What must a Virginia landlord disclose to a tenant, and what must the lease say?

No statute requires a residential lease to be in writing beyond the statute of frauds, so an oral tenancy is lawful. The landlord must give the tenant a copy of the signed lease within 10 business days.

A Virginia landlord must OFFER a written rental agreement, but a lease need not be written: if no written agreement is offered, a tenancy exists by operation of law on seven terms the statute sets out — the chapter applies to the unit; the term is 12 months with no automatic renewal; rent is paid in 12 equal installments in the amount agreed, or at fair market rent if none is agreed; rent is due on the first and late after the fifth; a late charge may be made as the chapter allows; the deposit may not exceed two months of rent; and the parties may still sign a written agreement at any time in the 12 months. A written agreement takes effect on the date the parties sign. Where a landlord accepts rent, or a tenant accepts possession or pays rent, without reservation, an unsigned or undelivered agreement has the same effect as one signed and delivered, but if it provides for a term longer than a year it is effective for only one year. The landlord must give the tenant a copy of the signed agreement and the state's statement of tenant rights and responsibilities within 10 business days of the effective date; failure does not affect the agreement's validity, but the landlord may not file or maintain any action, including a summons for unlawful detainer, for an alleged lease violation until the statement has been provided. Once a year, on request, the tenant is entitled to another hard copy of the agreement free of charge, or the landlord may keep it in an electronic form that can be easily reached or shared with the tenant. No unilateral change to the terms is valid unless notice is given as the agreement or the law requires and both parties consent to the change in writing.

Statute of frauds: No action may be brought upon a contract for the lease of real estate for more than a year unless the promise or contract, or some memorandum or note of it, is in writing and signed by the party to be charged or that party's agent (section 11-2, subdivision 6).

Format and plain-language rules: Virginia has no plain-language statute binding the lease and no general type-size rule for it. One placement rule applies: the itemization of charges must appear beginning on the first page of the written rental agreement, with the prescribed sentence immediately above it (section 55.1-1204.1); the section sets no type size. The 14-point type rule applies to the state's own statement of tenant rights and responsibilities rather than to the lease (section 36-139, subdivision 26).

Language: No statute requires the lease itself to be translated. The Department of Housing and Community Development must translate all forms and documents it is required by law to create and posts for landlords and tenants into the five non-English languages most commonly spoken in Virginia according to the most recent American Community Survey data, and must check the accuracy of any volunteer translations before posting them (section 36-139.02); the statement of tenant rights and responsibilities is currently posted in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Tagalog beside English. Separately, if a tenant asks for the renter's-insurance notice to be translated, the landlord may help find a translator or point to an electronic translation service without being treated as in breach or liable for the translation, and may not charge a fee for that help (section 55.1-1206).

Electronic leases and signatures: Landlord and tenant may send notices electronically only if the rental agreement provides for it, and any tenant who asks may elect to send and receive notices on paper; where electronic delivery is used the sender must keep proof of it, such as an electronic delivery receipt, a facsimile confirmation or a certificate of service (section 55.1-1202). Nothing in the chapter precludes an electronic signature as defined in section 59.1-480, or an electronic notarization, in any written notice under the chapter or in legal process.

Yes — a statute requires the landlord to disclose the owner's or managing agent's identity to the tenant, in a separate writing.

For the purpose of service of process and of receiving and issuing receipts for notices and demands, the landlord, or anyone authorized to enter a rental agreement for the landlord, must disclose to the tenant 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 or other person authorized to act for the owner (section 55.1-1216). The duty sits in a section whose heading is about the sale of the premises, which is why it is often missed. No telephone number is required for that disclosure, the statute does not require it to be in the lease and offers no posting alternative. The information must be kept current and binds any successor landlord or owner, and a person who fails to comply becomes an agent of each person who is a landlord for service of process and for receiving and issuing receipts for notices and demands. On a sale the landlord must tell the tenant about it and disclose the purchaser's name, address and a telephone number at which the purchaser can be reached — a phone number is required there. A nonresident property owner carries a second duty: the owner must appoint and continuously maintain an agent who is either a Virginia resident or an entity authorized to do business here and keeping a business office in Virginia, and every lease made by or for the nonresident owner must specifically designate that agent and the agent's office address for service of any process, notice, order or demand (section 55.1-1211). The agent's name and office address go on a State Corporation Commission form filed with the clerk of the Commission, with a $10 filing fee since July 1, 2022. If no designation is filed, the Secretary of the Commonwealth becomes the owner's agent for service and forwards process by registered or certified mail to the address on the locality's tax records, and the nonresident owner may not maintain any action in Virginia's courts about the property until the designation is filed. Virginia has no general landlord or rental registration statute.

Threshold: The identity disclosure binds every landlord within the chapter. The resident-agent duty binds only a nonresident property owner, meaning a nonresident individual or group of individuals who owns and leases residential real property.

Yes — Virginia requires both a state document and prescribed lease text. The document is the Department of Housing and Community Development's statement of tenant rights and responsibilities, which must be offered with the written agreement, signed for on the department's own acknowledgment form, and delivered within 10 business days. The lease text is the first-page itemization of charges and the fixed sentence above it. Virginia has no roster of subjects every lease must address, and no required domestic-violence or military-rights statement in the lease: the military early-termination and family-abuse sections create termination rights and impose no lease-text duty. The department also publishes a landlord certification form for the annual smoke-alarm certificate; because the statute requires only a certificate and not that form, it is described with the smoke-alarm duty in the hazard table rather than counted here.

Required items:

Virginia Statement of Tenant Rights and Responsibilities under the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act as of July 1, 2026 — a state-prescribed document to be handed over or attached; issued by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. A landlord must offer every prospective tenant a written rental agreement and must provide with it the statement of tenant rights and responsibilities that the Department of Housing and Community Development develops and posts on its website. The statement explains the rights and responsibilities of tenants under the chapter in plain language in at least 14-point type and gives the telephone number and website of the statewide legal aid organization. The parties to a written agreement must sign the department's printable acknowledgment form, which is page seven of the same document, confirming that the tenant received the statement; if the tenant does not sign it, the landlord records the date or dates the form was provided and the fact that the tenant did not sign. After the tenancy begins the landlord may, but need not, offer the form again. The statement handed over must be current as of the date of delivery, so a new edition changes what must be given. A copy of the statement goes to the tenant with the copy of the signed agreement within 10 business days of its effective date, and until the statement has been provided the landlord may not file or maintain any action, including a summons for unlawful detainer, for an alleged lease violation. Revision: Last Updated July 1, 2026, as printed in the footer of every page. Given before signing, at signing, within a stated period, and when the information changes, handed over. Languages: English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog. Typography: The plain-language explanation of tenants' rights and responsibilities must be in at least 14-point type (section 36-139, subdivision 26). Agency page. (§ 55.1-1204(B), (H); § 36-139(26))

First-page fee disclosure statement — words or content the lease itself must carry. Beginning on the first page of the written rental agreement the landlord must set out an itemization of all charges to the tenant that make up the security deposit, the amount of rent due per payment period for the lease period, and any additional one-time charges due before the agreement's commencement date or included in the first rental payment. Immediately above that itemized list the agreement must say, 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. The sentence is fixed by statute; the itemization beneath it is worked out for the individual unit. No type size is prescribed, only the first-page placement, and the section states no penalty. In force since July 1, 2024 and rewritten in its current form on July 1, 2025. Given at signing, attached as the first page of the lease. The statute fixes the words. Typography: Must begin on the first page of the written rental agreement, with the prescribed sentence immediately above the itemized list. No type size is set. (§ 55.1-1204.1)

Lease contents the statutes or rules address, each in the circumstance it names:

• Beginning on the first page, an itemization of the security deposit, the rent due per payment period and any one-time charges due before commencement or in the first payment, with the statute's prescribed sentence immediately above it (section 55.1-1204.1).

• For a nonresident property owner, the designation of the Virginia resident agent and the agent's office address for service of process, notices, orders and demands (section 55.1-1211).

• Where energy submetering, energy allocation, water and sewer submetering or a ratio utility billing system is used, a clear statement to that effect; the third-party administrative service charges and any local-government-fee allocation program are recoverable only as agreed in the agreement (section 55.1-1212).

• Any late charge, which may be imposed only where the written agreement provides for it (section 55.1-1204; the figures are on the late-fee page).

• Any requirement that the tenant carry renter's insurance, which binds only as specified in the rental agreement (section 55.1-1206).

• Any agreement to send notices electronically, which is effective only if the rental agreement so provides and the tenant has not elected paper (section 55.1-1202).

• Any liquidated penalty for holding over, which exists only if the agreement provides one (section 55.1-1253; the lease-termination page carries it).

Yes — the landlord must give a written condition statement, checklist or inventory, or meet the duty in another way the statute allows.

Within five days after occupancy the landlord must give the tenant a written report itemizing the damages to the unit existing at the time of occupancy, and that report is deemed correct unless the tenant objects to it in writing within five days of receiving it. The duty does not depend on a deposit having been taken and no threshold applies. The landlord may instead adopt a written policy letting the tenant prepare the report, in which case the tenant sends the landlord a copy and the report is deemed correct unless the landlord objects in writing within five days; the same policy may provide for the two to prepare the report jointly, in which case both sign and both receive a copy and the report is deemed correct at that point. Damages shown on the report do not by themselves oblige the landlord to repair them, except where the mold section or the general fit-and-habitable duty requires it. No agency prescribes a form, Virginia requires no list of the previous tenant's damage, and the section states no penalty of its own: the consequence of skipping the report is evidentiary, because without it there is no itemization of pre-existing damage deemed correct against a deposit claim.

When and who signs: Within five days after occupancy of the dwelling unit — the clock runs from occupancy, not from signing. Nobody must sign the landlord's report; both parties sign only where the landlord has adopted a written policy for a joint report.

Four in-force state hazard disclosures: visible mold in the move-in report (at move-in and within a stated period); methamphetamine (before signing and at move-in); defective drywall (before signing and at move-in); and smoke-alarm certificate (annually and on request). Also on the books: mold-remediation summary during the tenancy and insecticide and pesticide application notice — a notice fired by an event during the tenancy, not a signing disclosure; no state duty exists for lead, bed bugs, radon, or asbestos.

Every state duty and every stated absence, hazard by hazard:

Lead (state add-on to the federal rule) — no state duty. Virginia adds nothing to the federal lead-paint disclosure rule: no state form, no rental registry, no certificate of lead-safe status and no renewal re-disclosure. The word lead appears twice in the whole landlord-tenant chapter, both times inside one tenant duty that refers to the federal rule and makes the tenant's no-painting obligation depend on the landlord having given the federal disclosures. The health title's lead sections are about identifying and testing children with elevated blood-lead levels and name no landlord; the housing title's only lead section is an offense committed on the sale of a residential structure. The sales-side disclosure act reaches only sales, exchanges, installment land sale contracts and leases with an option to buy, so its lead-plumbing item does not touch an ordinary lease.

Visible mold in the move-in report — in force — a state duty, at move-in and within a stated period, in writing (a statute). As part of the written move-in report, the landlord must disclose whether there is any visible evidence of mold in areas readily accessible within the interior of the dwelling unit. The duty is not gated on the landlord's knowledge and applies to every unit. If the disclosure says there is no visible evidence of mold, that statement is deemed correct unless the tenant objects in writing within five days of receiving the report. If it says there is visible evidence of mold, the tenant may walk away from the tenancy without taking possession, or may insist on remediation within five business days followed by a reinspection and a fresh report. No agency form exists and no threshold applies. Knowledge standard: Not knowledge-gated: the landlord must state whether there is any visible evidence of mold in areas readily accessible within the interior of the unit. If the duty is not met: If the report states there is visible evidence of mold, the tenant may terminate the tenancy and not take possession, or may choose to take or stay in possession. Where the tenant asks to take or stay in possession, the landlord must promptly remediate the mold and in no event later than five business days after the tenant's request or decision, then reinspect the unit to confirm there is no visible evidence of mold and prepare a new report saying so.

Mold-remediation summary during the tenancy — a notice fired by an event during the tenancy, not a signing disclosure, on request, in writing (a statute). Where mold remediation happens during the tenancy, the landlord must give the tenant a copy of a summary of the information about it, and on the tenant's request must make available the full package of information and reports that is not protected by attorney-client privilege. This fires on the event rather than at signing. Once the mold has been remediated in accordance with professional standards, the landlord is not required to disclose a past incidence of mold to later tenants. If the duty is not met: The landlord is liable only for the tenant's actual damages proximately caused by a failure to exercise ordinary care (section 55.1-1220).

Bed bugs — no state duty. Virginia requires no bed-bug disclosure, history or notice. The words bed bug and bedbug appear nowhere in the landlord-tenant chapter, nowhere in the sales-disclosure chapter's list of items, and nowhere in the health or housing titles; no rule in the administrative code creates one. Infestation is a repair and habitability question in Virginia, not a disclosure.

Radon — no state duty. No Virginia statute or rule requires a radon disclosure to a tenant. The word radon does not appear in the landlord-tenant chapter. It appears in the sales-disclosure chapter only as a buyer-beware line saying the owner makes no representations about whether the property is in a federal radon zone and that purchasers should do their own diligence, and that chapter reaches only sales and leases with an option to buy. The health title's four radon sections concern the state radiation control agency, the board's powers, the list of companies proficient to screen, test or mitigate, and a damages action, and none names a landlord or a rental unit. The building code treats radon as a construction standard for certain dwellings, not as a notice.

Methamphetamine — in force — a state duty, before signing and at move-in, in writing (a statute). Where the landlord has actual knowledge that the dwelling unit was previously used to manufacture methamphetamine and has not been cleaned up in line with the Board of Health's guidelines and the applicable contractor licensing provisions, the landlord must give a prospective tenant a written disclosure saying so. It must be provided before the tenant signs a written lease or, for an oral tenancy, before the tenant takes occupancy. No form or wording is prescribed and no threshold applies. The cleanup standard the duty turns on is the Board of Health's own set of guidelines. Knowledge standard: Actual knowledge that the unit was previously used to manufacture methamphetamine and has not been cleaned up in accordance with the Board of Health's guidelines and the applicable licensing provisions. If the duty is not met: A tenant who was not given the disclosure may terminate the lease at any time within 60 days of discovery, effective 15 days after the notice is mailed or the date through which rent has been paid, whichever is later, and in no event more than one month from the date of mailing. Termination is the exclusive remedy for a failure to disclose.

Asbestos — no state duty. No Virginia statute or rule requires an asbestos disclosure to a tenant. The word asbestos does not appear in the landlord-tenant chapter or in the sales-disclosure list. The health title has one asbestos section, about inspections in hospitals, and the housing title has one, requiring an inspection before a building is renovated or demolished — a duty owed to no tenant. The administrative code's asbestos chapters are occupational licensing rules, and the building code treats asbestos as a restriction on reusing materials.

Defective drywall — in force — a state duty, before signing and at move-in, in writing (a statute). Where the landlord has actual knowledge that the unit contains defective drywall that has not been remediated, the landlord must give a prospective tenant a written disclosure that the property has defective drywall, before the tenant signs a written lease or, for an oral tenancy, before the tenant takes occupancy. Defective drywall carries the definition the housing title gives it. No form or wording is prescribed and no threshold applies. Knowledge standard: Actual knowledge of the existence of defective drywall in the unit that has not been remediated. If the duty is not met: A tenant who was not given the disclosure may terminate the lease within 60 days of discovery, effective 15 days after mailing or the date through which rent has been paid, whichever is later, capped at one month from mailing. Termination is the exclusive remedy.

Insecticide and pesticide application notice — a notice fired by an event during the tenancy, not a signing disclosure, by posting, in writing (a statute). The landlord must give the tenant written notice no less than 48 hours before applying an insecticide or pesticide in the tenant's unit, unless the tenant agrees to a shorter period; no notice is needed where the tenant asked for the application. For areas of the premises outside the dwelling units the landlord must post notice of every application, by conspicuous signs placed in or upon the premises where the product will be applied, at least 48 hours beforehand. The section states no penalty against the landlord; its only remedy limb runs the other way, against a tenant who does not comply.

Smoke-alarm certificate — in force — a state duty, annually and on request, in writing (a statute). The landlord must give the tenant a certificate stating that all smoke alarms are present, have been inspected and are in good working order, no more than once every 12 months. The inspection may be carried out by the landlord, an employee or an independent contractor. The statute requires a certificate, not any particular form, so a landlord's own certificate suffices; the Department of Housing and Community Development, with the Department of Fire Programs, publishes a Landlord Certification Form that a landlord may use, carrying the certification, a date and property line, and a box for who performed the inspection. Carbon monoxide has no certificate duty of its own: an alarm is installed on the tenant's written request within 90 days, which is a repair question on the habitability page. Document: Landlord Certification Form, issued by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, in consultation with the Department of Fire Programs. Revision: No revision date is printed on the face of the form. The file carries a file date of June 8, 2026, recorded as the revision in place of a printed one. Agency page. If the duty is not met: The landlord is liable only for the tenant's actual damages proximately caused by a failure to exercise ordinary care (section 55.1-1220).

No.

Virginia requires no flood-history and no flood-zone disclosure to a residential tenant. The word flood appears once in the whole landlord-tenant chapter, and it is part of an insurance notice rather than a statement about the property. Where the rental agreement does NOT require the tenant to carry renter's insurance, the landlord must give the tenant a written notice before the agreement is signed saying 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 want to protect it. That notice must also tell the tenant that renter's insurance does not cover flood damage and advise the tenant to contact the federal emergency management agency or to visit the national flood insurance program's website or the Department of Conservation and Recreation's Flood Risk Information System to find out whether the property is in a special flood hazard area. The landlord makes no representation about the property and does no map lookup, and a failure to give the notice does not affect the validity of the rental agreement — the section states no other remedy. Virginia's real flood disclosures are on the sales side: the residential property disclosure act's special-flood-hazard-area item and Flood Risk Information Form, and the repetitive-loss disclosure owed by an owner with actual knowledge that the dwelling is a repetitive risk loss structure, both run to a purchaser and the act reaches only transfers by sale, exchange, installment land sale contract, or lease with an option to buy.

Yes — the facts the rule names need not be disclosed.

One rule squarely removes a duty for a landlord: once mold has been remediated in accordance with professional standards, the landlord is not required to disclose a past incidence of mold to later tenants (section 55.1-1220). It is a safe harbor, not a prohibition on saying anything. A second rule sits in the sales chapter and its reach to a landlord is unresolved on the text: it says that notwithstanding any other provision of that chapter or any other statute or regulation, no cause of action arises against an owner or a real estate licensee for failing to disclose that the property was the site of an act or occurrence with no effect on the physical structure or its environment, or of a homicide, felony or suicide. The chapter that carries it applies only to sales, exchanges, installment land sale contracts and leases with an option to buy, and its remedies all run to the purchaser, so whether a landlord can rely on it in a tenancy is an open question and no Virginia decision settles it. Separately, a landlord or managing agent may not release information about a tenant or prospective tenant to a third party except in fourteen listed situations, and information from a rental application stays a confidential tenant record releasable only in response to a subpoena (section 55.1-1209).

Yes — the statute lists the lease provisions that are void or prohibited.

Virginia runs a single enumerated roster of eight prohibited provisions in one section, not a list spread across the code, and it reaches provisions imposed on the tenant rather than either party's clauses. The clause alone falls; the lease survives. The consequence is asymmetric in a way worth knowing: including a prohibited clause costs the landlord nothing by itself, but suing to enforce it exposes the landlord to the tenant's actual damages and attorney fees. Two anti-waiver backstops sit outside the roster: the chapter may not be waived or modified, in whole or in part, by the governing body of any locality or by the courts, and the parties may include only terms not prohibited by the chapter or another rule of law. The Court of Appeals has applied the roster directly, holding that where a lease provision purports to waive a tenant's rights or remedies required by law, the law controls and the provision is unenforceable.

The clause is unenforceable, and a landlord who tries to enforce it owes the tenant's attorney fees.

Sanction as the statute states it: Any provision prohibited by the roster that is included in a rental agreement is unenforceable. Nothing follows from merely putting it in the lease; but if the landlord brings an action to enforce such a provision, the tenant may recover actual damages sustained and reasonable attorney fees. There is no rent multiple, no fixed damages figure, no cure window, and the rest of the lease stands.

The listed provisions:

• An agreement by the tenant to waive or forgo rights or remedies under the residential landlord and tenant chapter.

• An agreement by the tenant to waive or forgo rights or remedies about the 120-day conversion or rehabilitation notice required by the Virginia Condominium Act or the Virginia Real Estate Cooperative Act, or under section 55.1-1410.

• An agreement authorizing any person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the rental agreement.

• An agreement by the tenant to pay the landlord's attorney fees, except as the chapter itself provides.

• An agreement 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.

• An agreement, as a condition of tenancy in public housing, to a prohibition or restriction of any lawful possession of a firearm within the individual dwelling unit, unless federal law or regulation requires it.

• An agreement to pay, before the tenancy commences, a security deposit plus damage-insurance premiums plus renter's-insurance premiums that together exceed two months' periodic rent.

• An agreement to waive remedies or rights under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act before a dispute arises; execution of the lease may not be made contingent on such a waiver, though once a dispute arises the parties may waive those rights as to that dispute to settle it.

• A requirement that the tenant pay any fee for the maintenance or repair of the dwelling unit, unless the tenant's own breach of a chapter requirement made it necessary (section 55.1-1208, subsection C).

A lease clause making a party pay the landlord's attorney fees is void.

A rental agreement may not contain a provision that the tenant agrees to pay the landlord's attorney fees except as the chapter itself provides, and such a provision is unenforceable (section 55.1-1208). Because the same section also voids any waiver of rights or remedies under the chapter, a clause running fees the other way is caught as well where it would cut into the chapter's protections, so neither side can contract into a fee award the chapter has not granted. Virginia has no reciprocity statute converting a one-way landlord clause into a mutual one, and no general prevailing-party fee rule for the chapter. Fees are available only where the chapter itself grants them — an applicant's fees in the application section, and the landlord's actual damages, reasonable attorney fees and costs against a tenant who holds over unless the tenant proves the failure to vacate was reasonable — and to the tenant who is sued on a prohibited provision.

No — state law expressly preempts local rules on the subjects it names.

The chapter applies to all jurisdictions in Virginia and may not be waived or otherwise modified, in whole or in part, by the governing body of any locality or its boards, commissions or other instrumentalities, or by the courts, and it supersedes all other local ordinances or regulations concerning landlord and tenant relations and the leasing of residential property (section 55.1-1201). A locality therefore cannot add its own lease-disclosure or lease-content rules. Three things survive. A locality may set up a commission that is reconciliatory in nature only, or designate an existing agency, which on both parties' agreement may mediate conflicts arising under the chapter. Ordinances designed to bring about compliance with local property maintenance codes are untouched. And a locality may by ordinance require a landlord who rents five or more dwelling units in any one multifamily building to install dead-bolt locks and peepholes, sliding-door locks and pins, and window locking devices meeting the building code, allowing a reasonable time to comply (section 55.1-1221); local residential rental inspection programs are also recognized as a local-government fee that may be allocated among tenants. None of those is a power to require a disclosure. Where the chapter is inconsistent with the regulations of the federal housing department, those regulations control. No Virginia locality carries an anchored lease-packet sentence on this page.

2026 Acts of Assembly, c. 640 (HB616) — new subsection F of section 55.1-1209 and a new subdivision 33 of section 36-139, signed April 13, 2026, with effect from July 1, 2027: Adds a second statement-of-charges duty: on a tenant's written request the landlord must give, within 10 business days, a statement of charges and payments that discloses any utility allocation method used, with an option to make it available through an electronic portal, and exempts a landlord owning fewer than four rental dwelling units, or less than a ten percent interest in more than four, unless that landlord receives state or local rental or utility assistance funds for the tenant. The same act directs the Department of Housing and Community Development to publish a standardized printable template for the statement. Until then the in-force duty is the 10-business-day statement in section 55.1-1204, which has no allocation-method element and no small-landlord exemption. Text: Va. Code § 55.1-1209 (Effective July 1, 2027).

2026 Acts of Assembly, cc. 783 and 784 (HB1361, SB294) — amendments to sections 55.1-1202 and 55.1-1212, signed April 13, 2026, with effect from July 1, 2027: Changes the utility-records rule: the owner's records must then also describe how monthly energy and utility billing fees are calculated and carry a history of each tenant's billing-fee payments, and the owner's right to charge a reasonable fee for copying those records is removed. The same acts make a nonpayment termination notice ineffective without a written statement of charges and payments, including submetering and allocation debits and credits, and bar filing an unlawful detainer before a proper termination notice has been given. Text: Va. Code §§ 55.1-1202, 55.1-1212 (Effective July 1, 2027).