HD35 - A Study of the Court System's Processing of Landlord-Tenant Cases and Ways to Expedite Their Movement Through the General District Courts


Executive Summary:
The Study Committee reviewed the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, which was enacted by Chapter 680 of the 1974 Acts of Assembly. The act was intended to simplify, clarify, modernize and revise the law governing the rental of dwelling units and the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants. The act also encouraged landlords and tenants to maintain and improve the quality of housing; and it established a single body of law relating to landlord and tenant relations throughout the Commonwealth.

In addition, the Study Committee carefully reviewed other applicable statutory provisions provided in Titles 8.01 and 16.1 and the assertions contained in the study resolution as follows:

a) the availability of multi-family housing units at affordable rents is one of the most important housing issues facing the Commonwealth;

b) one of the major factors contributing to the increase in rental costs of multi-family housing units is the excessive amount of time necessary to regain possession of the premises from a defaulting tenant and put the unit back on the rental market;

c) the time for obtaining an initial court date for hearing of an unlawful detainer action has increased in many areas from two weeks to four to five weeks;

d) processing of cases through the court involving other landlord-tenant disputes often takes a long time, during which a landlord may be without rental income or a tenant without access to the property;

e) such delays result in property owners losing substantial revenue by being unable to re-rent multi-family units to prospective new tenants for long periods of time;

f) one of the purposes of Virginia's landlord-tenant act is to simplify the law governing the rental of property; and

g) expedited handling of these cases would be in the best interest of the parties and in keeping with the stated purposes of the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act.