COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA UNPUBLISHED
Present: Judges Fulton, Ortiz and Lorish Argued at Norfolk, Virginia
JILL GENDERS MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY v. Record No. 0137-24-1 JUDGE LISA M. LORISH SEPTEMBER 16, 2025 ROPE LANE, LLC
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF VIRGINIA BEACH Steven C. Frucci, Judge1
Brandon L. Ballard (Elizabeth J. Davis; Legal Aid Society of Eastern Virginia, on brief), for appellant.
No brief or argument for appellee.
Jill Genders appeals from the circuit court’s order awarding judgment and possession to
Rope Lane, her former landlord, after Rope Lane filed an unlawful detainer. The crux of the case is
whether Rope Lane was allowed to give notice of termination of the lease through certified mail.
Genders argues that certified mail was not permitted under the Virginia Residential Landlord and
Tenant Act (VRLTA), so the court erred in finding that Rope Lane had satisfied the notice
requirement. We affirm the circuit court because Genders conceded that certified mail was
permissible under the terms of her lease with Rope Lane, waiving any argument to the contrary on
appeal, and nothing in the VRLTA prohibits the parties from agreeing to alternate forms of notice.
* This opinion is not designated for publication. See Code § 17.1-413(A). 1 Judge Westbrook J. Parker presided over the motion to require rent to be escrowed. Judge Steven C. Frucci presided over the unlawful detainer trial prior to his election to this Court. Because we reach this conclusion, we need not evaluate the court’s finding in the alternative that
Genders’s good faith defenses failed to satisfy the requirements of Code § 55.1-1242.
BACKGROUND
On August 17, 2020, Jill Genders signed a residential lease at 3809 Rope Lane in Virginia
Beach, Virginia with Rope Lane, LLC. The lease commenced on August 29, 2020, with a monthly
rent of $1,400. Either party was authorized to terminate the tenancy by “giving the other party
written notice at least Thirty (30) days before the end of such Term.” The lease provided that “[i]f
no such notice of termination is given, the . . . lease shall be extended for self-renewing terms of
month to month duration until either party gives notice to terminate . . . unless [the] Lease is
terminated in accordance with any other applicable provision of [the] Lease or Virginia law.” The
lease also provided that, “[a]ll notices shall be provided in writing and may be given by regular mail
or hand delivery, with the party giving notice retaining a certificate of mailing or delivery of the
notice as the case may be.”
In early 2023, Genders noticed physical defects in the home and contacted the city of
Virginia Beach about them in February 2023. In April, Genders filed a tenant’s assertion in the
General District Court of the City of Virginia Beach because the issues had not been resolved. She
paid her monthly rent into the court’s escrow account from April to July of 2023 while the assertion
was pending.2
On May 23, 2023, Rope Lane sent a “Notice to Quit” to Genders’s residence by certified
mail. The notice stated that her tenancy “is hereby terminated as of June 30, 2023” and that she
would be required to vacate by that date. The notice also clarified that it “is intended as a thirty . . .
2 Pursuant to Code § 55.1-1244(B)(2), the tenant making the assertion must show that she “has paid into court the amount of rent called for under the rental agreement, within five days of the date due under the rental agreement, unless or until such amount is modified by subsequent order of the court under this chapter.” -2 - day legal notice for purposes of recovering possession of the property . . . in accordance with the
[VRLTA §] 55-248.37.”3 But Genders was not home at the time the notice was delivered. As such,
USPS left a “Certified Mail Receipt” indicating that it attempted delivery of a piece of certified mail
and that she could pick it up at the post office. The note did not say who sent the certified mail or
what it contained. The envelope containing the notice was eventually marked as “unclaimed” and
“return[ed] to sender” on July 12, 2023.
Rope Lane filed an unlawful detainer action in the general district court in July 2023 based
on Genders’s failure to vacate the property after non-renewal and her alleged nonpayment of rent
from April through July of that year. On August 22, the district court heard both Genders’s tenant’s
assertion and Rope Lane’s unlawful detainer action. The court dismissed the tenant’s assertion and
ruled in favor of Rope Lane on the unlawful detainer, awarding Rope Lane possession of the
property and the amount of rent that had been held in escrow. Genders appealed to the circuit court.
On October 19, 2023, while Genders’s appeal was pending, Rope Lane filed a “complaint
for [an] unlawful detainer” in the circuit court on the grounds that Genders was “unlawfully
withholding possession,” seeking an order of possession and damages incurred “[a]s a result of
[Genders] holding over and failing to vacate the premises after the termination of the rental term.”
Rope Lane sought 150% of Genders’s monthly rent due from September to November 2023 in the
amount of $6,300, and attorney fees and court costs in the amount of $7,653.53. Genders did not
pay rent into escrow from September to December of 2023, the months during which the unlawful
detainer was pending in the circuit court.
On November 27, Genders appeared at trial and requested a continuance. The trial was
rescheduled for December 22. In response to Genders’s request for the continuance, and pursuant to
3 Code § 55-248.37 is the prior version of Code § 55.1-1253, which governs termination of periodic tenancies and holdover remedies. See 2013 Va. Acts ch. 563. -3 - Code § 55.1-1242, Rope Lane moved the circuit court to order Genders to pay $5,600 (four-months’
rent) into escrow, and to award Rope Lane possession of the premises if she failed to pay the
requisite amount within one week.
On December 15, 2023, the circuit court held a hearing on Rope Lane’s motion for rent to
be escrowed. At this hearing, Genders and Rope Lane only proffered evidence and did not call
witnesses. The court ordered Genders to pay $5,600 into escrow within one week of the order, by
noon on December 22. If she failed to pay, the court warned that it would “enter judgment” and an
order of possession in Rope Lane’s favor. Genders objected to the order “for the reasons stated at
the hearing on [December 15] and because requiring rent escrow after [she] asserted good faith
defenses expressly violates section 55.1-1242 of the Code of Virginia.”
On December 18, Genders filed a motion to reconsider the court’s order requiring her to pay
four months’ rent into escrow because she had asserted “good faith defense[s]” within the meaning
of Code § 55.1-1242. Specifically, Genders asserted that (1) she was never served with a lease
termination notice and (2) “any act to terminate [her] tenancy was a retaliatory act” under
§ 55.1-1258. On notice, Genders attached a picture of the envelope, containing the notice to quit,
that stated that the notice sent by certified mail went unclaimed, as well as an image of the USPS
tracking information showing that the envelope had been “return[ed] to sender.”4 Genders asserted
that, to terminate a month-to-month tenancy under Code § 55.1-1253(A), a landlord must serve a
written notice at least 30 days before the next payment of rent is due, and Rope Lane had failed to
4 Genders did not proffer the envelope to the court during the December 15 hearing because Rope Lane maintained possession of it before the hearing. Additionally, during the hearing, opposing counsel only allowed her to see the envelope’s exterior, not the enclosed notice itself. -4 - do so here. Thus, she argued that because the court relied on “incorrect facts”5—that Genders
purportedly “refused” to accept the notice—in declining to find that she had asserted lack of notice
as a “good faith defense,” the court should vacate its order and allow her to present evidence “even
if she is unable to pay the rent escrow prior to the hearing on December 22, 2023.” On retaliation,
Genders contended that even if Rope Lane had sent a notice, its decision to terminate the lease
would be prohibited under Code § 55.1-1258(B) because such an action would be retaliatory toward
her tenant’s assertion motion. The court denied her motion to reconsider.
On the morning of December 22, 2023, the day by which Genders was ordered to pay four
months’ rent into escrow, the unlawful detainer went to trial in the circuit court. At trial, Rope
Lane’s property manager, Helen Merjos, testified that the notice to quit was sent to Genders on May
23, 2023 by certified mail. Merjos admitted that she was aware that the notice had been returned to
sender. Genders testified that she never received a notice that her lease was being terminated. She
did, however, acknowledge receipt of the note from USPS saying that it had attempted delivery of a
piece of certified mail and that she could pick it up at the post office. According to Genders, the
first time she learned about the unlawful detainer action was when the general district court heard
her tenant’s assertion in August 2023. Genders also testified that at the general district court trial,
she only saw the envelope that allegedly contained the notice; the first time she saw the notice itself
was that day in the circuit court, when Rope Lane introduced it into evidence.
Rope Lane then called one of the principals of Rope Lane, LLC, William Harris, who
testified that he sought to terminate Genders’s tenancy due to his deteriorating health and resulting
need to sell the property. Finally, Lisa Rayburn, the code enforcement inspector for the city of
5 At the December 15 hearing, Rope Lane “asserted that it had sent a termination notice to [Genders] and that [she] had refused to accept it.” Genders argued that this was false and that she did not receive the notice that was sent to her by certified mail because she was not home when USPS tried to deliver it. Although USPS left a note for Genders to reschedule delivery of an item addressed to her, the notice to quit was returned to Rope Lane when she failed to do so. -5 - Virginia Beach, testified that several months earlier, the property had numerous violations of the
building code. She said that, upon reinspection, numerous items had been repaired prior to, or on,
May 25, 2023.
During argument, Rope Lane asserted that Genders’s refusal to pick up her certified mail
could not be a defense to her failure to receive notice of lease termination. Rope Lane also
contended that Genders had known that Rope Lane intended to terminate the lease since at least the
initial filing of the unlawful detainer and therefore could not argue that she did not have notice.
On the notice issue, the court concluded that “notice was given in writing . . . it was
unclaimed. It was not rejected.” Instead, it found that Genders “didn’t want to go pick it up. She
knew about it, but she did not want to pick it up.” The court found that the rationale given for not
picking up the notice—that she has anxiety and did not want to go into the post office—was not
“credible” because she was willing to go to the bank to get certified funds to pay rent. Although the
court found that “the notice that was given was adequate,” and that Rope Lane was therefore
entitled to judgment, it also offered an alternative basis for its ruling. “In the alternative,” the court
found that “the defendant ha[d] not complied with Judge Parker’s ruling” because it was “clear from
her testimony and from the posture of this case that she [wa]s not going to pay the . . . $5,600
[pursuant to § 55.1-1242].” As part of that finding, the court ruled that the defenses raised against
paying rent into escrow were not “in good faith,” stating, “I don’t find either one of them to be
persuasive, so I think that 55.1-1242 did apply.” The court awarded Rope Lane possession and the
four months of rent in escrow, in addition to $2,500 in fees and $67 in court costs. Genders filed a
motion to reconsider, arguing that the notice by certified mail was contrary to the VRLTA because
-6 - it only authorized notice by “regular mail or hand delivery.” The court denied her motion to
reconsider.6 Genders now appeals.
ANALYSIS
Genders assigns error to the circuit court’s decision to grant Rope Lane a judgment of
possession. She first argues that Rope Lane’s “method of serving the termination notice—certified
mail—was not an authorized means of service under the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant
Act” and, second, that Rope Lane “failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that
Appellee gave or served the termination notice” to Genders before instituting an unlawful detainer
action. She urges this Court to reverse the circuit court’s award of possession, attorney fees, costs,
and past due rent. We disagree because the lease, not VRLTA, determines permissible forms of
service in this case. And because both Genders and Rope Lane agreed below that the lease
agreement permits the use of certified mail, the circuit court’s finding that Rope Lane satisfied the
notice requirement to proceed with the unlawful detainer is not without support.
A. VRLTA does not prohibit the use of certified mail as a method of delivering notice of termination, and thus, parties may contract to use it.
“Whether a lower court has correctly defined and applied a legal standard is a question of
law reviewed de novo,” Alexandria City Pub. Sch. v. Handel, 299 Va. 191, 196 (2020), as are
6 After the court denied Genders’s motion to reconsider, she filed a proposed statement of facts of the December 15 hearing along with the notice required by Rule 5A:8 that the statement of facts must be presented to the trial court “no earlier than 15 days nor later than 20 days” after the day of filing. On February 20, 2024, Rope Lane filed a written statement of facts of the hearing held on December 15, 2023. Rope Lane’s statement did not include the accompanying notice that “such statement will be presented to the trial judge no earlier than 15 days nor later than 20 days after such filing.” On February 22, Judge Parker signed Rope Lane’s statement of facts and rejected Genders’s statement of facts. Genders then filed a motion to reconsider its decision to sign Rope Lane’s statement of facts based on the lack of notice attached to it and filed a notice of objections based on alleged inaccuracies. She also argued that Rope Lane missed the 15-day window for filing objections to a proposed statement of facts and should not have been able to assert a competing statement of facts summarizing the same hearing. The court denied her motion. -7 - “issues of statutory interpretation,” Taylor v. Commonwealth, 77 Va. App. 149, 162, (2023).
“When the language of a statute is unambiguous, we are bound by its plain meaning.” Conyers
v. Martial Arts World of Richmond, Inc., 273 Va. 96, 104 (2007). “In interpreting [a] statute,
‘courts apply the plain meaning . . . unless the terms are ambiguous or applying the plain
language would lead to an absurd result.’” Taylor v. Commonwealth, 298 Va. 336, 341 (2020)
(alterations in original) (quoting Baker v. Commonwealth, 284 Va. 572, 576 (2012)).
The VRLTA sets default rules for the landlord-tenant relationship. Genders argues that
“VRLTA plainly sets forth the only permissible forms of serving notices, none of which are
certified mail.” But Code § 55.1-1204(A) specifically permits parties to a lease to “include in a
rental agreement terms and conditions not prohibited by this chapter or other rule of law,
including . . . requirements for notice of intent to vacate or terminate the rental agreement, and
other provisions governing the rights and obligations of the parties.” (Emphasis added). Since
parties are expressly allowed to include other conditions for “requirements for notice of intent to
vacate or terminate the rental agreement,” the question is whether the VRLTA otherwise
prohibits the parties from agreeing to use certified mail for these purposes.
Genders points to nothing in the VRLTA that prohibits parties from agreeing to use
certified mail, and we cannot find anything either. The VRLTA defines “notice” and “written
notice” as follows:
“Notice” means notice given in writing by either regular mail or hand delivery, with the sender retaining sufficient proof of having given such notice in the form of a certificate of service confirming such mailing prepared by the sender. However, a person shall be deemed to have notice of a fact if he has actual knowledge of it, he has received a verbal notice of it, or, from all of the facts and circumstances known to him at the time in question, he has reason to know it exists. A person “notifies” or “gives” a notice or notification to another by taking steps reasonably calculated to inform another person, whether or not the other person actually comes to know of it. If notice is given that is not in writing, the
-8 - person giving the notice has the burden of proof to show that the notice was given to the recipient of the notice. Code § 55.1-1200.
Although Code § 55.1-1200 requires notice to be given by regular mail or hand delivery
as a baseline, it does not prohibit parties from agreeing to additional or different notice
requirements.
Other portions of the VRLTA, by contrast, expressly state that landlords or tenants “shall
not” agree to certain things. For example, “[a] rental agreement shall not contain provisions that
the tenant: 1. Agrees to waive or forgo rights or remedies under this chapter.” Code
§ 55.1-1208(A)(1). There is no similar prohibitive language about how notices may be
delivered. Given the VRLTA’s specific provision allowing parties to agree to different terms
about the receipt of notices of termination, we assume the General Assembly would have been
express if it intended to take a particular form of service off the bargaining table entirely. See
Turner v. Commonwealth, 295 Va. 104, 109 (2018) (explaining that, when interpreting a statute,
we “presume that, in choosing the words of the statute, ‘the General Assembly acted with full
knowledge of the law in the area in which it dealt’” (quoting Philip Morris v. The Chesapeake
Bay Found., 273 Va. 564, 576 (2007))).
For these reasons, we reject Genders’s first argument—that the court erred because the
certified mail was not an authorized means of service under VRLTA.
B. Genders waived any argument that certified mail was not permitted by the lease agreement here.
Having established that VRLTA does not prohibit the parties from agreeing to allow
service of notice by certified mail, the next question would naturally be whether the parties in
fact agreed to the use of certified mail in their lease agreement. Had Genders argued that the
lease’s notice provision did not permit certified mail, this Court would be obligated to review the
-9 - lease de novo to determine whether it authorized certified mail.7 But Genders argued below, and
on appeal, that certified mail was generally allowed under the lease but that the VRLTA
nevertheless required any means of service to be “reasonably calculated” to reach its intended
recipient. Indeed, when the circuit court asked, “So [Rope Lane] can use certified mail if they
want to because it’s in writing,” referring to the lease, Genders responded with “Yes.”
The mere fact that Genders advanced a legal argument about the notice provision of the
lease is not what requires this Court to adopt that position on appeal. A concession of law is not
binding because we “do not allow parties to define Virginia law by their concessions.” Daily
Press, Inc. v. Commonwealth, 285 Va. 447, 454 n.6 (2013). But here “we are dealing with a
‘concession of law that qualifies . . . as a waiver.’” Commonwealth v. Holman, 303 Va. 62, 75
7 We note that the lease agreement requires that the termination notice be in writing and states that the parties “may” give notice by “regular mail or hand delivery.” As we have explained elsewhere, the word “may” must be interpreted in context; it sometimes sets forth non-exclusive options, but at other times limits the parties to the options that follow. See, e.g., Rose v. Commonwealth, 53 Va. App. 505, 514 (2009) (“[T]he use of the disjunctive word ‘or,’ rather than the conjunctive ‘and,’ signifies the availability of alternative choices.” (alteration in original) (quoting Lewis v. Commonwealth, 267 Va. 302, 314-15 (2004))); see also Yukon Pocahontas Coal Co. v. Ratliff, 181 Va. 195, 203 (1943) (Under the negative-implication cannon, expressio unius est exclusio alterius, when “a[n] [instrument] covers particular or express matters, the intention may be inferred to exclude other subjects which the general words of the [instrument] may have been sufficient to include.”). Certified mail is of a different category than regular mail or hand delivery. Instead, it is an extra service of USPS “that provides the sender with a mailing receipt, tracking history, and, upon request, electronic verification that a mail piece was delivered or that a delivery attempt was made.” United States Postal Service Certified Mail Guidebook 3 (May 2024). The person to whom the mail piece is addressed must sign for the item to complete the delivery, otherwise the parcel is delivered back to the post office, and ultimately returned to the sender. Id. Because certified mail requires actual receipt and a signature for delivery, it is less effective for notice purposes. Jones v. Flowers, 547 U.S. 220, 235 (2006) (explaining that “the use of certified mail might make actual notice less likely in some cases—the letter cannot be left like regular mail to be examined at the end of the day, and it can only be retrieved from the post office for a specified period of time”). Therefore, there may have been good reason for Genders and Rope Lane to agree that written notice may only be provided by regular mail or hand delivery—methods calculated to achieve delivery, regardless of whether the intended recipient is available to receive it—but we leave the interpretation of this type of lease language for another case given the waiver here. - 10 - (2024) (alteration in original) (quoting Butcher v. Commonwealth, 298 Va. 392, 395 (2020)).
Holman recently addressed this distinction in detail:
This principle [that the court is not bound by a party’s concession of law] must be distinguished . . . from an appellant’s concession of law that qualifies either as a waiver for purposes of Rule 5A:18 or as an express withdrawal of an appellate challenge to a trial court judgment. In either scenario, we may accept the concession — not as a basis for deciding the contested issue of law, but as a basis for not deciding it.
303 Va. at 75 (alterations in original) (quoting Logan v. Commonwealth, 47 Va. App. 168, 172
n.4 (2005) (en banc)). In essence, “[w]hat is true for a waiver under Rule 5A:18 or when counsel
expressly withdraws an appellate challenge to a trial court judgment is no less true of a litigant
who seeks to approbate and reprobate.” Id. Below, Genders’s counsel determined—for better or
worse—that their best strategy was to argue that certified mail was impermissible under the
VRLTA. To that end, counsel chose not to contest whether that was a permissible method of
notice under the terms of the lease and, in fact, conceded the opposite. And, in so doing, counsel
prevented the court from intelligently ruling on that issue, thereby “waiving” their ability to raise
that argument on appeal. Thus, “[t]he approbate and reprobate doctrine [would] preclude[]
[Genders] from” arguing that certified mail is a permissible method of delivering notice on
appeal, so it is not an argument we could take up on our own. Id. at 76.
Having determined that the VRLTA does not prohibit the parties from agreeing to use
certified mail for notice, and that Genders conceded that the lease allowed certified mail, we turn
now to whether the circuit court erred in finding that Rope Lane proved by a preponderance of the
evidence that it provided notice of termination consistent with the requirements of the lease.
C. The circuit court did not err in finding that Rope Lane provided proper notice under the terms of the lease.
Although “[w]e . . . review the circuit court’s application of law to undisputed facts de
novo,” “[t]he circuit court’s findings of fact . . . will not be disturbed unless they are plainly wrong - 11 - or without supporting evidence.” Bistro Manila, LLC v. Alvah I LLC, 83 Va. App. 300, 313 (2025)
(alterations in original) (quoting Chamberlain v. Marshall Auto & Truck Ctr., Inc., 293 Va. 238,
242 (2017)).
The notice provision of the lease requires notices to be “provided in writing and may be
given by regular mail or hand delivery, with the party giving notice retaining a certificate of mailing
or delivery of the notice as the case may be.” As set out above, the parties agreed that certified mail
qualified as a notice “provided in writing.”
The undisputed facts here are that Rope Lane sent a notice of termination by certified
mail to Genders. Rope Lane retained a certified mail receipt date stamped on May 26, 2023.
But because Genders was not home at the time of delivery, USPS left her a notice advising her to
go to the post office to retrieve the piece of mail.
The parties agree that Genders did not actually receive a copy of the notice of termination
until after the unlawful detainer action commenced. Genders argues that, because she did not
actually receive the notice, Rope Lane failed to meet its burden to show the notice was sent
before filing for an unlawful detainer.8 But the lease does not require any evidence that the
notice was actually received, only that it was actually sent. Although Genders argues that the
VRLTA requires actual notice, as we have established, its provisions do not apply here because
the parties agreed to different notice provisions in their lease. But even if the VRLTA did apply, the
language of the lease agreement closely mirrors its provisions. Cf. Code § 55.1-1200 (requiring a
8 Because Genders argued that the VRLTA requires the intended recipient to have actual notice of lease termination (regardless of the lease provisions), the court concluded that Genders had, or should have had, actual notice, and granted the unlawful detainer. Although Genders argued that her failure to get the mail from the post office does not absolve Rope Lane from providing notice, the court discredited her arguments that she does “not go to the post office” because she has “severe anxiety” and does not “go into crowded places,” because she was willing to go to the bank to get certified checks to pay rent. We do not review these findings because the only question is whether the service of notice complied with the lease, which does not require any evidence showing that Genders received the notice—only that it was sent. - 12 - certificate of service, not proof of actual receipt). Furthermore, the VRLTA defines “notifies” and
“gives” notice to include “taking steps reasonably calculated to inform another person, whether or
not the other person actually comes to know of it.” Id.
Rope Lane satisfied the notice requirements of the lease by presenting sufficient evidence
that it sent written notice of termination of Genders’s month-to-month lease in May of 2023.
Therefore, we affirm the circuit court’s decision to grant Rope Lane possession.
Lastly, we address whether the court erred in imposing attorney fees and court costs. “[W]e
review a trial court’s decision to award attorney fees incurred prior to an appeal under the
deferential abuse of discretion standard.” Sobol v. Sobol, 74 Va. App. 252, 288 (2022). A landlord
may bring an action for possession against a tenant who remains in possession “after expiration
of the term of the rental agreement or its termination” without the landlord’s consent. Code
§ 55.1-1253(C). If the landlord succeeds, he “may also recover actual damages, reasonable
attorney fees, and court costs, unless the tenant proves by a preponderance of the evidence that
the failure of the tenant to vacate the dwelling unit as of the termination date was reasonable.”
Id. We cannot say that the court’s decision to give reasonable attorney fees of $2,500 was an abuse
of discretion as it was a small percentage of the unpaid rent.
In sum, because VRLTA did not prohibit the use of certified mail, and Rope Lane provided
notice to Genders according to the agreed upon terms of the lease, the circuit court did not err in
awarding judgment to Rope Lane.
The circuit court made an alternative finding that Rope Lane was also entitled to an order
of possession because Genders failed to make required payments into escrow during the
pendency of the litigation and lacked any good faith defense to excuse her nonpayment. By
statute, after a landlord “has filed an unlawful detainer action seeking possession of the
premises,” if the tenant is seeking a contested trial, the tenant must pay an amount equal to the
- 13 - monthly rental payment into escrow each month. Code § 55.1-1242(A). The only exception is
where the “tenant asserts a good faith defense,” in which case “the court shall not require the rent
to be escrowed.” Id. If the tenant fails to “pay future rents due under the rental agreement into
the court escrow account, the court shall, upon request of the landlord, enter judgment for the
landlord and enter an order of possession of the premises.” Code § 55.1-1242(C).
Because we affirm the circuit court’s order of possession for the unlawful detainer action,
we do not address Genders’s assignment of error challenging the court’s conclusion that an order
of possession was also warranted because Genders lacked a good faith defense to justify her
nonpayment of required funds into escrow. See Commonwealth v. White, 293 Va. 411, 498
(2017) (This Court decides cases “on the best and narrowest grounds available.” (quoting
Commonwealth v. Swann, 290 Va. 194, 196 (2015) (per curiam))). Likewise, we do not address
whether there was reversible error in certifying an alternative statement of facts by Rope Lane
regarding the December 15 hearing as it pertains only to this alternative holding from the circuit
court.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the circuit court’s judgment.
Affirmed.
- 14 -