2026-09-10 · Georgia · Legislation

What happened. Three sections of the Georgia Property Owners' Bill of Rights Act have nothing to do with registration or complaints. Sections 3, 4 and 6 rewrite how a Georgia covenant community becomes governed by the Property Owners' Association Act — and cap the vote it takes to amend the declaration afterwards. All take effect 1 January 2027.¹

For Georgia, this is a bigger structural change than it looks, because of what the POA Act does: it rescues covenants from the twenty-year expiry rule in O.C.G.A. § 44-5-60 and supplies a statutory lien, a foreclosure mechanism and amendment machinery that common-law covenant communities simply do not have.

The third route in

Before this Act, a Georgia development came under the POA Act in one of two ways: the original declaration was recorded under the Act, or a recorded declaration was amended under § 44-3-235(a)(2) to submit to it. Section 6 adds a third, at new § 44-3-235(a)(3):

“This article shall also apply to any association of owners subject to a recorded declaration of covenants upon property, which covenants are administered by an owners' association in which membership is mandatory for all owners of lots in the development subject to such declaration, where 80 percent of the association vote to approve the submission of such association to this article and records an instrument certifying such vote. Such instrument shall give notice that the recordation of the instrument subjects the association to the provisions of this article.”

Section 3 then amends § 44-3-222 so that a property owners' development comes into existence on “the recordation of an instrument pursuant to paragraph (3) of subsection (a) of Code Section 44-3-235” as well as by the two older routes.

The requirement is mandatory membership. A voluntary Georgia neighbourhood association — the kind where dues are optional — cannot use this door.

The amendment threshold, capped at 80%

Section 4 rewrites § 44-3-226(b). The general rule stays: no amendment may require the approval of more than 80 percent of the association vote and mortgagees holding 80 percent of the voting interest of mortgaged lots.

What is new is paragraph (2), a one-year window for associations coming in by the new route. Where such an association's declaration requires a majority in excess of 80 percent to amend, that higher requirement survives only if, “by the first anniversary of the date of submission, the association and those mortgagees permitted to vote on amendments vote to retain the requirements by a majority” — and if no such vote occurs, provisions requiring more than 80 percent “shall be deemed to only require 80 percent of the voting interest.”

A community with a 90 percent or unanimous amendment clause that submits under the new route and then does nothing for a year finds that clause reduced to 80 percent by operation of law.

Where this came from

These three sections are not new drafting. They are, substantively, House Bill 664 — “Property owners' associations; development and affirmative election; provisions” — which passed the House by committee substitute on 3 March 2026, was read in the Senate the next day, went to Senate Judiciary and died there at sine die.² The bill is dead; its text is Georgia law.

1. Senate Bill 406, as passed (26 LC 49 2879S) — signed copy, Office of the Governor ↩
2. 2026 Composite Status Report, Session Final, Georgia House of Representatives (14 May 2026) ↩
3. Vaughn v. Windfield Homeowners Association, Inc., No. A24A1751 (Ga. Ct. App. 21 Feb. 2025) — slip opinion ↩