Free tool · Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News
What does a squatter cost you in Virginia?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is Virginia's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
Virginia estimate
$36,976
Your numbers.
These are national starting points, not claims about your property. The one figure that drives the total — how long it drags on — is yours to set. Nobody can source it, so we do not pretend to.
How long before you get it back?
6 months
Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes. A contested removal runs in months, not weeks, almost everywhere; how it goes in Virginia is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News — $2,376/mo.
Mortgage / loan payment — per month
$
Only you know this one. The placeholder is roughly a $300k loan at current rates.
Lost rent or delayed sale — per month
$
HUD's Fair Market Rent for this metro, at the bedroom count you picked. It is the 40th percentile of recent-mover rents, so on a renovated or market-rate property it is a floor, not a valuation.
Attorney fees — one-off
$
No public data exists. Our estimate — nothing published backs it. No state bar and no court in any of these markets publishes fee data for an ejectment. Get a written quote and put it here.
Property taxes — per month
$
Your bill, divided by twelve. The placeholder is roughly a $250k property at Philadelphia's 1.3998% — Newark runs 1.845%, Los Angeles 1.187%.
Insurance — per month
$
No public data exists. Our estimate. Vacant cover genuinely does cost more, but the published figures for how much more disagree by a factor of five — anywhere from +25% to 5x. Use your own premium.
Utilities — per month
$
A national placeholder, unless your state overrides it below — Philadelphia's is the Water Department's own published bill. Whoever is inside, you are the ratepayer of record.
Damage and clean-out — one-off
$
No public data exists. Our estimate, and we want to be blunt: NO government body in the United States publishes squatter-damage data. Every figure you have seen quoted traces to one news story or to a lobby survey that counted houses, not dollars. We are not going to launder a number we cannot stand behind — put yours here.
If it happens in Virginia
$36,976
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $4,746.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($4,746/mo × 6 mo)
$28,476
One-off costs (attorney, damage)
$8,500
What ruins you is the carry — the months. On top of this you will pay to file, for the sheriff to serve and remove, and for a lawyer. Those are set locally and we do not print a number we cannot cite — but next to the months, they are a sliver.
Can you get any of it back? NO for attorney's fees. Virginia follows the American Rule, and because a squatter never had a rental agreement there is no lease clause and no unlawful-detainer statute that shifts your lawyer's fee onto them. You do recover the small court costs: the $36 general-district-court filing fee is taxable as costs against the losing party.. The $36-as-taxable-costs point is primary from the statute. The 'no attorney's fees' point is an inference from the ABSENCE of any fee-shifting hook reaching a squatter (no contract, no fee statute), not a verbatim quote — hence secondary. Counsel should confirm before this is published as an assertion of law.
Why Virginia costs what it does
Virginia gives an owner with no lease a fast court date, not a slow lawsuit: you file an unlawful detainer in the general district court — the same quick court a landlord uses — and if you first gave 72 hours' written notice to leave, the statute sets an emergency hearing within 14 days of filing. A judge signs the order and a sheriff carries it out; nothing you swear removes anyone by itself. The entry price owners miss is that 72-hour written notice — skip it and the fast clock never starts.
How you must remove them
summary
“If a summons for unlawful detainer is filed by an owner of a residential single family dwelling unit in the Commonwealth and the court finds based upon the evidence that (i) no rental agreement exists or has ever existed between the owner and the occupant; (ii) the occupant occupies such dwelling unit without permission of such owner; and (iii) the owner has given such occupant a written notice to vacate such dwelling unit at least 72 hours prior to the date of filing, an emergency hearing on such summons shall occur as soon as practicable, but not more than 14 days from the date of filing.”
Summary, not ejectment: Virginia routes the occupant-with-no-lease into the fast general-district-court unlawful-detainer track with a 14-day emergency hearing, so long as 72 hours' written notice to vacate was given before filing. NOT summary_plus_affidavit — there is no sheriff-removes-on-affidavit bypass; a judge signs and a sheriff acts only on the court's writ. The cited page carries two versions of § 8.01-126 (one effective until July 1, 2027, one after); this is the version in force on 2026-07-14.
The statute
Va. Code § 8.01-126(B): an owner of a single-family dwelling with no rental agreement gets an emergency unlawful-detainer hearing within 14 days of filing (30 at the outside), provided the owner gave the occupant written notice to vacate at least 72 hours before filing.
“an emergency hearing on such summons shall occur as soon as practicable, but not more than 14 days from the date of filing. If the case cannot be heard within 14 days from the date of filing, the emergency hearing shall be held as soon as practicable, but in no event later than 30 days after the date of the filing.”
Section has a second version effective July 1, 2027 at the same URL; this quote is the version in force on 2026-07-14. History line records amendments 2024 (cc. 268, 331) and 2026 (c. 635).
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $1,512 · 2 bed $1,713 · 3 bed $2,376 · 4 bed $2,797
All four figures are the FY2026 FMR for this HUD Metro FMR Area (1BR $1,512, 2BR $1,713, 3BR $2,376, 4BR $2,797), which carries a single metro-wide FMR covering Newport News city. Figure is from a HUD FMR republication; confirm against HUD's FY2026 schedule if it is load-bearing for you.
Do you get your legal fees back?
NO for attorney's fees. Virginia follows the American Rule, and because a squatter never had a rental agreement there is no lease clause and no unlawful-detainer statute that shifts your lawyer's fee onto them. You do recover the small court costs: the $36 general-district-court filing fee is taxable as costs against the losing party.
“Fees in civil cases for services performed by the judges or clerks of general district courts ... shall be as provided in this section, and, unless otherwise provided, shall be included in the taxed costs and shall not be refundable ... For all court and magistrate services in each ... unlawful detainer ... the fee shall be $36.”
The $36-as-taxable-costs point is primary from the statute. The 'no attorney's fees' point is an inference from the ABSENCE of any fee-shifting hook reaching a squatter (no contract, no fee statute), not a verbatim quote — hence secondary. Counsel should confirm before this is published as an assertion of law.
Is there a fast sheriff route?
NO. Virginia does take an owner's sworn statement of the facts (§ 8.01-126), but what it produces is a court summons and a hearing — not a removal. A judge signs the order; a sheriff acts only on the court's writ of eviction. There is no Florida § 82.036-style affidavit-to-sheriff bypass, so the state has not commoditized the mechanism.
“the landlord, his agent, attorney, or other person, entitled to the possession may present to a magistrate or a clerk or judge of a general district court a statement under oath of the facts which authorize the removal of the tenant or other person in possession, describing such premises; and thereupon such magistrate, clerk or judge shall issue his summons against the person or persons named in such affidavit.”
A claim about the Code as it stood on 2026-07-14, NOT a forward-looking one. Virginia's LIS bill-search API was unusable (returned zero results even for control terms in known enacted bills), so no claim is made about pending legislation; a human must run lis.virginia.gov/bill-search before treating this 'no' as forward-looking.
This is the bill for finding out too late.
Nothing on this page will get an occupant out, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. What DeedProof does is earlier and duller: it verifies you own the property, structures the statement you swear before a notary, and files it — so that if someone does break in, the officer at the door has something to work from instead of a lease they cannot check.
The decision still belongs to the officer. Our job is to make it an easy one.
This page is the money. The law behind it is on Virginia’s guide — whether police can arrest, whether a sheriff can act on your affidavit alone, and how long occupation takes to become a claim. Every answer quoted from the statute.