Tenant Eviction:How to Evict a Tenant in Georgia

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Evicting nonpaying tenants or tenants who aren’t following the lease is never what you want to do as a landlord, but sometimes it becomes necessary. Today we are walking you through the eviction process in Georgia.

Late Letter

The first step is to send a late letter. This is very important. It should go out immediately because you cannot do anything in the eviction process until the letter has been sent. It’s very important to start this way.

After you send the letter, wait for a week and then you can file for an eviction. File in the magistrate court where the property is located. After you file, the sheriff will serve the tenant at their property. This will take a week or two weeks depending on the sheriff’s schedule.

Non-Responsive Tenants

Once your tenants are served, they have two options. They can respond to the service, which means a court date will be set, or they don’t respond. It’s a lot simpler if they don’t respond because within a few weeks the court will give you an opportunity to request a Writ of Dispossessory. Once that writ is available, you just wait for the sheriff to calendar when they will do the actual eviction.

Responsive Tenants

If the tenants do respond, you go to court. At court, make sure you have all your paperwork with you like lease, the tenant register and your history of rental repairs. The judge will give you the opportunity to negotiate with your tenant. Most times, you can come up with a payment plan and the judge will sign off on it. That’s called a consent agreement. If you cannot come to consensus, you will go before the judge and get a ruling. Most of the time, if the issue is that the tenant Tenant Eviction How to Evict a Tenant in Georgia didn’t pay rent, the judge will give the tenant seven days before the Writ of Dispossessory is available. Then, you wait for the sheriff to show up and do the eviction.

Make sure you follow this process carefully because anything you do outside of the process can void the whole eviction. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at DKRentals.net.

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