7 Squatter Laws Every Virginia Homeowner Should Know in 2026

Finding a stranger living in your property is hard to picture until it happens.

Virginia law lays out what owners can do about a squatter, and some of the deadlines may surprise you.

Here’s what the rules say, in plain terms.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Property laws and required timelines are subject to change.

1. 72-Hour Notice

Your written notice to leave is where the emergency squatter hearing starts.

A magistrate, clerk or judge of a general district court issues the summons after you give a sworn statement of the facts.

Lawmakers added that emergency hearing in 2024.

It covers an owner of a single-family home when the court finds three things from the evidence.

No rental agreement exists, or has ever existed, between you and the occupant.

The occupant is there without your permission.

You gave the occupant written notice to vacate at least 72 hours before you filed.

You control that one.

The court then has to hold an emergency hearing as soon as practicable, and no more than 14 days after you file.

2. Trespass After Notice

Section 18.2-119 makes it a crime for a squatter to stay after you’ve forbidden it.

You can forbid it orally or in writing, or with signs posted where people can see them.

A conviction is a Class 1 misdemeanor, which carries up to 12 months in jail and a fine of up to $2,500, or both.

If you give notice in writing, keep a dated copy.

3. Three-Year Window

You have three years to bring an unlawful entry or detainer action against a squatter.

That limit appears in § 8.01-236, the same section that sets the 15-year limit.

It counts from the entry or detainer.

After that, this route closes.

You’d file in circuit court under § 8.01-124, which covers any forcible or unlawful entry on land.

In circuit court, you or the squatter can ask for a jury, and the court has to grant it.

If you find a stranger in your vacant house, write down the day they moved in.

4. Damages and Appeals

A judgment against a squatter under § 8.01-128 gives you the house back, plus any damages you prove from the unlawful entry or detention.

The proof is your job.

At the first hearing, you can ask the court to give you possession now and set the final amounts owed for a later date, no more than 120 days out.

A 2026 amendment that took effect July 1 says the court can’t split the case that way if the squatter contests those amounts at that hearing.

A squatter has 10 days to appeal a general district court judgment to circuit court.

Within that window, the squatter has to pay a court fee called the writ tax and, unless indigent, post a bond.

The sheriff can’t evict a squatter from your house until the appeal period ends.

5. 15-Year Clock

Adverse possession is the squatter law that can turn years on your land into ownership.

Under § 8.01-236, you have 15 years from the day your right first arose to enter the land or sue to recover it.

The clock keeps running.

If you own a cabin or vacant lot you rarely visit, check on it in person.

6. Claim-of-Right Test

A squatter who wants title has to meet the test the Supreme Court of Virginia applied in Grappo v. Blanks in 1991.

The squatter must prove possession that was actual, hostile, exclusive, visible and continuous, under a claim of right, for 15 years.

Hostile means the possession is under a claim of right and adverse to the true owner.

The squatter carries the burden, and it's clear and convincing evidence on every element.

If a squatter claims your land, you can challenge every element.

One failure defeats the claim.

7. 25-Year Ceiling

A squatter's wait can stretch from 15 years toward 25 if you were a minor or legally incapacitated when your right first arose.

No disability, and no chain of disabilities passed to successors, preserves a right to enter or sue for more than 25 years after it first arose.

That makes 25 years the outside limit on how long a squatter has to wait out an owner in that position.

If you hold land that sat idle for decades, find out when your right to enter it first arose.

Ejectment as a Backup

Ejectment is an old court action to recover land, and Virginia's Code keeps it alongside its squatter laws.

That's a second route.

If you claim to own the land outright, for life or for a set number of years, you can bring an ejectment action.

That includes an heir, a buyer, or a devisee, someone who received the land through a will.