Virginia's New Deed Fraud Prevention Legislation: What Real Estate Practitioners Need to Know

In the 2026 session, the Virginia General Assembly passed HB 163 and SB 316 to reduce deed fraud, and the bills now await Governor Spanberger’s signature. If enacted, the legislation will require seller identity verification steps for settlement agents, mandate new journal keeping requirements for all Virginia notaries (not just electronic notaries), and implement pre-commission and re-commission education requirements for notaries, with key provisions taking effect July 1, 2026 and additional requirements rolling out July 1, 2027.

Legislative Backdrop: The Deed Fraud Study and 2026 Action

In its 2025 legislative session, the Virginia General Assembly directed the Virginia Housing Development Authority to convene a technical advisory group to evaluate the prevalence of deed fraud in the Commonwealth and to develop prevention recommendations. 

The resulting Virginia Deed Fraud Study was submitted to the General Assembly on November 1, 2025.  In its 2026 session, the General Assembly acted on several of the group’s recommendations by passing companion bills — HB 163 and SB 316 — that implement several of the high-priority recommendations.  These bills are awaiting Governor Spanberger’s signature. It is expected that the legislation will be signed into law with staggered effective dates in 2026 and 2027. 

When signed, the legislation will amend provisions of Titles 17.1 (related to enhanced clerk-run property alert systems), Title 47.1 (related to notary education, duty-of-care and recordkeeping requirements), and Title 55.1 (settlement agent responsibility for seller identity verification).  Several of the provisions will affect real estate practitioners and their staff as well as other real estate professionals. 

New Requirements for Virginia Notaries: Education, Journals, and Seals

• Education (eff. 7/1/27): Virginia will, for the first time, require formal education and testing for notaries as a condition of commissioning and recommissioning (currently 18 states and the District of Columbia have mandatory notarial education of some sort). The course is to be developed (or approved) by the Secretary of the Commonwealth and rolled out by January 1, 2027, and is to focus on notarial laws, best practices and procedures and verification of identity with 1 hour dedicated to real estate fraud and financial exploitation of older adults. 
• New notary commissions – 4 hour pre-commission course and examination within 6 months before application (new §47.1-5.2)
• Recommissions – 2 hour re-commission course and examination within 6 months before re-commission application (new §47.1-5.2)
• Notary Journal (eff. 7/1/26): All notaries, not just electronic notaries, must maintain a notary journal for at least five years from the date of the notarial act. The journal is to include: (i) date and time of day of notarial act; (ii) type of act; (iii) description of document or proceeding; (iv) printed name and address of each principal; (v) evidence of the identity of each principal (including if principal personally known); and (vi) any fee charged. (amendment to §47.1-14)
• Notary Seal (eff. 7/1/27): Notary must provide proof of commission prior to obtaining notary seal. In addition, both the notary and the seal vendor or manufacturer must retain proof of commission for at least five years (new 47.1-8.1)
• Personal Knowledge: Notably, although early drafts of SB 316 would have eliminated personal knowledge as a standalone identification method, the current text retains it. See 'Recommendations Not Adopted' below for further discussion.

Settlement Agents’ Statutory Duty to Verify Seller Identity (eff. 7/1/26)

In addition to their existing statutory settlement duties, the new legislation imposes a duty on settlement agents to, prior to settlement, exercise ordinary care to reasonably ascertain the identity of a seller of real property.  (new §55.1-903(A)).  The statute identifies some methods of exercising ordinary care:

• Obtaining satisfactory evidence of identity (as defined in §47.1-2) including examination of an unexpired United States Passport Book or Card, a foreign passport, a state issued driver’s license or a state issued identification card or United States Military card
• Requiring multiple forms of photo identification
• Obtaining a written statement from seller’s attorney that they have reasonably ascertained the identity of the seller of the real property
• Reviewing the land records for the subject property
• Comparing signatures
• Performing a credit check
• Asking detailed questions about the subject property

If the settlement agent utilizes any of the methods identified in subsection (A) listed above, §55.1-903(C) provides that the settlement agent shall not be liable for any act or omission resulting from their reliance on such information in moving forward with the settlement so long as the settlement agent did not have actual knowledge that the information provided was false or the act or omission was not the result of the settlement agent’s gross negligence or willful misconduct.

Electronic Filing Notification from Clerk (eff. 7/1/27)

Though several Clerk’s Offices with an electronic land records filing system currently offer a similar service, the new legislation mandates that circuit court clerks with electronic land records filing systems establish a “property alert electronic notification system” which allows an individual, at no cost, to enroll their real property so that they are notified when any document purporting to affect the enrolled real property, enrolled name or the tax identification number is filed in the electronic land records.  The notification is to include the instrument number, the instrument type and the recording date of the filed documents, as well as the name or tax identification number in the filed document.  The clerk is also to provide real property owners with information about the availability of the notification system and with education information on real estate and deed fraud.

Recommendations Not Adopted

There were several recommendations suggested in the Virginia Deed Fraud Study that were not adopted.  Among those are:

• Enhanced or strengthened identification processes by notaries. Notably, an early draft of the Senate bill eliminated the notary’s personal knowledge of a person as an acceptable standalone identification method. This has been changed in subsequent drafts, but it is worth mentioning that the summary of SB316 still reflects that personal knowledge of identity is removed as a method by which a notary public may identify an individual.
• The Study recommended several requirements be placed upon real estate agents, including that real estate agents be tasked with verifying seller identification prior to listing (or prior to entering into the brokerage agreement), checking the real estate tax records regarding ownership, and sending a notice to the owner/seller of the brokerage at the owner’s address of record. None of the agent-level recommendations were adopted – agent representatives on the advisory group were not in favor of implementing these recommendations on feasibility and liability grounds.
• Recommendations which would have provided Circuit Court Clerks with authority to reject instruments suspected of being fraudulent, as well as those requiring Clerk’s to check notarial commissions against a database were not adopted.
• Proposals to enhance security and access to the land records were not adopted.
• Recommendations related to criminal enforcement of deed fraud were not adopted. Among the recommendations were to specifically classify deed fraud as a felony with prison terms, enhanced penalties for repeat offenders, as well as ability to prosecute in multiple jurisdictions (i.e., property location, place of residence of the rightful owner).
• Recommendations related to enhanced remedies for victims of deed fraud were not adopted. Among those suggested remedies were attorney fee awards, statutory damages, restitution, and punitive damages where fraud was malicious or willful.

Key Take Aways and Compliance Planning for 2026-2027

Taken together, the measures adopted in the deed fraud prevention legislation which awaits the Governor’s signature shift significant fraud-prevention responsibility to two actors: notaries, whose training and documentation methods are being elevated and standardized, and settlement agents, who now bear an explicit statutory duty to ascertain seller identity and are afforded a method-based safe harbor if they do so with ordinary care.

The Governor's deadline for action on HB 163 and SB 316 is April 13, 2026, with the General Assembly set to reconvene on April 22 to consider any executive actions, including any proposed amendments. Both bills passed unanimously with broad bipartisan support, and funding for the deed fraud prevention program was included in both chambers' adopted budgets. 

Once the Governor’s review concludes, real estate attorneys and professionals should align their 2026 operational plans with the notary journal and settlement-agent duty changes while preparing for the 2027 notarial education and notary seal requirements.  A summary table of the staggered effective dates for the changes as proposed is below:

If you have any questions, please contact one of our Commercial Real Estate Attorneys.

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