Georgia records real estate instruments at the county level, with the Clerk of Superior Court in the county where the property sits. There is no statewide registry and no central office—each of Georgia's 159 counties maintains its own land records. For estate plans involving property in multiple counties, that means multiple filings, each with its own clerk and its own queue.
This is the single most common reason a Georgia deed gets bounced. To be validly executed and eligible for recording, a deed must be signed by the grantor and attested by two witnesses—one of whom must be a notary public (or other authorized officer), and one of whom is an unofficial witness. A notary acknowledgment alone is not enough.
Out-of-state attorneys and remote signings are especially prone to this error, because many states require only a notary. In Georgia, the missing second witness is fatal to recording, and clerks will reject it.
Every deed that passes title must be accompanied by a PT-61 Real Estate Transfer Tax Declaration, filed online through GSCCCA. The transfer tax runs $1.00 per $1,000 of consideration ($0.10 per additional $100).
The estate planning wrinkle: most of the transfers you handle—funding a revocable living trust, gifting property to a child, or moving title into an LLC for no consideration—are exempt from transfer tax, so the tax due is $0. But the PT-61 is still required.
Georgia clerks require a 3-inch blank margin at the top of the first page for the recording stamp. A deed that doesn't leave room either gets a cover sheet appended (sometimes at extra cost) or gets returned. Build it into your template once and forget about it.
Effective July 1, 2024, Georgia adopted a statutory Transfer-on-Death (TOD) deed, allowing an owner to name a beneficiary who takes title automatically at death, outside probate, while the owner retains full control during life. It's a useful, revocable planning option for the right client—and it records like any other deed, subject to the same execution and filing rules above.
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Let us manage the paperwork while you focus on high‑value legal work. Ready to modernize your workflow? Visit 50deeds.com to learn more and get started today.