Your Virginia city or county can sue a landlord to fix an unsafe home

If a landlord violation harms you and, if not fixed within a reasonable time, would create a fire hazard or serious threat to your health or safety, your Virginia locality can take the landlord to court on your behalf. The law names examples: rodents, or no heat, hot or cold running water, electricity, or working sewage. The problem also has to be a material violation of the lease or the law.

For a case under this new power, the locality—not you—files the lawsuit. It first has to tell the landlord, directly or through the property manager, what’s wrong. If the landlord doesn’t fix it to the locality’s satisfaction in a reasonable time, the locality can sue in local circuit court. If the judge finds the home wasn’t kept fit to live in, the court must order the landlord to stop the violation. It can also award damages to the tenants or occupants the locality sued for. Before this, this section let only people adversely affected bring this kind of injunction-and-damages suit, so tenants had to sue on their own.

Del. Cia Price carried HB 14 in the House, and Sen. Lashrecse Aird carried the identical SB 290 in the Senate. The House passed HB 14 by 66 to 33, and the Senate passed it by 21 to 19. Every no vote in both chambers came from a Republican. Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed both bills on April 13, 2026, and the law took effect July 1, 2026.