How to Remove an Eviction From Your Record in Georgia

To remove an eviction from your record in Georgia, you file a petition in the magistrate court that handled the case asking the judge to seal the dispossessory record under O.C.G.A. § 44-7-60. Whether you qualify depends on how the case ended, and sealing the court file is only part of the job: tenant screening companies keep their own databases and won’t update them until you send them the sealing order.¹

Do You Qualify to Seal the Record

Georgia’s sealing statute sorts tenants into three groups based on the outcome of the dispossessory action. Find yours before you draft anything.

You Won or the Landlord Dropped the Case

If the judge ruled in your favor or the landlord voluntarily dismissed the case, you can petition immediately. The court has discretion to order the entire proceeding sealed and unavailable to the public, and there is no waiting period.¹

You Settled With the Landlord

If you signed a settlement agreement, you can petition to seal once you have met all of its conditions. There is a separate route if a government agency or nonprofit paid your landlord to resolve the dispute. In that situation, you can petition even if you didn’t complete every settlement term yourself.¹ Tenants whose back rent was covered by an emergency rental assistance program often qualify under this path.

You Lost the Case

Losing doesn’t close the door permanently. Three years after the case concluded, you can petition to seal if any of the following is true:

The eviction happened during a declared public health emergency.
Circumstances beyond your control, such as a sudden job loss or medical crisis, caused the eviction.
No other dispossessory actions are pending against you when you file.

That last condition is the broadest one. If three years have passed and no landlord is currently trying to evict you, you qualify to file regardless of why you originally lost.¹ The judge still has discretion to deny, but meeting the criteria gets you a hearing.

If You Lost by Default, Fix That First

A lot of tenants lose eviction cases not because the landlord had a strong claim but because they never showed up. If that describes you, sealing isn’t step one. Get the default judgment set aside so the underlying case reopens.

Georgia allows you to file a motion to set aside a judgment when the court lacked jurisdiction over you, when the judgment resulted from fraud or a mistake that wasn’t your own fault, or when there’s a defect on the face of the record.² In eviction defaults, the most common winning argument is improper service — that the landlord never properly notified you of the hearing. Prove that and the court should vacate the judgment.

You generally have three years from the date of judgment to file. A judgment entered without personal jurisdiction over you can be challenged at any time.² Once the judgment is set aside, you go back to court for a new hearing or negotiate with the landlord. From there, you pursue sealing under whichever category fits the new outcome.

Filing the Sealing Petition

Pull the case details before you start: the case number, the court that handled the eviction, and the judge’s name. All of it appears on paperwork you received when the case was active. If you no longer have your copies, the clerk’s office can look up the case by your name.

Most Georgia evictions run through magistrate court, and that is where the sealing petition goes.³ Some counties provide blank motion forms through the clerk’s office or website; if yours doesn’t, you can draft your own. The motion needs to identify the case, state which provision of O.C.G.A. § 44-7-60 you qualify under, and lay out the facts that support your request. If you settled and your written agreement included the landlord’s consent to seal, attach a signed copy. That document does most of the work at the hearing.

File with the clerk of the court that handled the original eviction. Some counties accept in-person filings, others use an electronic system. Motion filing fees vary by county, and some magistrate courts charge nothing.

After filing, serve the landlord with a copy of your motion and every attachment. Certified mail with a return receipt works; hiring a process server gives you cleaner proof of delivery. Keep whatever proof of service you receive because the court will want to see it. The clerk will then schedule a hearing and send you a notice with the date, time, and location.

At the Hearing

The judge reviews your motion, your evidence, and any response the landlord filed. Your job is to connect your situation to the statutory criteria. If you won the case, the court file usually shows that on its own. If you’re petitioning three years after a loss, be ready to explain how you meet one of the qualifying conditions — for instance, that no other dispossessory actions are pending against you.

The landlord can appear and argue against sealing, though many don’t show, especially in cases that settled or that the tenant won. If the landlord already consented in writing, their absence helps you.

Beyond the sealing statute, Georgia’s Uniform Superior Court Rule 21 governs limits on public access to court files and requires a judge to find that the harm to your privacy clearly outweighs the public interest in openness. When a case ended in dismissal or settlement, that test tilts in your favor because there’s little public interest in a resolved or unfounded eviction claim.⁴

After the Judge Grants Sealing

If the judge approves, the court issues an order sealing all records of the dispossessory proceeding and making them unavailable to the public. The clerk updates the court’s index so the case stops appearing in public searches.¹ Ask for several certified copies of the order before you leave the courthouse.

Now the second half. Tenant screening companies pull data from court records and store it in private databases, so the eviction can keep showing up on reports until someone tells the company to remove it. Send a certified copy of the sealing order to every screening company that has reported the eviction. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, once you dispute an entry, the company must reinvestigate and either verify or delete it within 30 days.⁵

If you don’t know which company is reporting your eviction, wait for the next denial. When a landlord turns down your application based on a screening report, federal law requires them to tell you which company produced it. That gives you the name and contact information you need to dispute.

When Sealing Isn’t Available: The Seven-Year Rule

Even without a Georgia court order, federal law caps how long eviction records can follow you. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, tenant screening companies cannot report civil suits or civil judgments more than seven years old.⁶ The clock runs from the date of the judgment, not from when you moved out or when the debt was paid. The FTC treats most housing court cases, including dismissed filings, as falling within this seven-year reporting window.⁷

Two disputes are worth knowing about. If a screening company reports an eviction older than seven years, dispute it directly and the company must investigate and correct or delete the entry within 30 days.⁵ The same process works for inaccurate reports, like a screening record that shows you lost a case you won, or that lists a case that was actually dismissed.

For a recent eviction, the FCRA won’t help you erase it from screening reports. Sealing the underlying court record will, because after sealing, there is nothing left for the screening company to verify.

One Tax Trap to Watch For

If you settle by having the landlord forgive part of what you owe, that forgiven amount can count as taxable income. A landlord or collection agency that cancels $600 or more of debt is generally required to file IRS Form 1099-C reporting the cancelled amount, and you would then report it on your tax return.⁸

There’s an exception that catches many tenants. If your total debts exceeded your total assets when the debt was forgiven — meaning you were insolvent — you can exclude the forgiven amount from income up to the amount of your insolvency, using IRS Form 982.⁹ Tenants facing eviction are often in that position, so the exclusion applies more often than people realize.

1
GA FastTrack. Georgia HB875 – Seals Dispossessory Action Records
2
Justia. Georgia Code 9-11-60 – Relief From Judgments
3
Georgia Courts. Landlord/Tenant
4
Cobb County Superior Court Clerk. Uniform Rules Superior Courts of the State of Georgia – Rule 21
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681i – Procedure in Case of Disputed Accuracy
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
7
Federal Trade Commission. Tenant Background Checks and Your Rights
8
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 1099-C, Cancellation of Debt
9
Internal Revenue Service. What if I Am Insolvent?