Virginia Code 55.1-1306: Demands and charges prohibited; access by tenant’s guest or invitee; purchases by manufactured home owner not restricted; exception; conditions of occupancy
A. A landlord shall not demand or collect:
Terms Used In Virginia Code 55.1-1306
- Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
- Guest or invitee: means a person, other than the tenant, who has the permission of the tenant to visit but not to occupy the premises. See Virginia Code 55.1-1300
- Landlord: means the manufactured home park owner or the lessor or sublessor of a manufactured home park. See Virginia Code 55.1-1300
- Manufactured home: means a structure, transportable in one or more sections, that in the traveling mode is eight body feet or more in width or 40 body feet or more in length, or, when erected on site, is 320 or more square feet, and that is built on a permanent chassis and designed to be used as a dwelling with or without a permanent foundation when connected to the required utilities, and includes the plumbing, heating, air-conditioning, and electrical systems contained in the structure. See Virginia Code 55.1-1300
- Manufactured home lot: means a parcel of land within the boundaries of a manufactured home park provided for the placement of a single manufactured home and the exclusive use of its occupants. See Virginia Code 55.1-1300
- Manufactured home park: means a parcel of land under single or common ownership upon which five or more manufactured homes are located on a continual, nonrecreational basis together with any structure, equipment, road, or facility intended for use incidental to the occupancy of the manufactured homes. See Virginia Code 55.1-1300
- Owner: includes a mortgagee in possession. See Virginia Code 55.1-1300
- Person: includes any individual, corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, limited liability company, trust, joint venture, government, political subdivision, or any other legal or commercial entity and any successor, representative, agent, agency, or instrumentality thereof. See Virginia Code 1-230
- Tenant: means a person entitled as under a rental agreement to occupy a manufactured home lot to the exclusion of others. See Virginia Code 55.1-1300
1. An entrance fee for the privilege of leasing or occupying a manufactured home lot;
2. A commission on the sale of a manufactured home located in the manufactured home park, unless the tenant expressly employs him to perform a service in connection with such sale, but no such employment of the landlord by the tenant shall be a condition or term of the initial sale or rental;
3. A fee for improvements or installations on the interior of a manufactured home, unless the tenant expressly employs him to perform a service in connection with such improvements or installations;
4. A fee, charge, or other thing of value from any provider of cable television service, cable modem service, satellite master antenna television service, direct broadcast satellite television service, subscription television service, or service of any other television programming system in exchange for granting a television service provider mere access to the landlord’s tenants or giving the tenants of such landlord mere access to such service. A landlord may enter into a service agreement with a television service provider to provide marketing and other services to the television service provider designed to facilitate the television service provider’s delivery of its services. Under such a service agreement, the television service provider may compensate the landlord for the reasonable value of the services provided and for the reasonable value of the landlord’s property used by the television service provider.
No landlord shall demand or accept any such payment from any tenants in exchange for such services, unless the landlord is itself the provider of the service, nor shall any landlord discriminate in rental charges between tenants who receive any such service and those who do not. Nothing in this subdivision shall prohibit a landlord from requiring that the provider of such service and the tenant bear the entire cost of the installation, operation, or removal of the facilities incident to such installation, operation, or removal or prohibit a landlord from demanding or accepting reasonable indemnity or security for any damages caused by such installation, operation, or removal; or
5. An exit fee for moving a manufactured home from a manufactured home park.
B. A guest or invitee of the tenant shall have free access to the tenant’s manufactured home site without charge or registration.
C. A manufactured home owner shall not be restricted in his choice of vendors from whom he may purchase his (i) manufactured home, except in connection with the initial leasing or renting of a newly constructed lot not previously leased or rented to any other person, or (ii) goods and services. However, nothing in this chapter shall prohibit a landlord from prescribing reasonable requirements governing, as a condition of occupancy, the style, size, or quality of the manufactured home or other structures placed on the manufactured home lot.
1975, c. 535, § 55-248.45; 1987, c. 513; 1989, c. 87; 1992, c. 709; 2008, c. 329; 2019, c. 712.