Free West Virginia Commercial Lease Agreement Template

A West Virginia commercial lease agreement rents non-residential property — a storefront, an office, a warehouse, a workshop — to a tenant who will run a business there. Chapter 37, Article 6 is the general Landlord and Tenant article, and it supplies the notice rules that reach a business tenancy.

The summary eviction route sits elsewhere and does not. Chapter 55, Article 3A is headed Remedies for Wrongful Occupation of Residential Rental Property, and § 55-3A-1 opens by describing a person desiring to remove a tenant from residential rental property.

The notice section is short, and its last sentence is the one that matters most commercially.

Notice to Terminate a Tenancy

W. Va. Code § 37-6-5 provides that a tenancy from year to year may be terminated by either party giving written notice to the other at least three months before the end of any year. A periodic tenancy of less than a year may be terminated by like notice, or by notice for one full period before the end of any period.

Service is flexible. Notice to the tenant may be served on the tenant, or on anyone holding the leased premises under the tenant, or any part of them. Notice by the tenant may be served on anyone who at the time owns the premises in whole or in part, on that owner’s agent, or according to the common law.

Where the Section Stops Applying

The closing sentence carries real weight. The section does not apply where, by special agreement, some other period of notice is fixed, or no notice is to be given. Nor is notice necessary from or to a tenant whose term is to end at a certain time.

That makes the notice provisions in a West Virginia commercial lease agreement genuinely displacing rather than supplementary.

Not through the summary route. Article 3A of Chapter 55 is confined to residential rental property by its own heading and by the opening words of § 55-3A-1, so a commercial landlord cannot use the wrongful occupation petition that residential landlords file in magistrate or circuit court.

That has a practical consequence worth planning for. A business tenancy dispute goes down a slower path, which raises the value of a clearly drafted default and termination clause, and of a dispute resolution provision that suits both sides.

Rent recovery has its own limit. Article 6 provides that rent may be distrained for within one year after the time it becomes due and not afterwards, whether the lease has ended or not.

1. Settle the rent, the review basis, the length of the term, and where insurance and repair duties fall.
2. Fix a definite end date, since a term ending at a certain time takes the tenancy outside § 37-6-5.
3. If you want a different notice period, or none, say so by special agreement — the section yields to it.
4. Draft the default and termination clause carefully, given that the summary route is unavailable.
5. Execute the lease and note who may be served on each side, including anyone holding under the tenant.

Article 6 supplies notice and little else, so a West Virginia commercial lease agreement carries the rest:

• Legal names of landlord and tenant, and the entity behind each signature.
• A description of the premises and any yard, dock, or parking taken with it.
• Rent, when it falls due, and the basis for any increase.
• A term ending at a certain time, plus renewal rights.
• Any special agreement on the notice period, stated expressly.
• Default, cure, and termination provisions, and how a dispute will be resolved.
• The division of rates, insurance premiums, utility charges, and repair liability.