What is a road maintenance agreement?
A road maintenance agreement is a recorded private document that assigns upkeep of a shared road or entrance to the owners who use it or to their association. No Virginia statute defines it. VDOT requires one with a shared commercial entrance application, Floyd and Pulaski tie private subdivision roads to a recorded property owners' association, and Carroll requires maintenance responsibility to be disclosed.
Virginia's Code has no entry for the phrase
No Virginia statute defines a road maintenance agreement. There is no section number behind the phrase, so the reliable definition is the one built from the places a rule actually demands a recorded agreement about upkeep.
Three sources demand a recorded arrangement for upkeep: VDOT's rule for a shared commercial entrance, Floyd County's Land Division Ordinance and Pulaski County's Unified Development Ordinance. Read together, they describe the same kind of instrument. It is private, made among owners or through their association rather than with the state. It is recorded, so it sits in the land records beside the plat and the deeds. And it assigns upkeep, which a grant of passage alone may leave unsaid.
Three rules that ask for the agreement in writing
Each requirement has its own trigger and its own place the document has to appear.
| Rule | When it applies | What has to be on record |
|---|---|---|
| VDOT Access Management Regulations, 24VAC30-73-120 | A shared commercial entrance serving adjoining properties | A copy of the owners' recorded agreement to share use of and maintain the entrance, included with the permit application |
| Floyd County Land Division Ordinance | An approved private division road | A property owners' association, completed and recorded before any plat is approved, that owns the road lot and maintains the road in perpetuity |
| Floyd County Land Division Ordinance | Proposed public roads in a division | A POA agreement providing for its legal existence and for road maintenance, and giving the POA power to assess road maintenance fees to owners |
| Pulaski County Unified Development Ordinance | Large lot and standard subdivision lots that rely on a private roadway | A property owners' association maintenance agreement in recordable form, recorded with the subdivision plat |
All new property owners relying on the private roadway for access shall form a property owner's association for the maintenance and upkeep of the roadway. The property owner's association maintenance agreement shall be in a recordable form and shall be recorded with the subdivision plat.
Pulaski County Unified Development Ordinance, amended July 27, 2025
VDOT's version is narrower than it first sounds. It sits in the commercial entrance design rules, where a shared entrance between adjacent owners is the preferred method of access, and the recorded-agreement requirement is written for a shared commercial entrance. When two home sites share one driveway, the entrance class and what VDOT asks for are a separate matter, taken up in whether two parcels can share a driveway.
Carroll writes the upkeep into the deed instead
Carroll County's posted subdivision ordinance does not ask for a document by that name. For Class B and Class C subdivisions it asks that the answer to the maintenance question be disclosed in writing at several points in a sale.
Its Class B subdivisions, intended primarily for non-primary recreational dwellings, have streets that are not built to VDOT standards or maintained by VDOT or public funds, and the developer or a homeowners association maintains them. For Class B and Class C streets the developer has to disclose the exact type of right-of-way, street or road, the method of maintenance and whose responsibility it is, three ways: in marketing material, in a written notice the purchaser acknowledges at closing, and by reference in the deed. Any advertisement of a subdivided tract must also state who maintains the streets.
Where the streets are not to be built to VDOT standards and taken into the VDOT system, the plat and every deed conveying a parcel carry a statement that the streets are below VDOT's acceptance standard and that maintenance and improvement costs belong to the landowners or others, not to public funds administered by VDOT or the county. The ordinance is specific about how that statement is printed.
These statements must be in type as large as or larger than the main body of the deed and must be included in each subsequent deed of conveyance.
Carroll County subdivision ordinance, county-hosted copy with April 14, 2014 amendments
In those Carroll subdivisions, then, the maintenance answer travels with each deed, whether or not a separate agreement was ever signed. Whether those streets had to meet state standards in the first place is answered in whether subdivision roads have to meet VDOT standards.
The plat statement rules out the state; the agreement names the keeper
An agreement rarely stands alone in the land records. It sits beside other recorded papers, and each one answers a different question.
- The plat statement. Floyd and Pulaski plats with lots on a private road must state that the roads do not meet state standards and will not be maintained by VDOT or the county. Floyd's statement stops there, ruling out the public keepers without naming a private one; Pulaski's goes on to make the private owners entirely responsible for maintenance, repairs and improvements.
- The easement. An easement or right-of-way grant gives a parcel the right to cross other land. Whether it also says anything about upkeep depends on how it was written.
- The covenants. Where an association keeps the road, its duties may sit in a recorded declaration rather than a stand-alone agreement. The entry on restrictive covenants and the guide to covenants and HOAs explain those documents.
When none of these papers names a keeper, the question becomes who maintains a private road with nothing recorded, and the life of such a road from its first plat to any public acceptance is traced in private roads and maintenance agreements.
A road maintenance agreement on land you are selling or buying?
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Questions this raises
Does a road maintenance agreement have to be recorded to count?
Where a rule requires one, the rule requires it recorded. VDOT asks for a copy of the owners' recorded agreement with a shared commercial entrance application, Pulaski requires the association's maintenance agreement in recordable form and recorded with the plat, and Floyd requires the property owners' association to be completed and recorded before a plat is approved. Whether an unrecorded agreement binds a later owner is a question for a Virginia real estate attorney.
Can an owners' association charge lot owners for road upkeep?
In a Floyd County division with proposed public roads, the ordinance requires that power: the POA agreement must vest the association with power to assess fees and costs for road maintenance to individual property owners within the division. Outside that rule, what a particular association may charge is a question for a Virginia real estate attorney reading its recorded documents.
What does VDOT need when neighbors share a commercial entrance?
A recorded agreement. Under 24VAC30-73-120, a shared commercial entrance is created and designed to serve adjoining properties, and a copy of the property owners' recorded agreement to share use of and maintain the entrance has to be included with the entrance permit application. VDOT's commercial entrance design rules treat a shared entrance between adjacent owners as the preferred method of access.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- 24VAC30-73-120, shared commercial entrances Virginia Administrative Code
- 24VAC30-73-70, the shared entrance as the preferred method of access Virginia Administrative Code
- Land Division Ordinance, effective January 1, 2026 Floyd County, Virginia
- Unified Development Ordinance, amended July 27, 2025 Pulaski County, Virginia
- Subdivision ordinance, county-hosted copy with April 14, 2014 amendments Carroll County, Virginia