Georgia · LienGuardAI

General information, not legal advice. Confirm current fees, forms, and deadlines on official government sites, and talk to an attorney about your situation. LienGuardAI does not file anything for you. See Legal Disclaimer & Terms of Use.

Relevant case law: A man who also used an alias filed multi-million-dollar liens against property of people he blamed for tax and other disputes, including a former IRS Commissioner ($33 million) and a former Treasury Secretary ($15 million). In a civil suit he brought against the former IRS Commissioner, a federal district court dismissed the suit and declared his liens null and void. He was later convicted on many false-lien and related counts. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit sitting en banc vacated only the four counts involving those two former officials, holding the federal false-lien statute protects current — not former — officers; the case was remanded for resentencing on the remaining counts. Verified. (United States v. Pate, 84 F.4th 1196 (11th Cir. 2023) (en banc).)

This is a plain-language summary of a published judicial opinion, not a complete report of the case. Confirm names, holdings, and procedural posture against the opinion itself.

UCC financing statements

Check if one exists

Search Georgia's UCC records

Free basic search. GSCCCA Basic Name Search (Article 9); free, no login. Certified search requests require an account.

Refusal / removal authority

Georgia has no non-uniform UCC pre-filing fraud refusal — §11-9-520(a) limits refusal to uniform §11-9-516(b) grounds.

Citations No non-uniform pre-filing authority ide…

Full citations

No non-uniform pre-filing authority identified

There is no pre-filing content/fraud review to invoke.

If it's already filed: Information statement / §11-9-518 / §11-9-625; criminal exposure under §16-10-20.1 where facts fit.

Real-property liens

§44-2-20 is about recorded land affidavits as notice, not false-document refusal. Live tools: §16-10-20.1 (felony for knowingly filing a false document in a public record, expressly including liens/encumbrances) and §44-14-320 (nonconforming/unauthorized liens are nullities; ex parte superior-court petition to cancel). §44-14-320 is an unauthorized-lien pathway, not a general 'materially fraudulent' standard.

Citations GA §16-10-20.1 GA §44-14-320

Full citations

Ga. Code §16-10-20.1
Ga. Code §44-14-320

Criminal prosecution under §16-10-20.1; ex parte cancel petition for nonconforming liens under §44-14-320.

If it's already recorded: Felony penalties; court cancel of nonconforming liens.

Real-property records are held by the clerk of superior court where the property sits.

Get notified before it happens

Georgia has a free "property fraud alert" service — it emails or mails you whenever a document gets recorded against your name, so you find out right away instead of months later. Sign up for FANS (Filing Activity Notification System) →

One sign-up covers every Georgia county, run by the Superior Court Clerks' Cooperative Authority.

If the path runs through court

Georgia doesn't have a self-filed administrative form for this — the verified remedy runs through a court, which generally means an attorney rather than a fill-in-the-blank document.

Ex Parte Petition to Cancel a Nonconforming Lien, or Criminal Referral

Georgia gives you two routes once a fraudulent real-property filing is recorded: §44-14-320 lets you bring an ex parte superior-court petition to cancel a nonconforming or unauthorized lien (nullities by statute) — note this is specifically an unauthorized-lien pathway, not a general "materially fraudulent" standard, so it may not fit every case — and §16-10-20.1 is a felony for knowingly filing a false document in a public record, which expressly includes liens and encumbrances. §44-2-20 concerns recorded land affidavits as notice and is unrelated to false-document refusal.

This generally requires an attorney. The cancel petition is an ex parte superior-court filing, and the felony route requires a criminal referral — an attorney can help determine which of the two fits your facts, since they're not interchangeable.

Citation GA §44-14-320

People consulting an attorney about a filing like this often bring:

A copy of the filing, if available, and where and when it was filed or recorded (office, date, and document or instrument number)
Any notices, letters, or other correspondence about it
Records for the property or account it names, such as a deed, title, or loan papers
Notes on any contact with the filer or the filing office, with dates
This page's citations and their check dates

How this usually works in Georgia

A summary of the tools Georgia law and filing offices provide — general information, not instructions for your facts. Confirm current practice with the filing office and talk to an attorney about your situation.

1Georgia's free GSCCCA Article 9 name search is linked on this page.
2Georgia has no pre-filing UCC fraud refusal.
3§44-2-20 is not a fraudulent-lien cleanup statute.
4The Georgia statutes that may apply to a fraudulent filing are §44-14-320 (nonconforming liens) and §16-10-20.1 (false documents).

What to expect

Georgia remains criminal/court-leaning, alongside the §44-14-320 nonconforming-lien petition. Confirm the current fee on the state's official site — filing and search fees change and are not published here.

Sources: the LienGuardAI fifty-state survey and UCC search portal review (How we verify). No dollar fee amounts are published here — always confirm the current fee on the state's own site.