Webster County, West Virginia Eviction Risk: Low

Webster County, West Virginia eviction laws earns an average eviction-risk score of 3.3/10 (Low) across its 5 incorporated places, placing it in the middle third of all 55 West Virginia counties. Thirty counties in the state carry higher risk, and 24 are less risky, so landlords here operate in genuinely moderate territory rather than at either extreme. With a total covered population of 1,737 and average rent of $663, this is a thin, rural rental market where individual tenant quality matters more than macro trends.

The intra-county spread, from 1.7/10 to 3.5/10, is wide relative to the county average, which signals that where you own inside Webster County shapes your risk exposure as much as the county-level number does. A rent burden rate of 47.2% and a renter share of 38.6% suggest that a sizable portion of tenants are paying a substantial share of income on housing, a pressure point worth pricing into your screening criteria and rent-setting decisions.

The cities inside Webster County

The highest-risk addresses cluster at the county seat. Addison (Webster Springs), the largest city with a population of 1,038, scores 3.5/10, the county's peak. Cowen, home to 485 residents, is close behind at 3.4/10. Both towns concentrate most of the county's rental stock, so landlords active in either market should plan their screening and cash-reserve policies around their scores rather than the softer county average.

At the other end of the range, Camden-on-Gauley and Parcoal both score 1.9/10, while Bergoo comes in at the county floor of 1.7/10. These are very small communities, with populations of 182, 12, and 20 respectively, so the low scores reflect limited rental activity as much as favorable conditions. Risk is hyper-local here: two adjacent communities can differ by nearly two full points on the same 10-point scale.

State-level laws that apply here

Every landlord in Webster County operates under West Virginia eviction laws state law, specifically W. Va. Code § 37-6 (Landlord and Tenant). For nonpayment of rent, state law requires no advance notice before filing, giving landlords an immediate path to court. A lease-violation cure notice runs 14 days, and a no-cause end-of-term notice requires 30 days. Understanding the full West Virginia eviction laws eviction process matters here because even an uncontested case takes 21 to 45 days from filing to resolution, and contested cases can run 45 to 100 days. For West Virginia eviction costs, landlords should budget court filing fees of $75 to $150, sheriff lockout fees of $30 to $125, and attorney fees ranging from $500 to $2,500 if counsel is retained.

West Virginia eviction laws does not require just cause for nonrenewal, and state law preempts local rent control, so no municipality in the county can impose its own cap. Source-of-income protections are not mandated at the state level. Habitability obligations fall under W. Va. Code § 37-6-30. The combination of immediate filing rights on nonpayment, no just-cause requirement, and preempted rent control gives Webster County landlords a comparatively clean statutory environment.

With a poverty rate of 28.9% and a renter share of 38.6%, the rental base here is financially stressed; the city-by-city scores in the grid above show exactly where that stress concentrates most.