8 Squatter Laws Every Georgia Homeowner Needs to Know in 2026

Most homeowners never plan for the day a stranger settles in on their property.

Georgia has its own set of rules for that situation, and the details can decide how fast you’re able to act.

Here’s what Georgia property owners should know before it happens.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Property laws and required timelines are subject to change.

1. Citation Deadline

Georgia’s unlawful squatting law, Code Section 16-7-21.1, gives anyone cited for squatting on your property three business days to hand over paperwork authorizing their entry.

House Bill 1017 created the offense, effective April 24, 2024.

The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office, which calls the bill the Georgia Squatter Reform Act, says the police department with jurisdiction over your property should be notified.

The paperwork can include a lease, a rental agreement or proof of rental payments.

It goes to the head of the agency that issued the citation, or to that agency’s designee.

Three days isn’t long.

If the person can’t provide it in time, they’re subject to arrest.

A squatting conviction is a misdemeanor, which under Code Section 17-10-3 carries a fine of up to $1,000, up to 12 months in jail, or both.

2. Rejected Lease Penalties

Handing officers a lease doesn’t end a squatting case, since a hearing has to be set within seven days after someone submits a lease or rent receipts.

If you’ve never seen the lease, that hearing is where a court decides whether it holds up.

If the court finds the paperwork wasn’t properly executed or doesn’t hold up, the person is subject to arrest.

The person is also subject to a demand for possession and removal under Code Section 44-11-32.

A conviction brings the forgery penalties in Code Sections 16-9-1 and 16-9-2.

The court also assesses an additional fine based on the fair market monthly rent of your property.

The penalties add up.

First-degree forgery is a felony carrying one to 15 years in prison.

3. Affidavit Notice Period

Georgia’s intruder law, Code Section 44-11-30, lets you swear out an affidavit against a squatter who has no good-faith claim to your property and won’t leave.

An officer who receives the affidavit has to show it to that person at least three days before removing them from the property.

The officer can be a sheriff, a deputy, a constable, a marshal or anyone certified by the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council.

Once three days have passed from the day the officer shows the affidavit, the officer removes the person, unless the person has submitted a counteraffidavit.

A counteraffidavit is the occupant’s sworn statement claiming a good-faith legal right to the land.

4. Counteraffidavit Trial

If a squatter answers your affidavit with a counteraffidavit, the officer can’t remove that person under Code Section 44-11-32.

The officer leaves both sides in place and returns both affidavits to the magistrate court clerk in the county where the land is located for a trial without a jury.

Magistrate courts have had power over these cases since 2024, when Code Section 15-10-2 added paragraphs (18) and (19).

If the magistrate finds the occupant’s affidavit doesn’t hold up, the officer removes the person as soon as practicable under a writ of possession.

Under Code Section 44-11-33, the clerk issues that writ right away after a verdict for you, along with a fi. fa., a second court document for costs and any other money awarded.

If you win, the court can also award you fair market rent for the time the person stayed, plus other money it finds appropriate.

Either you or the court can take the final order to law enforcement for investigation or prosecution.

Either side can appeal.

That appeal goes directly to the state appellate courts instead of getting a new review in superior court.

5. Notice to Depart

A squatter who stays on your property after being told to leave can be guilty of criminal trespass under Code Section 16-7-21.

Subsection (b) lists three ways to commit criminal trespass, all of them done knowingly and without authority.

Entering for an unlawful purpose counts.

So does entering after receiving notice, before the entry, that entry is forbidden.

The third is remaining on the property after notice to depart.

That notice can come from you, from the rightful occupant or, with proper identification, from an authorized representative.

A person who commits criminal trespass is guilty of a misdemeanor.

6. Possession Requirements

Georgia’s adverse possession law, Code Section 44-5-161, sets four requirements for a squatter’s possession to become the foundation of a claim to your property.

The squatter has to hold the property for themselves rather than someone else.

The possession also can’t have started in fraud, except as Code Section 44-5-162 allows.

It has to be public, continuous, exclusive, uninterrupted and peaceable, and it has to come with a claim of right.

If you let someone stay, that permission can’t be the foundation of an ownership claim.

That changes only after the person claims the property against you and you receive actual notice.

7. Twenty-Year Rule

Without written evidence of title, a squatter's path to owning your property takes 20 years of possession that meets those four requirements.

After that time, the squatter holds good title to the property against everyone except the state and people with the disabilities listed in Code Section 44-5-170.

Time doesn't run against a minor, a person who's incompetent because of mental illness or intellectual disability, or a person who's imprisoned, for as long as that situation lasts.

After the disability ends, the clock starts running against that person.

That list is short.

Unless you fit one of those exceptions, the 20 years can run against you.

8. Seven-Year Title Rule

A squatter who occupies property under written evidence of title needs only seven years to claim your property under Code Section 44-5-164, not 20.

The possession still has to meet the four requirements in Code Section 44-5-161.

The same exceptions for the state and for people with the disabilities in Code Section 44-5-170 apply here, as they do to the 20-year rule you just read.

The shortcut doesn't work if the written title is forged or fraudulent and the squatter had actual notice of that when the possession began.

Changes Since 2024

The 2025 edition of the Code lists one change to Georgia's unlawful squatting law since the 2024 act.

That change came from Senate Bill 153, a Code revision bill that took effect on July 1, 2025.

The edits are style changes, such as "they must present" becoming "he or she shall present."

If you've read a 2024 copy of the law, the three business days, the seven-day hearing and the misdemeanor penalty all still appear in the 2025 edition.

House Bill 61 started out as a bill on license plates for hearses and ambulances.

The Senate passed a substitute on March 20, 2026, and the House tabled it on March 31, 2026.

The 2026 session ended in the early hours of April 3, and the bill never became law.