Two more provisions that reach boards

§ 51-3-55(a) states the principle the Article rests on: “no owner or occupier shall be required to assume the responsibilities and obligations of government for law enforcement and public safety.”

§ 51-3-56(3) is the apportionment rule, and it is unusually aggressive. The court must set aside a verdict and retry liability and damages if the jury fails to apportion reasonable fault to the criminal — with a rebuttable presumption of unreasonableness where “the total percentage of fault apportioned to all third persons… is less than the total percentage of fault apportioned to all owners or occupiers, security contractors, and other persons.”

In plain terms: a Georgia jury that blames the association more than the assailant produces a verdict the court must set aside.

How this collides with the Tuscany decision

The timing here is what makes it a story rather than a footnote.

On 2 July 2025 — ten weeks after SB 68 took effect — the Georgia Court of Appeals decided Tuscany Condominium Association, Inc. v. C.P., No. A25A0145, holding as a matter of first impression that a condominium declaration's “no security” clause is unenforceable against a renter, because a tenant is not a member of the association and the clause was “not explicit, prominent, clear, and unambiguous as to C. P.”²

The assault in that case occurred on 7 June 2020 — nearly five years before SB 68's effective date. Because Section 9(b) limits the new Article to causes of action arising on or after 21 April 2025, Tuscany was decided under the old law.

So the two developments point in opposite directions and apply to different cases:

• Tuscany removes the association's contractual shield against non-members. That holding stands.
• SB 68 raises the statutory bar for the underlying claim — and the “owner or occupier” definition extends that protection to individual directors and the management company.

A Georgia negligent-security claim arising from an incident today faces the new elements. One arising from an incident in 2024 does not.

What a board can actually do

The instinct after reading a defendant-friendly statute is to relax. That would be the wrong lesson, for a specific reason visible in the text.

Section 51-3-51 keys liability to a “specific physical condition of the premises known to the owner or occupier” that the criminal exploited. In Tuscany the assailant entered through an unlocked pedestrian gate. That is precisely a specific physical condition of the premises — and an association that has been told the gate does not latch is an association with knowledge of it.

So the practical exposure has narrowed to a sharper point rather than disappearing:

• Fix what you have been told about. The statute rewards an association that repairs a known defective gate, lock or light, and punishes one that documents the complaint and does nothing.
• Do not undertake what you will not maintain. A gate that is supposed to lock is an undertaking. Section 51-3-55(a) says you need not assume the government's law-enforcement role; it does not say you may maintain a broken security measure.
• Call 9-1-1 and record it. Section 51-3-54(7) makes that a deemed reasonable effort and an absolute bar. It is the cheapest defence in the Article.
• Know your 500 yards. Prior substantially similar conduct within 500 yards is one of the two routes to liability. An association that has never looked at the crime picture around its property does not know whether it is on that route.
• Get the waivers signed by the people they bind. Tuscany is the authority: a declaration clause does not reach a tenant, and an exculpatory clause requires a meeting of the minds with the person it is meant to bind.
• Check the D&O tower. The Article names directors, officers, employees and agents as potential defendants. That is a reason to confirm what the association's directors' and officers' policy actually covers.

What Georgia's new association statute adds

An information right that reaches this directly. From 1 January 2027, § 43-17A-7(2) entitles an owner, on written demand, to a copy of the association's certificate of insurance for coverage obtained for the owner's benefit “that may apply to a potential claim or submitted claim.”³

A Georgia owner concerned about common-area security can now establish what liability coverage exists before anything happens.

What to watch next

The first Georgia appellate decision applying Article 5 to a community association. The open question is how courts read “specific physical condition of the premises” — broadly enough to capture a broken gate and a dark car park, or narrowly enough that most common-area claims fail at the pleading stage. Nothing in the reported decisions answers it yet.