✓ Law Verified August 2026
A Georgia eviction record can block apartment applications for years — often regardless of how the case actually ended. This guide answers the question directly for Georgia: whether a sealing law exists here, exactly how to use it if it does, and the real alternatives if it does not. Verified against official Georgia sources as of August 2026.
In This Georgia Guide:
How the Georgia Sealing Law Works
| The law | Senate Bill 406 (2026), the “Georgia Property Owners’ Bill of Rights Act,” Section 8, which adds a new subsection (e) to O.C.G.A. 44-7-50. Signed by Governor Kemp on May 12, 2026. Effective January 1, 2027 (SB 406 Section 9(a)). IMPORTANT: as of August 20, 2026 this sealing power is not yet in effect — Georgia courts may not begin ordering dispossessory records made unavailable to the public until January 1, 2027. Before SB 406, Georgia had no eviction sealing statute at all. A separate sealing bill, HB 875 (2025-2026), never advanced past the House Judiciary Committee and died at sine die. |
| Who qualifies | Under O.C.G.A. 44-7-50(e) as added by SB 406, a court may order all court records relating to a dispossessory proceeding made unavailable to the public in any one of 3 situations: (1) the tenant prevailed in the proceeding, resulting in a judgment in favor of the tenant; (2) the tenant has satisfied the judgment in full, including payment of interest and costs; or (3) 7 years have lapsed since the filing of a dismissal or a judgment, provided the judgment is paid in full with interest and costs. The statute says the court “may” order it — it is discretionary, so no tenant is guaranteed sealing even when qualified. Note the statute does not create an express category for a case that was simply dismissed with no judgment other than through the 7-year prong, so if your case was dismissed you may want to argue both the “prevailed” prong and the 7-year prong; check with your court. |
| Automatic or petition | PETITION. Sealing is not automatic in Georgia. O.C.G.A. 44-7-50(e) requires the tenant to file a motion and requires a hearing on that motion before the court may order the records made unavailable to the public. No court, clerk, or landlord is required to seal anything on its own — the tenant must ask. |
| Waiting period | No waiting period if the tenant prevailed and got a judgment in the tenant’s favor, or if the tenant has satisfied the judgment in full including interest and costs. The third qualifying route has a 7-year waiting period measured from the filing of a dismissal or a judgment, and that route still requires the judgment to be paid in full with interest and costs. |
| Cost | UNVERIFIED. SB 406 sets no filing fee and does not make the motion free. Post-judgment motion fees in Georgia magistrate courts are set county by county, so ask your county magistrate clerk what, if anything, they charge, and ask about a poverty affidavit (O.C.G.A. 9-15-2) to file without paying costs if you cannot afford the fee. |
Step by Step: Sealing Your Georgia Eviction Record
Beginning January 1, 2027: (1) File the motion in the same court that heard the dispossessory case — in Georgia that is almost always the Magistrate Court of the county where the property is located (some counties route dispossessories to State Court, and Fulton County uses the Fulton County Magistrate Court landlord-tenant division), using the original civil action/case number.
(2) There is no statewide sealing form yet — SB 406 did not require the Judicial Council to publish one, so ask the magistrate clerk whether the county has a local form; otherwise file a written “Motion to Make Records of Dispossessory Proceeding Unavailable to the Public Pursuant to O.C.G.A. 44-7-50(e)” stating which of the 3 grounds you meet.
(3) Attach proof: the dismissal order or judgment in your favor, or a satisfaction of judgment, paid receipts, or the landlord’s written acknowledgment that the judgment plus interest and costs is paid in full. (4) Serve a copy on the landlord or the landlord’s attorney of record.
(5) The statute requires a hearing, so the clerk will set a hearing date — appear and bring your payment proof and the case file.
(6) If the judge grants it, get a certified copy of the sealing order and send it to the tenant screening companies that are reporting the case.
Until January 1, 2027, the only route is the existing Uniform Magistrate Court Rules limited-access procedure: a motion, notice to all parties, and a hearing at which the judge must find your privacy interest clearly outweighs the public interest in open records — a much harder standard, and courts grant it rarely.
What sealing actually does: The court orders all records of the court relating to that dispossessory proceeding to be made unavailable to the public. That means the case should no longer show up in public court file searches or on the county’s public docket, which is where tenant screening companies harvest eviction data — so over time it should stop appearing in new screening reports.
The statute expressly preserves the landlord’s money claim: “Nothing in this Code section shall prevent the landlord from pursuing all amounts due and owing such landlord in a separate action or through collections.” So sealing the eviction case does NOT wipe out the debt, and a separate collections account or a debt-collection lawsuit can still appear on your credit report.
SB 406 does not state whether a tenant may answer “no” to a rental application asking about prior evictions, and it does not order private screening companies to delete data they already collected — you may still need to dispute stale copies directly with those companies under the FCRA. Records already in a screening company’s database are not automatically purged by the court order.
Why A Georgia Eviction Record Follows You — and For How Long
An eviction case becomes a public court record the day it is filed — even if you won, even if it was dismissed, even if you moved out voluntarily before the hearing. Tenant screening companies copy these records in bulk and resell them to landlords, which is how a Georgia eviction record from years ago can quietly sink a rental application today.
Under federal reporting rules these records generally stop appearing on screening reports after seven years, but the public court file itself can remain searchable far longer unless it is sealed.
That is why the filing itself, not just the outcome, is what matters — and why sealing laws are spreading state by state. Most landlords never read the court file; they read the one-line summary a screening company sells them. Getting the Georgia eviction record sealed, corrected, or accurately described is what changes that one line.
Check Your Georgia Eviction Record First
Before filing anything, find out what your Georgia eviction record really looks like to a landlord. Search the online case index for the court where the eviction was filed, and request your file from the major tenant screening companies — you are entitled to it.
Tenants are often surprised in both directions: some discover the case they worry about was never reported, others find a case they had forgotten, or one that is not even theirs.
Knowing exactly what appears, and how it is described, tells you whether to pursue sealing, a dispute, or both.
Screening reports are also where errors live. A dismissed case reported as an eviction, an old address matched to the wrong person, or a paid judgment still shown as owing are all fixable — and fixing the report is sometimes faster than any court process in Georgia.
Your Federal Rights Against Tenant Screening Companies
Tenant screening companies are consumer reporting agencies under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. 1681 and following, so a Georgia tenant has these rights regardless of state sealing law.
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(1) If you were denied housing, charged a higher deposit, or required a cosigner because of a screening report, the landlord must give you an adverse action notice naming the screening company — and you may request a free copy of that report from the company within 60 days of the adverse action under 15 U.S.C. 1681j(b).
(2) You are also entitled to one free file disclosure every 12 months from each nationwide specialty consumer reporting agency, which includes the major tenant screening bureaus.
(3) Dispute anything wrong or outdated in writing to the screening company: wrong person, wrong case, case that was dismissed, judgment already paid, or a case that is being reported as a judgment when there was none. Send copies (never originals) of the dismissal order, satisfaction of judgment, paid receipts, or your sealing order, and keep proof of mailing.
(4) Under 15 U.S.C. 1681i the company must reinvestigate free of charge and finish within 30 days of receiving your dispute, extended to 45 days only if you send additional relevant information during that 30-day window. It must forward your dispute to the source within 5 business days, and it must delete or correct any information that is inaccurate, incomplete, or cannot be verified.
(5) The company must send you the written results within 5 business days of finishing, plus a free copy of your revised report and, if you ask, notice of the correction to anyone who got the report in the last 6 months (last 2 years for employment purposes).
(6) If the company insists the item is accurate, you may file a 100-word statement of dispute that must be included in future reports under 15 U.S.C. 1681i(b).
(7) Most eviction cases and civil judgments may only be reported for 7 years under 15 U.S.C. 1681c(a), so demand deletion of anything older. (8) You can also complain to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at consumerfinance.gov/complaint and to the Georgia Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division at 404-651-8600, and the FCRA lets many consumers sue for actual damages, costs, and attorney fees.
Timing matters more than tenants expect. If you are apartment-hunting right now, start the screening-report disputes today — they run on federal deadlines and cost nothing — while any Georgia court process moves in parallel. If the move is months away, that is enough time for most sealing petitions, vacated judgments, or corrected reports to finish before a landlord ever pulls your Georgia eviction record.
Worth watching in Georgia: HB 875 (2025-2026 session), a standalone bill to let tenants seal dispossessory records, was introduced March 28, 2025 and referred to the House Judiciary Committee on April 2, 2025; it never received a floor vote and died when the 2025-2026 General Assembly adjourned sine die — the sealing language was instead enacted through SB 406 Section 8.
Georgia has no county eviction-record-sealing pilot program that could be verified.
Until January 1, 2027, the interim path is the Uniform Magistrate Court Rules limited-access procedure: on motion by a party, with notice to all parties and a hearing, a judge may limit access to a court file for good cause, but only if the movant’s privacy interest clearly outweighs the public interest in open records;
the rules also allow an ex parte temporary limitation of access of no more than 30 days on motion with a supporting affidavit under compelling circumstances, and any limited-access order can later be reviewed and amended by the issuing court or by the superior court of that circuit.
Two other Georgia tools remain available and are often faster than sealing: a motion to set aside or vacate a default dispossessory judgment under O.C.G.A. 9-11-60, and a de novo appeal of a magistrate court dispossessory judgment to state or superior court, which must be filed within 7 days of the judgment under O.C.G.A. 44-7-56.
Tenants can also try to negotiate a written stipulated dismissal with the landlord — a case dismissed and then sealed under the new law is the cleanest outcome.
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Official Georgia Sources & Resources
- Georgia Courts Self-Help: georgiacourts.gov/a2j/self-help-resources/landlord-tenant/
- Georgia Statute: gov.georgia.gov/document/2026-signed-legislation/sb-406/down…
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: hud.gov
- Cornell Legal Information Institute: law.cornell.edu/wex
Taking Control of Your Georgia Eviction Record
A Georgia eviction record is not a life sentence — it is a document, and documents can be sealed, corrected, or accurately explained. The tenants who struggle longest are usually the ones who never look at what their Georgia eviction record actually says, so start by pulling the court file and your screening reports.
Whether Georgia offers sealing or only the federal dispute route, acting on the Georgia eviction record beats hoping landlords will not check — they almost always do. A short, honest cover letter to a prospective landlord explaining the circumstances can also do real work while the record process runs.
This Georgia eviction record guide was last verified against official sources in August 2026. Sealing laws are changing fast — new states pass them every year, so re-check before relying on this page.
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Disclaimer: This guide is informational only and is not legal advice. Landlord-tenant laws change and vary by city and county within a state. Verify current rules with your state, your local court, or a free legal-aid office before acting. If you are facing eviction, contact a local tenant attorney or legal-aid organization right away.