Virginia Notice Of Lease For Recording: Fill & Download for Free

Question, as answered: What happens if I leave my apartment without paying rent?Let’s say you do that to me. I’m in Virginia, so I’m going to have to deal with Virginia laws. While they’re not the same as other states, much of what I do would be the same as what I’d do in any state.So let’s say you signed the lease and moved in January 1st. (Not likely, but that makes it convenient for counting and so on.) Then, in July, you leave the apartment. I don’t know that yet. So July 1st, no rent check. Okay, some people wait and pay on the 5th. No check on July 5th? I send you the late notice. No response. Well, I get that from time to time. In the late notice, I gave you a time limit on paying the rent. I used the length of time specified by the state. (One of those cases where state law varies from state to state.)No rent by that day? I’ll call to get ahold of you. Probably no answer because you’re thinking, “He can’t do anything to me. And he can just re-rent the apartment.” So, with no response, I file court papers to move toward eviction. Even if I know you’re gone, I’m still going to do this. First, if you left anything behind, it lets me eventually and legally get rid of it. Second, it starts the legal process that lets me hold you financially responsible for the rent you have not paid yet and rent you will still owe. (Yes, you’re going to owe even more, soon!)A subpoena will be taped or tacked to your house or apartment door. Since you’re not there, I can’t legally remove it. (I think I can, eventually.) Others will see it and know you’re getting sued for rent and maybe being evicted. When the court date comes, if you don’t show up, I won’t even have to present my case. I’ll win.This is where the law varies in different states. In some states the eviction date will be set pretty soon. In Virginia, at this point, if I win, I only get an unlawful detainer. You’ll get legal notice of that, on the door, since that’s your last known address and where we think is your legal address. (You may get something through the mail, too - so if you’re forwarding mail, you’ll get it.) In most states, now, you won’t have a chance to challenge the eviction. In Virginia, there’s one more court date, so I file papers again. When that date comes around, it’s the eviction hearing. If you show up then, but didn’t before, and you haven’t paid me any rent, it’s a slam dunk for me. If you don’t show up, I win by default.So now the next step is eviction day. If you have any possessions left, they’re moved to the street. If you don’t, we take legal possession of the property. In most states, 60 days have passed and you will now owe me 60 days of rent. True, you weren’t in the property, but I could not move in there, without you there, unless I went through the eviction process. That’s time you, legally, had “possession” of my apartment. I could not rent it to someone new in that time and, legally, you owe rent for that time.“Okay,” you may say, so I owe you for two months of rent. Try and collect. You can’t do a thing to me.” Well, so far, you have an eviction on your record. It’s on your record you owe me 2 months rent. If you try to buy a house or rent from a landlord who does credit checks, they’ll know that. You’re going to have to rent from small, private landlords. That’s the guys who have one or two places to rent out. They may be nice, but often they don’t know about the laws. They may or may not fix things you need fixing.And it’s STILL getting worse for you!Now I’m going to have my cleaning crew come in and clean out your apartment. If this started in July, it’s now the end of September. I’m now getting the apartment ready to re-rent. But it’s also the slow season. In the past month, I’ve gone from having no free time of my own from all the work I’ve been doing to the point where I’m bringing my bills from home into work and paying them while I’m there, since it’s so slow. People are not coming in to rent.There’s a good chance that apartment will stay vacant for months. Your lease would end December 31st. People may come in looking for apartments. I can’t tell them yours isn’t available, but they’ll be looking at all my empty apartments. There’s a good chance they’re not going to rent yours at all.Remember I said it’s still getting worse for you? Legally you are responsible for rent on that apartment until either it’s re-rented or until the lease runs out. At this point, in September, it’s more likely the lease will run out before anyone rents that apartment. So if you left in the summer, and the first month you didn’t pay rent was in July, and nobody rents the apartment, you’ll owe me 6 months rent. Oh, plus court costs. Your security deposit will cover ONE month of that rent, but only if you did not damage that apartment.So now, once the lease is up, or once someone does re-rent it, I’ll go to court one more time and get a warrant in debt for the total amount you owe. At this point, since I’m not dealing with the eviction, but just past rent, I can tack on legal fees, too. I’ll go to court, get the judgement, and then my lawyer will start looking. There’s a good chance you’re at the same job. Great. I’ve found you. And if you quit that job, we subpoena his records for your new address. We’ll subpoena you for another hearing.Unless you’re good at hiding, and change jobs, remember, we also have your social security number (you had to supply it for a credit check), and we can use that, too. So if we find you, we’ll attach personal property or garnish your income.Even if we don’t, it’s on record and can be kept alive (in most states), with appropriate actions, so, at some point, if I want to put in the effort, we’ll find you and start collecting. Even if we don’t, that’s on court records, permanently. It’s there when you apply for a credit card. It’s there when you want to buy a house or rent another apartment. Even some jobs do credit checks when they hire someone.So don’t just leave and stop paying rent. You’ll end up owing more than you thought you would and you’re going to have a record that will create problems for you for a long time.(Thanks to @Ryan C for catching a typo about who wins by default!)———Disabling comments thanks to one jerk in particular who doesn’t understand what it’s like to run a business and thinks all landlords are evil people. I try to give honest answers that tenants can read and understand what is going on from a landlord’s point of view. I even go out of my way to help tenants with rental issues if they haven’t already dug a hole too deep to get out of.And then some jerk comes along and decides he’s smart enough to judge me and tell me what to do in my life when he knows nothing about me and knows nothing about running a property management business.I may enable comments later. We’ll see.

Bill McDonald, thank you for a fascinating question.Unexpected was the Army ordering me from a Group Staff to Greenland north of the Arctic Circle one January. Just back from 7 months in the Tropics, I did not expect a winter Arctic Op. I did that kind of short notice work for Special Operations and Three Letter Agencies from the tropics north. Never one of them. Worked with them lots!Why was I there? Also unexpected. The NSA had failed to destroy classified documents on the ice before flying out.NSA site was secure. Codes had been changed. Door was secure from contractors, but it was not secure from the military. No dangerous technichal devices.But …Greenland was seeking autonomy from Denmark. US sites were a prime source of income. Then we informed them that we were abandoning all 4 DEW sites — Distant Early Warning. (We still had a BMEW site (Balstic Missile Early Warning) at the US Air Base north at Thule. But 4 DEW sites closing was a major lease income loss.The Greenlanders sent us a note that they would inspect the sites for toxic waste and hazardous materials.And the DEW sites had spent years bringing things in. Nothing went out. Waste oil, PCBs, asbestos.Toxc waste dump!The race was on. You do know that the NSA spies on our friends, too. So did the Greenlanders. Quite embarrassing.I had the code to the NSA safe room, thermite grenades, and I burned the documents. Useless then, but the Grernlanders searched me when the Danish helicopter landed me at Sondrestromfjord Air Base. Blackmail time!30 days stuck on a mountain because of Ice Fog! Unexpected.And also unexpected was the Aurora Borealis starting at below the tree line in Goose Bay, Canada. Above the tree line at a remote arctic site in Greenland … amazing!Stranger still were the contractors and crates of Akvavit and Tuborg Beer, we drank at the “Polar Bar” after the contractors kicked my door in and “politely” asked me to drink with them.Also unexpected was Ludwig. He was a Greenland Dog who pulled Inuit Indian sleds, was whipped, escaped, and made his way up a pinoneer road to a DYE site on top of a mountain. He found a home in an outside air exhaust duct and was found by German contractors who named him Ludwig after van Beethoven and fed him outside in the exhaust duct, but he would never come inside.Greenland Dogs weigh upward of 60 pounds and are direct descendants of an extinct ancient arctic wolf. The Inuits use them to hunt Seals, Polar Bears, Musk Ox, Arctic Fox, and whatever else lives up there.30 days before the Ice Fog lifted. 30 days of perfecting my Army cover story as to “why” I was there. I developed a taste for Akvavit.And strange and unexpected even more was sitting on the ice with Ludwig at 65 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. Ludwid had his fur. I had Inuit gear.Strange!We became best friends.BUT THE MOST UNEXPECTED ARCTIC EXPERIENCE WAS MY DEBRIEF back in Virginia.I was a Captain. Present were Pentagon. Air Force Space Command. State Department, CIA, and a silver haired NSA SES. SES is Senior Executive Service, equivalent to an Arny General or Navy Admiral. He was quiet.State. “Captain, give us your plan to clear the sites of waste.”I gave the plan … cover story …Pentagon, “Captain, too expensive. Can you do the operation for less money.”“Sir, I can do it cheaper. How many guys can I plan to be killed?”Faces turned Red. NEVER ask a bureaucrat how many guys he is willing to put at risk on a non-combat mission in front of a Court Reporter and for record deposition. NEVER.Air Force bailed me out … sort of.“We can send in a flight of F-15 E Strike Eagles and blow the sites into the ice.”State said, “That would probably be construed as an attack on a Friendly country. No go!”SES NSA. “Enough! Captain Schlimm did exsctly what i asked him to. Run the op safely per his recommendations”.And THAT was the most unexpected experince I had in the Arctic!!

They are just letting you know they are not going to be renewing your lease when it ends. Generally no law says how they let you know or even how long before your current lease ends. Seems 60 day notice is very generous so you have time to find a new place, pack and all that.Now looking at https://law.richmond.edu/docs/Va-Housing-Pro-Bono-Materials-2015.pdf for Virgina there is.“Lease automatically may terminate at the end of a set term. Landlord and tenant must enter a new lease before the end of the set term for the tenancy to continue after the set term.Lease automatically may renew for another set term unless landlord or tenant gives written notice of non-renewal before the end of the set term. The lease usually says how much advance written notice must be given (e.g., 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days) before the end of the set term.”So looks like there is really no law that says how long before the lease ends you must be notified and by what means. There might be something in the lease though.So for whatever reason the landlord decided not to rent you their property again. Its not like an eviction where there are laws on that. But instead of packing and finding a place to move to you are wondering if its legal? Yes its legal and as you wont have that place to live in less then 60 days you better get busy. Or is the plan not to be out in time so the law has to get involved and a forcible eviction goes on your record making it even harder to find a new place to rent?