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Glossary
Terms used across these publications, defined as we use them.
| Term | Definition as used here |
|---|---|
| Dispossessory | Georgia's term for an eviction action. Filed in the magistrate court of the county where the property is located. |
| Demand for possession | The written demand a Georgia landlord must make before filing a dispossessory. |
| Answer period | The statutory window a tenant has to respond after being served. Seven days in Georgia. |
| Default | Disposition where the tenant does not answer within the statutory period and the case proceeds without a contested hearing. |
| Judgment | The court's decision. Establishes the right to possession and usually a money award. Does not itself restore possession. |
| Writ of possession | The separate court order authorising law enforcement to restore possession to the owner. |
| Executing office | The office that carries out the writ. A sheriff's office in most Georgia counties; the Marshal's Department in Fulton County. |
| Setout | The physical execution of the writ — removal of occupants and belongings, and securing of the unit. |
| Cycle time | Elapsed time between two defined stage markers. Meaningless without stating which two. |
| Case aging | Distribution of elapsed time for cases currently open, measured from filing. |
| Exclusion rate | Share of records dropped from a calculation for missing fields. Published alongside every figure that has one. |
| Disclosure threshold | Minimum cell count below which a figure is suppressed rather than published. |
Eviction Labs is the research programme of EvictIQ. Findings describe our own completed case records and are not a representative sample of all Georgia evictions. Not legal advice. Services described here are contracted with EvictIQ and delivered by EvictIQ's vetted operator network. EvictIQ is the party you contract with and is accountable for the work.
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