Military Legal: A Free Public Resource For Service Personnel

Georgia has specific code sections that deal with the rights and duties of landlords and their tenants.

Security Deposits

If you are renting in Georgia, you are going to have to put down a security deposit. If you rent from someone or a company that owns and rents out five or more units, then there are some very strict rules on how they handle the money. Within 30 days of you moving out, they have to send you a list of the damages they are charging you for. If they don't do that, then they have to send you the whole deposit back within 45 days. Smart tenants take photos and or video of each room to prove that it was in good shape before they moved out as landlords frequently try to make money off the deposit. Common danger items are the carpets, hardwoods, blinds, wall smudges and damage and kitchen counters. see
OCGA 44-7-33

Duty to Repair

Under Georgia law, the landlord cannot stick a residential tenant with the duty to repair the property. OCGA
44-7-13 and 44-7-14. Any attempt to do so is invalid. 

Holding Over

When your lease is up or you have breached your lease but doing or not doing something you were supposed to do (failure to pay rent, letting more people stay there, adding unauthorized pets) you are holding over. However, if the landlord continues to accept rent even after they actually know you have breached the lease, then you become a tenant at will. (see above)

Help! I'm Being Evicted

Here are some key things to know:

• The landlord needs to tell you to move out and what breach of the lease you have committed. Most landlords send a letter which is a demand for possession or a notice to quit. Failure to do this in letter form might give you a weak defense that will buy a little time with the Court if raised. OCGA44-7-50                                                                                             
  
• Your answer is due in 7 days, not 30. If you fail to answer after being served, you are in deep you know what and an immediate judgment will issue. OCGA 44-7-53(a) You will also be in default if you are are served, answer and fail to appear in Court. Default means you admit everything they said in the lawsuit and the Court can award a judgment against you if 

• The apartment did not sue in the name of the corporation. They cannot file as say Woodbridge Apartments vs. Betty Smith. They must plead the ownership or management company like this ABC Corp d/b/a Woodbridge Apartments v. Betty Smith. If they screw this up it can buy you time. 

• They served the Dispossesory lawsuit by taping it to my door and not giving it to me or an adult at my place personally. That still is enough to give the owner possession back, but if you don't answer and don't appear in Court, at least they cannot take a money judgment against you.

• If your landlord failed to repair something critical like the AC or the fridge, you can file a counterclaim as an offset for rent that was due. Keep in mind this does not mean you don't owe rent, it just means you may owe less. Don't try to use failure to repair the fridge as a reason not pay rent at all. It will entitle you to pay less and for a downed fridge that you put them on notice of, I would say 40% less is pretty fair. 
• If the landlord accepts rent after demanding that you leave but before they file suit this should be a defense if you stay current after that. Acceptance of rent after default defeats a claim for non-payment of rent. see 140 Ga. App. 244, 230 SE2d 492 (1976)
• Say you file your answer on a Thursday and it is timely. Expect Court sometime the next week. If you do owe the money and you are just broke, the Court still has to evict you but you will have another seven days after the hearing for the eviction to be valid. You have that amount of time to get your stuff out before they bring a gang of hired goons to put your stuff in the yard. OCGA 44-7-55(a).
• If you don't show up for the trial, the Court will issue an immediate writ of possession (boot you out) 
• The landlord cannot just kick you out without going through the legal process of an eviction so don't be scared by their words or letters. They also cannot shut down utilities or lock you out. If they do, call this Atlanta lawyer and I will take them apart!
• The landlord can only sue in the eviction for back rent. They have to file a separate suit in the future for future rent. Let's assume that you got kicked out in month six of a lease. The landlord has not duty to re-rent it under the law so technically they can sue you when each month comes due or wait till the end and sue you for the six months rent. Most will try to re-rent the unit and if they do, they are only entitled to the difference in what was to be paid under your lease and the new lease. If its the same rent, then you are off the hook.  
• There is a once per 12 month parachute. If you are sued for eviction, you can pay what you owe plus the cost of the warrant within 7 days of service of the lawsuit and they have to take the money. OCGA 44-7-52

Particular Situations

I don't have a written contract with my landlord. What's the deal? Although the landlord can argue that there is a verbal lease in place for up to a year under OCGA 44-7-2(a), most Judges will rule that you have a tenancy at will which allows you to give 30 days notice before you leave and the landlord would have to give the tenant 60 days notice. 

I had a self-storage unit and they sold all my stuff! Check the contract you signed! The landlord has a statutory lien on the contents of the unit after a 30 day default period. If there is anything valuable in there, make sure you photodocument it and pay up ahead if you are being deployed. 

Hotels and boarding houses don't have to file evictions so these rules don't apply to them. OCGA 43-21-3.1