Update
Unreasonable: Attorney Fees Deepen Housing Instability
Published
A new report from Virginia Poverty Law Center and VCU’s RVA Eviction Lab exposes how growing attorney fees are deepening Virginia’s eviction crisis. Despite clear standards in Virginia law, tenants across the state are being charged hundreds — even thousands — of dollars each in legal fees, often for cases that require only negligible attorney time.
They put me in a deeper and deeper hole I couldn’t get out of.
Justin, whose family was evicted in Central Virginia
In 2024 alone, courts awarded nearly $18 million in attorney fees in eviction cases — a 48% increase over pre-COVID levels even though the number of eviction judgments went down by 19%. The inflated costs force families already behind on rent deeper into debt, disqualify some from getting emergency rental assistance, and block their legal rights to redemption and appeal.
We could almost get caught up, but then a big new fee would hit us and knock us back again. It was like quicksand. We started to lose hope we could ever dig out of it.
Wynton, after paying $7,000 in attorney fees
The authors call for key reforms: judicial training on reviewing attorney fees, legislation to require attorney affidavits to accompany fee requests, and stronger tenant self-advocacy. Their conclusion is clear: court-assessed attorney fees should reasonably reflect the legal work performed — not serve as another way to profit from poverty.
