Georgia

Georgia — Contract for Deed / Bond for Title

Legal information, not legal advice. Verify against the cited primary sources before acting. Statutes in this area are frequently amended. Last verified: 2026-06-08.

Georgia is the classic “bond for title” jurisdiction. The installment land contract is not governed by a dedicated consumer-protection chapter (there is no Georgia analogue to Texas Subchapter D or Minnesota’s cancellation statute). Instead, Georgia’s answer is structural and old: the instrument has long been treated as a security device, and the seller’s repossession on default is treated as an election to rescind that obligates the seller to return the buyer’s payments, net of the seller’s actual loss — the rule of mcdaniel-v-gray-1882 (1882), reaffirmed in crowell-v-williams-2005 (2005). The Georgia Supreme Court has held a bond for title creates an equitable interest in the buyer and a security interest in the seller, and that a contract for deed “is for all practical purposes no different from a bond for title” (chilivis-v-tumlin-woods-1982). The practical upshot for operators: classic strict forfeiture (keep the land and all the money) is not the default in Georgia — the deal behaves like a security arrangement closer to a mortgage than to a forfeiture instrument.

0. Identity & Terminology

• In-state name(s): “bond for title” (the historical and still-current term), “contract for deed,” “installment sale,” “land contract,” “agreement for deed.” The Code uses the umbrella phrasing “bond for title, bond to reconvey realty, contract to sell or convey realty or any interest therein.” O.C.G.A. § 44-2-6; § 44-5-32.
• Recognition: statutory and common law. The recording, execution, and bond-for-title rules are statutory (O.C.G.A. §§ 44-2-6, 44-5-32, 48-6-68); the equitable-interest and default-remedy doctrine is common law (mcdaniel-v-gray-1882, chilivis-v-tumlin-woods-1982, crowell-v-williams-2005).
• Statutory home: No single dedicated chapter. The relevant primary law is distributed: O.C.G.A. Title 44, Ch. 2 (recording — § 44-2-6); Title 44, Ch. 5 (execution/deeds — §§ 44-5-30, 44-5-32); Title 44, Ch. 14, Art. 3 (security deeds — § 44-14-60); Title 48, Ch. 6 (transfer/recording tax — §§ 48-6-1, 48-6-68); with the remedy regime supplied by case law and the rescission statute O.C.G.A. § 13-4-62. Code text via the official Georgia Code (UniCourt structured-HTML mirror of the O.C.G.A.): https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.44.html
• Remedy regime: treat_as_mortgage. A bond for title is a security arrangement in which the buyer holds equitable title and the seller holds bare legal title as security (chilivis-v-tumlin-woods-1982). On default, a seller who repossesses is deemed to have elected to rescind and must restore the buyer’s payments less the seller’s actual loss (mcdaniel-v-gray-1882, crowell-v-williams-2005); a Georgia bankruptcy court has recognized the buyer’s equitable right of redemption in such a contract (In re Prescott, § 8). Pure forfeiture of payments is not the default outcome. See forfeiture-vs-foreclosure.

1. Formation & Mandatory Disclosures

• Statute of frauds: Writing required. “Any contract for sale of lands, or any interest in, or concerning lands” must be in writing and signed by the party to be charged. O.C.G.A. § 13-5-30(4), https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.13.html. A bond for title / contract to convey realty must additionally be executed with the same formality as a deed (signed, attested by an officer and one other witness). O.C.G.A. § 44-5-32; cf. § 44-5-30 (deed requisites), https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.44.html.
• Mandatory disclosures: no dedicated CFD disclosure statute — confirmed absent. Georgia has no installment-land-contract-specific mandatory pre-sale disclosure regime comparable to Texas Property Code §§ 5.069–5.070 or Minnesota’s statute. The general residential seller’s property-disclosure practice and common-law fraud/Fair Business Practices Act rules apply, but there is no special per-day or rescission penalty keyed to a CFD disclosure checklist. (No primary statute imposes CFD-specific disclosure duties; this “confirmed absent” finding is based on the absence of any such provision in Title 44 — direct negative confirmation flagged in needs_verification.)
  • Penalty for omission: Not applicable — no CFD-specific disclosure statute exists to penalize. General remedies (common-law rescission for fraud under O.C.G.A. § 13-4-60; Fair Business Practices Act) would govern a misrepresentation.
• Recording requirement: permitted, no fixed deadline (with a tax-driven exception). A bond for title / contract to convey realty “shall be filed and recorded” in the superior-court clerk’s office of the county where the land lies, and recording (from the date of filing) is notice of the buyer’s interest and equity; but recording “may be made at any time” — an unrecorded contract simply loses priority to a later instrument from the same vendor recorded first without notice. O.C.G.A. § 44-2-6, https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.44.html. Exception — § 48-6-68: if any part of the purchase price falls due more than three years from the date of the instrument, the seller must record the instrument before delivering the bond for title and pay the intangible-recording/transfer tax on it. O.C.G.A. § 48-6-68, https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.48.html. Who records: either party may record under § 44-2-6; the § 48-6-68 recording duty falls on the seller.
• Annual accounting statement: not statutorily required. Georgia imposes no CFD-specific annual-accounting-statement mandate (contrast Texas § 5.077, Minnesota). Any accounting duty is contract-governed. (Negative confirmation flagged in needs_verification.)
• Prepayment: No CFD-specific statutory prepayment right or anti-penalty rule; governed by the contract and general lending law. For larger seller-financed balances, acceleration/prepayment terms are set by written contract under O.C.G.A. § 7-4-2.
• Usury / interest cap: The legal rate is 7%/yr where not fixed by written contract. By written contract, parties may set any rate on a principal amount of $3,000–under$250,000, and any rate at $250,000 or more. O.C.G.A. § 7-4-2, https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.07.html. Applies to the financed CFD balance like any seller financing (subject to separate caps for small consumer loans not addressed here).

2. Buyer’s Equitable Interest

• Equitable title passes / equitable conversion recognized: Yes. A bond for title creates an equitable interest in the buyer and a security interest in the seller; an equitable estate arises in the bond holder, limited by the amount of the holder’s investment. chilivis-v-tumlin-woods-1982, 250 Ga. 179, 297 S.E.2d 4 (1982), https://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/supreme-court/1982/38855-1.html. See equitable-conversion.
• Recordable / insurable: Recordable — § 44-2-6 expressly provides for recording the contract/bond, which gives notice of the buyer’s interest and equity. The equitable interest is insurable in practice; owner’s/leasehold and equitable-interest endorsements are available from Georgia title insurers.
• Risk of loss / improvements: Contract-governed in practice. Because the buyer holds equitable title and possession, the buyer typically carries casualty insurance and bears risk of loss; on rescission, the restitution/offset accounting (Crowell, McDaniel) accounts for the parties’ respective positions, including the value of the buyer’s use and any improvements/decline in value.

3. Default & Remedies → see forfeiture-vs-foreclosure

• Primary remedy: election of remedies — and repossession = rescission. On the buyer’s default, a Georgia bond-for-title seller may elect among: (1) sue on the debt, reduce it to judgment, tender/file a deed, and sell the land under execution; (2) bring ejectment to recover possession (the buyer holds equitable title, so the seller asserts legal title); or (3) re-enter / retake possession of the land. mcdaniel-v-gray-1882, 69 Ga. 433 (1882), https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/mcdaniel-v-gray-co-887134805.
• Forfeiture available? No, not as classic strict forfeiture. When the seller retakes possession (option 3) — or otherwise treats the contract as at an end and resells — the seller is deemed to have elected to rescind, which obligates the seller to restore the purchase money the buyer paid, less the amount needed to prevent actual loss to the seller from the buyer’s non-performance. A seller cannot keep both the land and all the payments absent clear contrary contract language. crowell-v-williams-2005, 273 Ga. App. 676, 615 S.E.2d 797 (2005), https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ga-court-of-appeals/1492652.html; mcdaniel-v-gray-1882.
  • Substantial-equity bar: Georgia does not need a Skendzel-style equity threshold (skendzel-v-marshall-1973) because its default rule is already restitutionary — the buyer recovers payments net of the seller’s loss regardless of equity level, rather than forfeiting them. The buyer’s equitable interest is measured by the amount of the buyer’s investment (chilivis-v-tumlin-woods-1982).
• Statutory cancellation: None. Georgia has no statutory CFD cancellation/cure-period regime (no fixed cure-period like Minnesota’s 60 days or Texas’s 30/60 days). Termination runs on the contract’s own terms plus the common-law rescission/restitution rules and O.C.G.A. § 13-4-62 (rescission requires restoring both parties to their pre-contract condition), https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.13.html.
• Judicial foreclosure required when: Not strictly required, but a seller who wants a money judgment plus sale proceeds judicially (reduce to judgment, tender deed, sell under execution — McDaniel option 1). A seller who wants the land back proceeds by ejectment or re-entry, accepting the rescission/restitution consequence. There is no power-of-sale “foreclosure” of a bare CFD; the security-deed power-of-sale machinery (§§ 44-14-160 to -162) applies to deeds to secure debt, not to an unconverted bond for title.
• Acceleration: Conditional — enforceable if provided by written contract under general lending law (§ 7-4-2), subject to the rescission/restitution overlay on the land itself.
• Restitution offset on rescission: required. The buyer recovers payments net of the seller’s actual loss (use/occupancy value, decline in value, resale shortfall). O.C.G.A. § 13-4-62; crowell-v-williams-2005; mcdaniel-v-gray-1882.
• Seller’s other remedies: specific performance / suit on the purchase-money debt, ejectment, judgment-and-execution sale, damages, and rescission-with-restitution.

▸ For Sellers / Operators — Georgia is not a strict-forfeiture state, and the single most important fact is counter-intuitive: if you repossess the land on default, Georgia treats that as an election to rescind, and you must refund the buyer’s payments minus your actual loss (crowell-v-williams-2005, mcdaniel-v-gray-1882). You cannot keep the house and all the money. Decide your remedy track up front (§3): repossess-and-refund-net, or sue on the debt and sell under execution, or convert the deal into a note + deed to secure debt (§ 44-14-60) so you have a clean power-of-sale foreclosure path. Record the contract (§ 44-2-6) to protect priority, and remember the § 48-6-68 rule: if any payment falls due more than three years out, you must record and pay the transfer/ intangibles tax before delivering the bond for title. There is no Georgia CFD disclosure or annual-statement statute to trip over (§1), but general fraud/FBPA liability still applies.

▸ For Buyers — You hold equitable title (§2, chilivis-v-tumlin-woods-1982), so you are an owner, not a tenant, and you have an equitable right of redemption (§7). If the seller repossesses on your default, Georgia law generally entitles you to recover what you paid, less the seller’s actual loss — payments are not simply forfeited (§3).

3b. Remedies — Advanced

• Election of remedies: Strongly applicable. The seller’s choice to repossess is itself the election that converts the matter into rescission-with-restitution (mcdaniel-v-gray-1882). Choosing instead to sue on the debt and sell under execution keeps the contract alive.
• Deficiency: A seller who reduces the debt to judgment and sells under execution pursues an ordinary money judgment; the rescission track (repossession) yields no deficiency because it unwinds the sale and nets the accounting the other direction (refund to buyer). (Exact deficiency mechanics on the judgment-and-sale track flagged in needs_verification.)
• Equitable relief from forfeiture: Largely unnecessary as a separate doctrine because the baseline rule is restitutionary — equity already protects the buyer’s investment-measured interest (chilivis-v-tumlin-woods-1982) via the McDaniel/Crowell refund rule.
• Ejectment vs. eviction path: A defaulting CFD buyer is an equitable owner, not a tenant, so the seller’s possession remedy is ejectment / re-entry (with the rescission consequence), not summary dispossessory/eviction of a tenant. (Whether a Georgia seller can ever use dispossessory process against a CFD buyer in possession — vs. ejectment — flagged in needs_verification.)
• Quiet title after rescission: A recorded bond for title clouds title; a seller who rescinds may need to record a surrender/cancellation (§ 44-2-7 governs recording the surrender or satisfaction of a bond for title) or pursue quiet title to clear the buyer’s recorded equitable interest. (Court/timeline specifics flagged in needs_verification.)
• Forfeited payments: Generally recoverable by the buyer net of the seller’s loss; a pure liquidated-damages forfeiture clause is enforceable only if it reflects a genuine pre-estimate of damages and is not a penalty (general Georgia liquidated-damages doctrine). (Application to CFD forfeiture clauses flagged in needs_verification.)
• Intervening seller-lien risk to buyer: Because the seller holds bare legal title, liens against the seller can attach; recording the contract under § 44-2-6 is the buyer’s principal protection, giving notice of the buyer’s prior equity to subsequent takers from the same vendor.

4. Federal Overlay (as applied in-state) → see dodd-frank-seller-financing, safe-act-mlo

• Dodd-Frank exposure: A Georgia residential CFD is seller financing / “credit” for TILA / Loan-Originator-Rule purposes. The federal ≤1-property (no balloon, no ATR) and ≤3-property (with ATR) seller-financer exclusions from the loan-originator definition apply in Georgia as nationally — see dodd-frank-seller-financing for the 12 C.F.R. § 1026.36(a) thresholds. High-volume owner-financers lose the exclusion and must use a licensed originator and meet ATR.
• SAFE Act / MLO licensing: Georgia adopted the SAFE Act within the Georgia Residential Mortgage Act, O.C.G.A. §§ 7-1-1000 et seq., administered by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance. The Act requires mortgage-lender/broker licensure for those who make or broker residential mortgage loans, and exempts “any natural person or the estate of or trust created by a natural person making a mortgage loan with his or her own funds for his or her own investment, including those … who make a purchase money mortgage for financing sales of their own property.” O.C.G.A. § 7-1-1001(a)(8), https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.07.html. Critical scope limit: by its own terms (§ 7-1-1001(b)), the (a)(8) exemption is from mortgage broker/lender licensure ONLY, and (a)(8) is not among the paragraphs the statute carves out from the separate mortgage-loan-originator (MLO) licensing requirement. In other words, a natural-person owner financing the sale of their own property is exempt from broker/lender licensure but is not automatically exempt from MLO licensing under the state SAFE Act — § 7-1-1001(b) expressly preserves MLO-licensing duties for (a)(8) persons. This narrows, rather than eliminates, state licensing exposure; the federal de minimis seller-financer thresholds (above) are a separate analysis. Entity sellers, brokers, and high-volume operators should obtain counsel on the exact interaction. See safe-act-mlo. (Whether and when an (a)(8) seller-financer must hold an MLO license — and any de minimis carve-out — flagged in needs_verification.)
• State consumer-protection overlay: No CFD-specific statute; the Georgia Fair Business Practices Act and common-law fraud are the backstops. Georgia is not among the states with a bespoke installment-land-contract consumer statute.
• CFPB enforcement notes: Georgia residential CFDs fall within the 2016+ CFPB/state-AG scrutiny of predatory land-contract operators; the absence of a state disclosure statute makes federal TILA/Dodd-Frank compliance the principal guardrail.

5. Title, Recording & Wraps → see garn-st-germain-due-on-sale

• Memorandum / contract recording: Georgia provides for recording the bond for title / contract to convey itself (not merely a memorandum); recording is notice of the buyer’s interest and equity and protects priority. O.C.G.A. § 44-2-6; surrender/satisfaction recorded under § 44-2-7. (Source above.)
• Garn-St. Germain due-on-sale: A CFD/wrap is a “transfer” that can trigger the underlying lender’s due-on-sale clause under 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3. The Garn-St. Germain residential exemptions (e.g., transfer into an inter vivos trust where the borrower remains a beneficiary) generally do not cover a sale-on-terms to a third-party CFD buyer, so a Georgia wrap carries acceleration risk. See garn-st-germain-due-on-sale.
• Underlying mortgage / wraps: Permitted, but the seller’s existing mortgage stays in place; the buyer relies on the seller continuing to pay it. Georgia has no § 5.085-style statutory wrap restriction (contrast Texas). Risk: seller default on the underlying loan, due-on-sale acceleration, and seller liens. Disclosure of the underlying lien is prudent (and relevant to fraud/FBPA exposure) but not mandated by a CFD-specific statute. (Negative confirmation flagged in needs_verification.)
• Deed delivery / marketable title at payoff: Legal title is conveyed by warranty deed at payoff (or via escrow). Until then the seller holds legal title as security (chilivis-v-tumlin-woods-1982); the buyer’s recorded § 44-2-6 interest supports a marketable-title claim on full performance.
• Title insurance: Available; owner’s policies and equitable-interest endorsements are offered by Georgia title insurers (e.g., national underwriters writing in Georgia).
• Seller death / bankruptcy effect: The buyer’s recorded equitable interest and equitable right of redemption (§7, In re Prescott) generally survive; the seller’s estate/trustee takes subject to the recorded contract. Recording under § 44-2-6 is the key protection.

6. Tax Treatment

• IRC § 453 installment reporting: A Georgia CFD is an installment sale; the seller reports gain ratably as principal is received, subject to the dealer exception (§ 453(b)(2), (l)). See irc-453-installment-sale.
• Property tax: All real property (including “interests less than fee”) is taxable; O.C.G.A. § 48-5-3, https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.48.html. In practice the buyer pays ad valorem taxes (contract-governed), consistent with the buyer’s equitable ownership and possession.
• Homestead exemption for equitable owner: Georgia’s standard homestead exemption requires the applicant to be the owner “owned by and in possession” of the property on January 1. O.C.G.A. § 48-5-40, https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.48.html. A CFD buyer holds equitable title and possession, which generally supports homestead eligibility as an equitable owner — but the statute’s “owned” language and county practice should be confirmed. (Direct authority that a Georgia CFD/equitable owner qualifies under § 48-5-40 flagged in needs_verification.)
• Transfer / documentary tax: Georgia imposes a real-estate transfer tax of **$1.00perfirst$1,000 and 10¢ per additional $100\ast \ast ofconsideration(over$100) on the deed/instrument conveying realty. O.C.G.A. § 48-6-1, https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.48.html. For a bond for title where any payment falls due more than three years out, the seller must record the instrument and pay the tax before delivering the bond — O.C.G.A. § 48-6-68 (same source). Otherwise transfer tax is typically paid on the deed at payoff/conversion.
• Mortgage / intangibles recording tax: Georgia’s intangible recording tax applies to long-term notes secured by real estate (deeds to secure debt); a § 48-6-68 bond for title with payments due >3 years out is brought into the recording-tax net. (Precise intangibles-tax interaction with a non-converted bond for title flagged in needs_verification.)

7. Bankruptcy & Death / Divorce

• Buyer bankruptcy: A Georgia bankruptcy court treated a contract for deed / bond for title as a security arrangement in which the debtor-buyer retains an equitable right of redemption, rather than as a simple executory contract the seller could terminate per the contract — meaning the buyer’s interest is protected like a secured-debt equity. In re Prescott, 285 B.R. 763 (Bankr. S.D. Ga. 2001) (relying on Georgia law that a contract for deed “is for all practical purposes no different from a bond for title,” chilivis-v-tumlin-woods-1982), https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/59147c53add7b0493442cd0b. National treatment splits between § 365 executory-contract and secured-debt characterizations — see forfeiture-vs-foreclosure. (Full opinion text not directly retrieved this run; holding corroborated via case database summary — flagged in needs_verification.)
• Seller bankruptcy: Buyer’s recorded equitable interest (§ 44-2-6) and equitable redemption right generally survive; trustee takes subject to the recorded contract.
• Assignability by buyer: Generally permitted subject to contract terms; § 44-2-6 expressly contemplates “transfers or assignments” of bonds for title and contracts to convey, and provides for recording them. Anti-assignment clauses are common. (Their enforceability against a CFD buyer flagged in needs_verification.)
• Survivorship / divorce: The buyer’s equitable interest is realty-characterized property that passes through the buyer’s estate and is subject to equitable division on divorce like other real-property interests.

8. Case Law (real, verified)

Case	Year	Topic	Holding (plain English)	Source
mcdaniel-v-gray-1882	1882	default remedies / rescission	On default the bond-for-title seller may reduce to judgment & sell, eject, or re-enter; re-entry is an election to rescind requiring restoration of the buyer’s payments, less the seller’s actual loss.	https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/mcdaniel-v-gray-co-887134805
chilivis-v-tumlin-woods-1982	1982	equitable interest / security	A bond for title creates an equitable interest in the buyer and a security interest in the seller; a contract for deed is “for all practical purposes no different from a bond for title.”	https://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/supreme-court/1982/38855-1.html
crowell-v-williams-2005	2005	rescission / restitution	A defaulting CFD/bond-for-title buyer recovers payments when the seller repossesses/resells (rescission), net of the seller’s actual loss; payments are not simply forfeited.	https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ga-court-of-appeals/1492652.html

• McDaniel v. Gray & Co., 69 Ga. 433 (1882). Supreme Court of Georgia. Good law; the seminal Georgia bond-for-title default-remedy case, reaffirmed in Crowell.
• Chilivis v. Tumlin Woods Realty Assoc., Inc., 250 Ga. 179, 297 S.E.2d 4 (1982). Supreme Court of Georgia. Good law; the controlling statement on the nature of the bond-for-title / contract-for-deed interest.
• Crowell v. Williams, 273 Ga. App. 676, 615 S.E.2d 797 (2005). Court of Appeals of Georgia. Good law; modern application of the McDaniel rescission-restitution rule.

9. Edge Cases (state-specific notes)

• garn-st-germain-due-on-sale — A Georgia wrap/CFD over an existing mortgage risks due-on-sale acceleration; Georgia has no statute restricting wraps (contrast Texas § 5.085).
• Repossession = rescission — the single most counter-intuitive Georgia rule: a seller who takes the land back on default must refund the buyer’s payments net of loss (mcdaniel-v-gray-1882, crowell-v-williams-2005).
• Convert to note + security deed — operators who want a clean power-of-sale foreclosure route often use a deed + deed to secure debt (§ 44-14-60) instead of a bare bond for title.
• § 48-6-68 three-year rule — if any payment falls due more than three years out, the seller must record the instrument and pay transfer/recording tax before delivering the bond for title.
• Manufactured/mobile homes, SCRA, seller insolvency — general Georgia and federal rules apply; no CFD-specific statute. (Flagged in open_questions.)

10. Operations

• Where records live: Clerk of Superior Court real-property records in each of Georgia’s 159 counties; bonds for title, contracts to convey, and their assignments are recorded there (§ 44-2-6), and surrenders/satisfactions under § 44-2-7.
• Public access: County clerk record portals and the statewide Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority (GSCCCA) index (gsccca.org); official Code via legis.ga.gov; the O.C.G.A. structured-HTML mirror used here is unicourt.github.io.
• Who may draft (UPL): Georgia restricts non-lawyer drafting of conveyancing instruments and requires a Georgia-licensed attorney to conduct real-estate closings (the “attorney closing” rule); filling blanks in a standardized form is generally permitted, but drafting tailored terms risks UPL.
• Costs / timelines: County recording fees plus § 48-6-1 transfer tax ($1/$1,000 + 10¢/$100) on the conveying instrument; the controlling timing trap is the § 48-6-68 three-year recording rule. No statutory cure clock — timelines are contract-driven.
• Key agencies: Clerks of Superior Court; Georgia Department of Banking and Finance (mortgage-lender/broker and originator licensing, § 7-1-1001); Georgia Department of Revenue (transfer/ intangibles tax); Georgia Attorney General / Governor’s Office of Consumer Protection (FBPA).
• Useful forms: Bond for title; contract for deed/agreement for deed; warranty deed + note + deed to secure debt (conversion path); PT-61 real-estate transfer tax declaration (Georgia DOR / GSCCCA).

11. Meta

• sources:
  • {type: statute, url: “https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.44.html”, retrieved: 2026-06-08} # §§ 44-2-6, 44-5-30, 44-5-32, 44-14-60
  • {type: statute, url: “https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.13.html”, retrieved: 2026-06-08} # §§ 13-5-30, 13-4-60, 13-4-62
  • {type: statute, url: “https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.07.html”, retrieved: 2026-06-08} # §§ 7-4-2, 7-1-1001
  • {type: statute, url: “https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r83/gov.ga.ocga.title.48.html”, retrieved: 2026-06-08} # §§ 48-6-1, 48-6-68, 48-5-3, 48-5-40
  • {type: case, url: “https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ga-court-of-appeals/1492652.html”, retrieved: 2026-06-08} # Crowell v. Williams
  • {type: case, url: “https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/mcdaniel-v-gray-co-887134805”, retrieved: 2026-06-08} # McDaniel v. Gray
  • {type: case, url: “https://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/supreme-court/1982/38855-1.html”, retrieved: 2026-06-08} # Chilivis v. Tumlin Woods (located via Justia)
  • {type: case, url: “https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/59147c53add7b0493442cd0b”, retrieved: 2026-06-08} # In re Prescott (summary)
• needs_verification:
  • Direct negative confirmation (statutory search) that Georgia has no CFD-specific mandatory-disclosure or annual-accounting statute — confirmed by absence in Title 44, but a targeted search of Titles 10/44 for any installment-land-contract consumer provision should be logged.
  • Whether a Georgia seller may ever use dispossessory (eviction) process against a CFD buyer in possession, versus being limited to ejectment / rescission.
  • Deficiency-judgment mechanics on the “reduce to judgment, tender deed, sell under execution” track (McDaniel option 1).
  • Court/timeline specifics for quiet title to clear a buyer’s recorded § 44-2-6 interest after rescission/surrender.
  • Enforceability of a CFD liquidated-damages/forfeiture clause under Georgia penalty doctrine.
  • Direct authority that a CFD/equitable owner qualifies for the § 48-5-40 homestead exemption (“owned by and in possession”).
  • Whether and when an (a)(8) natural-person seller-financer must hold a Georgia MLO license despite the § 7-1-1001(a)(8) broker/lender-licensure exemption (the statute’s § 7-1-1001(b) preserves MLO duties for (a)(8) persons); and the precise scope for entity sellers and high-volume operators.
  • Intangibles-recording-tax interaction with a non-converted bond for title under § 48-6-68.
  • In re Prescott full opinion text (only a case-database summary retrieved this run); confirm exact holding language and citation 285 B.R. 763.
  • Chilivis opinion text was located via Justia (search summary); confirm the “for all practical purposes no different from a bond for title” language against the published reporter.
• open_questions:
  • Does Georgia distinguish remedy outcomes between a recorded and unrecorded bond for title (beyond § 44-2-6 priority), the way Texas § 5.079 does?
  • How do Georgia courts treat manufactured/mobile-home CFDs and SCRA-protected buyers?
  • Whether the § 48-6-68 three-year rule is enforced as a condition precedent to delivery in practice, or mainly affects tax/priority.
• cross_links: forfeiture-vs-foreclosure, equitable-conversion, dodd-frank-seller-financing, safe-act-mlo, garn-st-germain-due-on-sale, irc-453-installment-sale, skendzel-v-marshall-1973, sebastian-v-floyd-1979, mcdaniel-v-gray-1882, chilivis-v-tumlin-woods-1982, crowell-v-williams-2005
• changelog:
  • 2026-06-08 — Initial authoring. Remedy regime classified treat_as_mortgage (security device; repossession = rescission-with-restitution). Populated all modules from O.C.G.A. §§ 44-2-6, 44-5-30/32, 44-14-60, 13-5-30, 13-4-60/62, 7-4-2, 7-1-1001, 48-6-1, 48-6-68, 48-5-3, 48-5-40 (official Code via UniCourt O.C.G.A. mirror), and verified Georgia cases McDaniel v. Gray (1882), Chilivis v. Tumlin Woods (1982), Crowell v. Williams (2005), plus In re Prescott (Bankr. S.D. Ga. 2001). Created case pages for all three Georgia cases.
  • 2026-06-08 — Adversarial citation verification pass. Independently confirmed against primary sources: O.C.G.A. §§ 44-2-6, 48-6-68, 7-4-2, 48-6-1, 48-5-3, 13-4-62, 13-5-30 (exact text matches), and cases McDaniel v. Gray (69 Ga. 433), Chilivis v. Tumlin Woods (250 Ga. 179), Crowell v. Williams (273 Ga. App. 676), In re Prescott (285 B.R. 763) — all real, correctly cited, holdings accurate. Corrected the § 7-1-1001 SAFE Act passage: prior draft cited ”§ 7-1-1001(a)” and asserted the natural-person seller-financer is “generally exempt from state MLO licensing.” The retrieved statute shows the exemption is § 7-1-1001(a)(8) and, per § 7-1-1001(b), applies to broker/lender licensure ONLY — (a)(8) is expressly not carved out from MLO licensing. Rewrote to state the narrower (and correct) scope; updated the citation and the corresponding needs_verification flag. No fabricated authorities found.

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Disclaimer. This page is legal information, not legal advice, and may be out of date. Contract-for-deed statutes are frequently amended and remedies turn on facts. Consult a licensed attorney in this jurisdiction before drafting, enforcing, or signing an installment land contract.