James City County, VA Property Maintenance: Vacant Lot Maintenance (2026)

Sec. 10-4(a) requires every owner of real property in the county, whether occupied or vacant, to keep it free at all times from any accumulation of garbage, trash, litter, refuse, clutter, or other liquid or solid waste that might endanger residents' health or safety or otherwise amount to a nuisance; land zoned for or in active farming operation is excluded. Any waste that is generated must go into personally or privately owned receptacles set up for that purpose, or an authorized disposal facility, and nowhere else.

Enforcement runs through Sec. 10-5: on a complaint from any responsible person, the county administrator or a designee investigates the property, and if the owner is found in violation, issues a directive giving the owner up to ten days to fix the conditions. If the owner still has not acted ten days after that notice, the county administrator or designee can have the necessary work done directly, including cutting overgrown grass, weeds, running bamboo or other foreign growth, charge every dollar of that cost to the owner, collect it the way county taxes and levies are collected, and record the unpaid amount as a lien against the property in the county's real estate records.