RICHMOND — Consumer advocates in Virginia said the trend of “renovictions,” the process of ending a current lease to renovate a property, displaces longtime, low-income renters, adding the projects affect affordability.
Home prices and rents across the Commonwealth have risen dramatically across the state. Between 2011 and 2021, average rents in Virginia rose 24%.
Daniel Rezai, housing attorney at the Virginia Poverty Law Center, said renovictions can affect housing affordability at a time when housing prices have soared across much of the Commonwealth and the country.
“Finding a new apartment to rent in a short period of time that fits their budget is becoming more and more difficult,” Rezai observed. “Once the unit has been renovated, it is no longer going to be rented at the same price it was before the renovations took place, so it removes a level of affordability that existed before the renovations took place.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly half of all renters in the Commonwealth are rent-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities.
Rezai pointed out a good cause nonrenewal rule in the Commonwealth could help protect tenants across the board from unjust evictions, including instances of renovictions. It means if a tenant is not in breach of an existing lease, like purposefully breaking appliances or keeping a secret pet, the landlord must renew it.
“If they go through an entire year and no such issues like that were to come up, the landlord must give them a new lease for the following year,” Rezai explained. “Doesn’t require that the landlord keep the rent the same amount, but it does require that the landlord needs to have some underlying reason to non-renew a tenant’s lease.”
Seven states, such as Colorado and Oregon, have good cause nonrenewal laws on the books.
