§ 8.01-271.2.(Effective January 1, 2027) Signing of pleadings, motions, and other papers in consumer debt collection proceedings.

Section 8.01-271.2 layers an extra disclosure requirement onto consumer debt collection lawsuits, on top of the general signing rules in § 8.01-271.1. In any civil action to collect or enforce a consumer debt, the attorney of record must include, in the initial pleading and every later filing, the attorney’s name, business address, and business telephone number, contact information where the court and the consumer, or the consumer’s own attorney, can reach the attorney directly. A summons does not count as the “initial pleading” for this purpose.

The section borrows its enforcement mechanism from § 8.01-271.1’s signature-defect framework. A pleading that does not comply is defective and voidable. If the defect is not timely and properly cured after being brought to the pleader’s or movant’s attention, the pleading is invalid and must be stricken. As with an ordinary signature defect, the pleader gets 21 days to cure it once it is flagged, and a timely, properly cured defect relates back to the date the paper was originally served or filed.

“Consumer debt” gets its own definition here: an obligation, or alleged obligation, of an individual to pay money arising from a transaction where the money, property, insurance, or service involved was primarily for a personal, family, or household purpose, the standard line separating consumer debt from commercial or business debt.