§ 9-13-161.Where and when sales under execution held; change of place of public sales by court order

This is the section behind Georgia’s familiar “first Tuesday” sheriff’s sale. Subsection (a) fixes the sale at the courthouse of the county where the levy was made, on the first Tuesday of the month, between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. — the same hours set generally in Code Section 9-13-160 — and by public outcry, meaning open competitive bidding rather than sealed bids. When the first Tuesday lands on New Year’s Day or Independence Day, the sale moves to the following Wednesday, and that same shift carries over to every other public sale in the county that the law requires be held on the sheriff’s-sale schedule.

Subsection (b) recognizes that not everything levied on can, or should, be hauled to the courthouse door. Corn, lumber, timber, bricks, machinery, and other property that is difficult and expensive to transport can be sold without physically bringing it to the sale, but only if the advertisement gives a full description of the property and states where it can be found — the bidder’s chance to inspect moves to the property’s location instead of the courthouse steps.

Subsection (c) addresses safety rather than logistics. When holding sales at the courthouse door would create an undue traffic hazard or unnecessarily endanger people using the public streets, the presiding judge of the superior court may, by general order published in the county’s official newspaper and entered on the court’s minutes, move the sale location elsewhere. The one fixed limit is that the property still must be sold exactly where the advertisement said it would be — a judge’s order can relocate the sale, but the advertised location still controls on sale day. That relocation authority, like the holiday shift in subsection (a), extends to every public sale in the county required to be conducted the way sheriff’s sales are.