Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Virginia

are pets material noncompliance of a lease

I have been renting a townhouse for about 18 months now. My lease state the lessee will not keep pets. My lessee have been keeping two cats the whole time without my knowledge unitl last month when I walked by a saw the cats in the window. I wrote them a letter about it and stated that this was violation of the formal lease agreement. After talking with them on the phone they refuse to compliance with the lease agreement.The lease agreement is up in Sept and I am not renew it. Question(s) are pets in violation of the formal lease concerned a material noncompliance issue and I can charge them a retroactive pet fee for the pass 18 months


Asked on 5/21/02, 1:44 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael Hendrickson Law Office Michael E. Hendrickson

Re: are pets material noncompliance of a lease

Your tenants are in a nonmonetary breach of the lease, and you could have them evicted before its

term is up in September, if, after giving them the required notice and opportunity to cure the breach(which means, getting rid of the cats), they fail to do so.

You cannot, however, arbitrarily impose a charge(retroactive pet fee) for something that is not permitted under the lease. You can, nonetheless, determine what ,if any, damage the cats have

done to your property and the reasonable cost of repairing this cat damage, and make an assessment for this amount(after giving tenants the required legal notice)against their security deposit.

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Answered on 5/21/02, 6:46 pm


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