§ 8.01-130.9.On what terms purchasers and lienors inferior to landlord may remove goods; certain liens not affected.

Section 8.01-130.9 protects a landlord’s priority against people who acquire an interest in the tenant’s goods after the tenancy starts. If a lien is created by deed of trust, mortgage, or otherwise on goods sitting on the leased premises, or if those goods are sold, the lienholder or purchaser can remove them only on specific terms: paying the landlord whatever rent is already in arrears, and securing whatever rent is still to come, up to a combined cap of six months’ rent for premises in a city or town, in a residential subdivision, or otherwise used residentially rather than for farming, and up to twelve months’ rent where the land is used for farming or agriculture.

When the goods are taken under legal process rather than sold privately, the officer executing that process handles the payment directly: arrears come out of the sale proceeds, and for rent still to become due, the officer sells enough of the goods on credit, taking bonds with good security from the purchasers and delivering those bonds to the landlord. Where no legal process is involved, the payment and security have to be arranged before the goods are removed at all. None of this touches liens for taxes, levies, or militia fines, which keep whatever priority they already had.

The section closes with a rule about how tenancies without a fixed term are counted. A monthly or weekly tenancy is not treated as a fresh lease for every month or week the tenant stays — it counts as a continuation of the original lease for as long as the tenant keeps occupying the property without signing a new written lease, which keeps the six- and twelve-month caps anchored to the original tenancy rather than resetting with every rent period.