The corporate lapse that did not save the owners

The most legally interesting ground of appeal concerned the association's corporate status. Its charter had lapsed for a period for failure to file annual reports before it reincorporated.

The circuit court granted the association partial summary judgment on the point, holding that “the law's quite clear that [the Association] can operate as a corporation or as an unincorporated entity” and finding as a matter of law that the association is “the same entity which entered into or is an alleged party to the contract with the Schiano[s].”

That reasoning tracks the structure of the Property Owners' Association Act itself. Section 55.1-1800 defines a property owners' association by reference to a recorded declaration and the duties and powers it creates — not by reference to a corporate charter. Incorporation is how most Virginia associations organise themselves; it is not what makes them associations.

Nineteen assignments of error, most of them defaulted

The owners brought nineteen assignments of error. The court disposed of many before reaching their substance: two where the record was insufficient to permit appellate review, four that were not preserved below, and seven that were insufficiently addressed in the opening brief. Six were properly before the court.

That arithmetic is itself the lesson of the case. Thirteen of nineteen arguments were lost on procedure rather than on the merits, and each one still had to be answered by the association's counsel at the association's expense.

How Virginia fee-shifting in assessment cases works

The American Rule — each side bears its own fees — is Virginia's default. It is displaced by contract or by statute. In community association litigation the displacement usually comes from the governing documents, which commonly provide that a delinquent owner pays the association's collection costs and fees.

Where that clause exists and the association prevails, the fee claim is not a discretionary add-on. It is part of the contract the owner is being held to. And because the fee tracks the work actually done rather than the amount in dispute, a defence that multiplies the work multiplies the exposure without any ceiling tied to the underlying debt.

The same pattern, in a second Virginia case

Falkland Farm is not an isolated result. In Gallop v. Cameron Bay Homeowners Association, decided October 14, 2025, the Court of Appeals affirmed four separate circuit court orders awarding a Virginia association appellate attorney fees of $5,364.16, $3,414.66, $3,410.16 and $6,338.32 in a dispute running since 2016.² The circuit court there found that the owner “had asserted several unmeritorious defenses, which 'complicated a very simple case.'”

The conditions that change the answer

This is an unpublished opinion. Under Code § 17.1-413(A) it is not designated for publication, and it does not bind later panels the way a published decision does. It is persuasive, and it is a clear description of how Virginia circuit courts are handling these claims.

Fee-shifting depends on the documents. No contractual or statutory basis, no fee award — the American Rule is the starting point, not the exception.

Reasonableness is still litigated. The owners here got a jury on amount and reasonableness. Expert testimony about prevailing Northern Virginia rates is what answered it.

The amount in controversy does not cap the fee. Nothing in Virginia law ties a contractual fee award to a proportion of the debt.

What to watch next

The Uniform Consumer Debt Default Judgments Act takes effect July 1, 2027 and adds pleading and notice requirements before a default judgment on consumer debt, which includes residential assessments. It regulates the uncontested route. Nothing in it addresses a case like this one, where the owner appears and fights.