenant withhold rent for repair problems in Virginia?
Yes — at least one lawful path exists — How: a court or agency escrow program; withholding raised as a defense once the landlord sues — Two routes, and since July 1, 2026 they carry different price tags. The affirmative route is the tenant's assertion: the tenant files a declaration in the general district court for the locality asserting a condition that is a material noncompliance, or that if not promptly corrected will be a fire hazard or serious threat to life, health or safety — the statute names lack of heat or hot or cold running water, lack of light, electricity or adequate sewage disposal, rodent infestation, and lead-pigment paint the landlord knows about.
Can a landlord retaliate against a tenant who complains about repairs in Virginia?
Protected by a general retaliation statute — Virginia's protection keys on the landlord's knowledge rather than on any period of time: there is no presumption of retaliation and no protected window of days after the tenant acts. A landlord may not retaliate by increasing rent, decreasing services, bringing or threatening to bring an action for possession, or causing a termination of the rental agreement, once the landlord has knowledge of a protected act.
Can a lease make the tenant responsible for repairs in Virginia?
A delegation provision reaches beyond the usual single-family limits. The landlord and tenant may agree in writing that the tenant will perform three of the landlord's listed duties — keeping shared common areas clean and structurally safe, providing and maintaining waste receptacles and arranging removal, and supplying water, hot water, heat and air conditioning — and may also agree that the tenant will perform specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations and remodeling. The agreement holds only if it is entered into in good faith and not for the purpose of evading the landlord's obligations, and only if it does not diminish or affect the landlord's obligation to other tenants in the premises.

Citations

How this record was verified: Direct reading of the official Code of Virginia on the Virginia Law Portal — §§ 55.1-1200, 55.1-1201, 55.1-1220, 55.1-1234, 55.1-1234.1, 55.1-1239, 55.1-1240, 55.1-1241, 55.1-1242, 55.1-1244, 55.1-1244.1, 55.1-1258 and 55.1-1259 read in full in the version in force, with the trailing credit line of every section of Title 55.1, chapter 12 read to identify 2025 and 2026 amendments, and each multi-version section read in both its current and its future text as the site prints them; the chaptered texts of the 2026 acts amending this chapter (cc. 542, 543, 624, 959, 1041, 1111, 1117 and 1118), read with the General Assembly's own strike-and-insert amendment markup; and the Supreme Court of Virginia's official opinion text of Steward v. Holland Family Properties, LLC, 284 Va. 282, 726 S.E.2d 251 (2012), read in full.