West Virginia Landlord-Tenant Laws
Local rent regulation in West Virginia
No West Virginia statute expressly addresses local rent control — state law neither authorizes nor prohibits city or county regulation of rent amounts, and the codes of ordinances of Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown contain no rent-control provision.
Verified October 2, 2026 · Full West Virginia rent-increase rules →
West Virginia landlord-tenant laws by topic
West Virginia security deposits
West Virginia puts no cap on security deposits, but the landlord must return the deposit with a written itemization within 60 days after the tenancy ends — or within 45 days after a new tenant moves in, whichever comes first.
West Virginia rent increase notice
West Virginia has no statute requiring advance notice of a rent increase — the working rule for month-to-month tenancies is derived from W. Va. Code 37-6-5, under which either party may end a periodic tenancy by written notice given one full period before the end of any period, so a landlord proposing higher rent is offering new terms the tenant can refuse by leaving.
West Virginia late fees
West Virginia sets no cap on residential late fees and mandates no grace period — no statute regulates when rent is late or what lateness may cost, so the lease governs.
West Virginia entry notice
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.
West Virginia eviction process
To evict a tenant in West Virginia the landlord files a verified petition for summary relief for wrongful occupation directly with the magistrate court or the circuit court of the county where the property is located -- no pay-or-quit notice, cure period or notice to quit is required first -- and the court must set the hearing not less than five nor more than 10 judicial days after the petition is filed.
West Virginia application & screening fees
West Virginia sets no dollar limit on rental application or tenant-screening fees, but it is one of the few states whose landlord-tenant statutes name the application fee at all: an application fee counts as nonrefundable only where the landlord and the applicant have expressly agreed in writing that it is.
West Virginia deposit interest
West Virginia requires no interest on a residential security deposit, and no escrow, trust or separate account for it.
West Virginia habitability & repairs
West Virginia landlords must deliver a rented dwelling and its surrounding premises in a fit and habitable condition and keep them that way, and the duty comes from a statute and a court-made warranty that say the same thing.
West Virginia lease termination
West Virginia does not count days to end a periodic tenancy: the statute calls for written notice running one full rental period before the end of a period, so a month-to-month tenancy takes a month's notice ending on the last day of a rental period.
West Virginia lease disclosures
West Virginia asks a residential landlord for one disclosure and it is not the one most summaries name: an owner, and any agent of the owner, must tell any potential purchaser or occupant about a clandestine drug laboratory identified on the property, including where it was, the remediation plans, any enforcement actions and any certificate that remediation is complete.
West Virginia pets & assistance animals
West Virginia puts no ceiling on a pet deposit or a pet fee, and no ceiling on a security deposit at all, but it decides which rules apply by whether the money comes back: a refundable pet deposit is a security deposit and carries the whole deposit article with it, while a pet fee escapes only where the parties expressly agree in writing that it is nonrefundable.
West Virginia mobile home park laws
West Virginia has a dedicated law for factory-built home rental communities, chapter 37, article 15 of its code, which covers a resident who owns a mobile, manufactured, modular or trailer home and rents the site beneath it.
West Virginia Fair Market Rents (FY 2027) — HUD's benchmark rents for every West Virginia metro area and county.
Editable West Virginia deposit kit · Editable West Virginia disclosure packet — editable documents built on the verified West Virginia rules on this page, in Word, fillable PDF and Excel.
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 read twice independently, plus the official whole-article 'email view' pages /email/37-6A/ and /email/37-6/), with all key 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 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) confirmed off-topic for these deposit, rent, fee, and entry topics (it amended the ch. 55 art. 3C squatter-removal scheme that HB4940 of 2024 created, treated as out of scope in the eviction topic's notes); HB3272 (Ch. 1, Acts 2025 — passed 2025-04-12, approved by the Governor 2025-04-28, eff. 2025-07-11) is on-topic, not off: it amended and reenacted W. Va. Code 55-3A-1, the core residential-eviction petition statute (filing-first hearing scheduling plus the tenant's five-day written-defense window), and its changes are carried in the eviction_process topic. The eviction topic is verified on its own track (see its topic_verified date and notes): its build pass reconciled the codified 55-3A-1 against the enrolled HB3272 word for word and ran currency checks on adjacent sections (50-2-1 reflecting HB2761 (2025), 2-2-1 reflecting SB793 (2026), 55-3C reflecting HB2434 (2025)); 55-3A-1 and 37-6-19 were independently re-read 2026-07-25; and on 2026-08-05 the enrolled HB3272 text and the codified 55-3A-1 were each read twice more and matched character-for-character, with the passage (2025-04-12) and gubernatorial-approval (2025-04-28) dates confirmed as distinct events from the official Bill_Status action table. 2026 regular session adjourned sine die 2026-03-14 with no on-topic bill passing. On October 2, 2026 every section the security deposit, rent increase, late fee and entry answers rest on was read again on code.wvlegislature.gov: sections 37-6A-1 to 37-6A-6, the whole of chapter 37, articles 6, 6A and 15, chapter 55, articles 3A, 3B and 3C, section 8-1-5a, and sections 38-14-4 and 46B-3-9, with the Legislature's tables of code sections affected for every regular and special session from 2011 through 2026 (no 2025 or 2026 act amended articles 6, 6A or 15). Article 15, on factory-built home sites, limits a landlord to the fees listed in the written rental agreement (37-15-5(a)(1)) and bars retaliatory rent increases (37-15-7(a)). The codes of ordinances of Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown were read for rent regulation, and Dibella v. Mastermonico, No. 26-ICA-17 (September 25, 2026), on the courts' site.