Virginia · TitleVirginia transfer fee covenants: void if recorded on or after July 1, 2011

In Virginia, a transfer fee covenant is a covenant or declaration affecting real property that requires, on a later transfer, a fee to be paid to the declarant or another nongovernmental person, or their successors or assigns. A transfer fee covenant recorded in Virginia on or after July 1, 2011, doesn't run with the title and isn't binding on or enforceable against any later owner, purchaser or mortgagee, and any lien purporting to secure the fee is void and unenforceable. A transfer fee is a fee payable to a nongovernmental person or entity on a transfer, or for the right to make or accept one, fixed or measured by value or price. The statute excludes the purchase price, a broker's commission, a lender's charges including an assumption fee, lease charges, payments for not exercising an option, right of first refusal or right of first offer, assessments and fees authorized by statute or by the recorded condominium instrument or declaration for a common interest community or cooperative, and government charges and taxes (Va. Code §55.1-358).