Rule 49.EMERGENCY DISPOSSESSORY

Rule 49 is a pandemic-era rule that connects Georgia’s dispossessory procedure under OCGA § 44-7-50 to the eviction moratorium in the federal CARES Act. It applied to landlords filing a dispossessory action before August 25, 2020, seeking possession of a residential unit for nonpayment of rent. Those landlords had to file and serve, along with the complaint, a verification stating whether the property was exempt from the CARES Act’s moratorium. For cases already filed before the rule took effect, that verification could come later — before or during the hearing, or, if the tenant filed no answer, before a writ of possession issued.

What the landlord filed next depended on the property. If the property wasn’t a “covered property” under section 4024 (a) (2) of the CARES Act, or was otherwise exempt from the moratorium, the landlord used a document called a CARES Act Affidavit. If the property was covered, the landlord instead had to comply with the CARES Act’s own thirty-day notice requirement under section 4024 (c) before filing at all — and that notice couldn’t be sent before July 26, 2020.

The rule’s scope is narrow by design: it applied only to filings made before August 25, 2020, and the rule’s text itself notes it was adopted effective May 4, 2020. That short window reflects its purpose — bridging the gap between the CARES Act’s federal moratorium and Georgia’s ordinary dispossessory practice during the first months of the pandemic, rather than establishing a lasting procedure.