The Virginia Real Estate Board (VREB) wants agents to remember that they do need to call Miss Utility before posting signs for listed properties.

In Virginia, the law requires that before digging any holes, the Division of Underground Utility and Railroad Safety of the Virginia State Corporation Commission (aka Miss Utility of Virginia) needs to be contacted to make sure that utility lines such as gas lines are not in the digging area; DC & Maryland also have their own Miss Utility. I’ve always made sure to call Miss Utility before ordering a sign installation for any of my listings, but apparently I’ve been in the minority, so the Virginia SCC recently started a campaign to educate agents about their responsibilities; they’ve also kicked off an enforcement campaign, and violators are liable to be fined up to $2500 per instance discovered of installation of a sign without proper pre-installation calls. In response, the VREB has started their own campaign to remind agents of what they should have been doing all along.

(Note that in response to requests from VAR, the Virginia SCC did clarify on July 13th, 2009, that hand-installed wire signs such as open house directionals do not require calls to Miss Utility, and VAR counsel Lem Marshall indicated that he believes that this exemption is probably limited to wire signs that are “about the diameter of a large metal coat hanger“, rather than the larger L-shaped metal signs that some agents use. I have heard some agents claim that there is also an exemption for larger hand-installed signs installed by the homeowner themselves rather than by their agent, but the VAR/SCC clarification doesn’t mention that, and to the best of my knowledge Miss Utility has never had different standards for homeowner’s vs. people who work for them. Similarly, there are no exemptions to the best of my knowledge based on how far the sign does or does not extend underground.)

So make sure to call Miss Utility (or confirm that your sign installation company calls for you) before having a sign put in your client’s front yard: not only will you avoid potentially being fined, but you also won’t have to have that unfortunate conversation with your client where you explain why you can’t sell their house for them after all, what with that house having been blown up when the post-hole digger cracked a gas line.

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