Virginia Hotel Laws
- Hotels are service-based businesses and have specific responsibilities concerning the safety and well being of guests and guests' property. Hotels also have responsibilities concerning their staff members while those staff members are on hotel property or grounds. In the state of Virginia, hotels are regulated by a number of legal codes.
- Hotel owners' liability is covered by Virginia Code 35.1-28. Hotel owners and operators must ensure that they employ only competent and honest people to work in the hotel. However, the hotel is only liable for losses up to a maximum of $300 for any items stolen from a guest's room. The law allows for valuable items to be deposited in the hotel office. The hotel is liable for the full cost of any items stolen after they have been deposited within the hotel office for safekeeping, and the hotel must post notices in guest rooms informing all guests of this liability.
- In order to own, operate and manage of a hotel in Virginia, the state requires the owner, operator or manager to be licensed. Licenses are only issued to persons owning the hotel, or the lessee of a property to be operated as a hotel. Virginia code 35.1-8 governs the requirement for a hotel proprietor to hold a valid license, and further states that a license cannot be issued to a hotel that has on any part of its premises, a nudist camp for juveniles, defined as being an area where juveniles are openly nude, and no parent or grandparent is present at the hotel.
- While it is not the case that the state mandates the installation of smoke detectors in hotels and motels, Virginia code 15.2-922 grants localities within the state the ability to require that smoke detectors are installed. All smoke detectors must comply with the State Building Code, and can be powered by mains electricity or batteries. For the purposes of this code, hotels and motels are defined as offering or intending to be used to provide overnight accommodations for one person or more.