How to handle security deposits, evictions, lease termination, and habitability issues — for renters and landlords.
North Carolina lets tenants end a lease early without penalty only on specific grounds, military orders, domestic violence, an unfit unit, or foreclosure. Here is each ground, the notice it takes, and what you owe if you leave without one.
Georgia’s eviction process, a dispossessory proceeding, runs on short statutory deadlines. Here is each stage from the demand for possession to the writ of possession, with the timing set by O.C.G.A. Title 44, Chapter 7.
How Georgia’s statutory implied warranty of habitability works, what the 2024 amendment to O.C.G.A. § 44-7-13 added, and the notice, damages, and retaliation remedies available to residential tenants.
Georgia recognizes only a few grounds for ending a lease early without penalty, military duty, an uninhabitable unit, a lease clause, or the landlord’s agreement. This article explains each, plus the mitigation rule that limits what a departing tenant owes.
North Carolina’s warranty of habitability is statutory. Here is what landlords must keep in repair, the written-notice step that triggers the duty, and how tenants enforce it without illegally withholding rent.
North Carolina’s eviction process, called summary ejectment, laid out in order: the notice and demand, the small-claims filing and hearing, the magistrate’s judgment, the 10-day appeal window, and the sheriff’s writ of possession.
Georgia sets no standard list of lease clauses, but it does require written leases over a year, flood and lead-paint disclosures, and protections that cannot be waived.
In Georgia, the “eviction notice” is really the landlord’s demand for possession under O.C.G.A. § 44-7-50, including the three-business-day notice to vacate or pay that now applies to unpaid-rent cases and the separate 60-day notice for month-to-month tenancies.
In Georgia, “squatters’ rights” means adverse possession, which takes 20 years (or 7 with color of title). Owners remove squatters through a magistrate court dispossessory action, not self-help.
The types of eviction notice used in North Carolina, the statutory notice periods for unpaid rent and periodic tenancies, and what a valid notice contains.
North Carolina grants no special squatters’ rights. An occupant gains title only through adverse possession, and owners remove squatters through a court process, never by force.
A plain-language map of North Carolina’s residential renting rules under Chapter 42: leases, security deposits, repairs and habitability, late fees, and the summary ejectment eviction process.