Legal Question in Business Law in Virginia

Verbal contract

I have been renting a store space for 21 months and have never had a written contract. The landlord says he made a verbal agreement with my daughter and that we are liable to remain in our contract for 3 more months to pay rent. We have no stock remaining in the store and we have not for over a year made enough money to even pay one of us (my daughter or myself a payday. We were not making enough money in sales to even pay rent and utililies. We had the phone dicconnected last month to save money but now know we can not afford to heat the building come winter. wWe are selling off the remaining stock and moving out. He says we still have to pay rent for the next 3 months. Can he make us do this? His so called agreement was with my daughter because they were friends but the business licenses and accounts were all in my name.She disagrees with alot of the things he is now claiming but we have nothing in writing. We ask him for several months in the beginning to get us something in writing and he never did, We have no idea how we will pay him if he insists for payment.


Asked on 9/18/05, 1:07 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Jonathon Moseley Jonathon A. Moseley

Re: Verbal contract

A verbal contract is enforceable the same as

an other contract, although there are exceptions.

A verbal contract that cannot be completed within

1 year is NOT enforceable. So a verbal lease for

longer than 1 year is NOT enforceable.

Generally, a contract for the sale of land is

not enforceable, but a lease is probably okay.

However, it is said that a verbal contract is

worth the paper it is written on. That is

because if any part of it is disputed, it can be

very difficult to prove what the agreement

actually was, if any.

If your daughter did not have clear authority to

contract for your store, that makes it even more

difficult for the landlord to enforce a verbal

contract. It might be reasonable for her to

pass along a message, which should have been an

invitation for the landlord to follow up with you

directly if the plan was acceptable and to sign

a written contract. But he did not.

Read more
Answered on 9/19/05, 5:42 pm


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