Virginia became one of the first states to adopt legislation to permit the condominium form of ownership of property upon enactment of the "Horizontal Property Act" by the 1962 session of the General Assembly. The first state to adopt such legislation had done so the year before. It was not until 1968, that all fifty states had enacted such laws.

The Virginia Code Commission assigned Code Section Numbers 55-79.1 to 55-79.33 to this Act.

In 1966, 1972 and 1973, the General Assembly amended the Act in some fourteen instances and added Sections 55-79.34 through 55-79.38.

Under the Act, condominium projects must be registered with the Virginia Real Estate Commission. In the first six years following enactment of this legislation, three condominium projects were registered under its provisions. In the seventh year, 1969, an additional three projects were so registered, in 1970, five were registered and in 1971, ten were registered under the Act.

The total of twenty-one such projects registered in the first decade of the Act, was doubled in the single year of 1972, with registration of forty-two projects in that single year.

In the first eleven months of 1973, more than one hundred projects have been registered with the Real Estate Commission under this Act.

The dramatic surge of condominium development -- both new construction and conversion of existing structures -- pointed up deficiencies in the 1962 Act as amended in 1966 and 1972 and led to more significant amendments by the 1973 session of the General Assembly.

The 1973 session, seeing the need for more substantive revision, enacted House Bill 1487.