Roanoke, VA Rental Property Rules: Repairs & Habitability (2026)

City council's findings in section 7-34(a) and (b) set out why Roanoke runs a rental habitability program: residential rental units that go without initial or periodic inspection can become unsafe, a public nuisance, and unfit for human habitation, and within designated rental inspection districts the city needs to catch units that are blighted, deteriorating, or otherwise in need of inspection to protect tenants' health, safety and welfare. Built on those findings, section 7-48 makes it unlawful for any owner, managing agent, or person in control of a dwelling unit located in a rental inspection district to rent or lease that unit when it fails to comply with the article's requirements.

The habitability standard the city applies is tied to the building maintenance code: under section 7-38, the city manager inspects rental units to determine compliance with the building code provisions that affect safe, decent, and sanitary living conditions for tenants, and under section 7-39 a unit that passes, free of violations affecting those conditions, earns a rental certificate of compliance good for four years. If a certified unit falls out of compliance during that four-year window, section 7-39(c) lets the city manager revoke the certificate after mailing the owner written notice describing the violations and the revocation date.

Section 7-45(c) is careful to preserve tenants' separate rights: nothing in the rental certificate article limits, impairs, alters, or extends the rights and remedies landlords and tenants already have under Virginia landlord-tenant law.