Georgia Mobile Home Park Lease Law: What Operators Need to Include

What must a mobile home lot lease include in Georgia?

Short answer: Georgia has no mobile-home-park-specific leasing statute. No state law dictates what a lot lease must contain, and there is no required disclosure checklist for renting a pad to a resident who owns their own manufactured home. Your lease is governed almost entirely by ordinary contract law plus the general landlord-tenant provisions in O.C.G.A. Title 44, Chapter 7.

Be careful with online sources. A citation to O.C.G.A. Section 44-7-60 as a Georgia Mobile Home Park Lot Act circulates on the internet and in AI-generated summaries. It is not real. Chapter 7's dispossessory-proceedings article runs Sections 44-7-49 through 44-7-59, and the distress-warrant article picks up at Section 44-7-70; Section 44-7-60 is not a mobile home park statute. Do not rely on it or cite it to a resident.

The only baseline statutory duties that touch your lot lease are the landlord's duty to keep the premises in repair (O.C.G.A. Section 44-7-13) and the security-deposit rules in Article 2 (Sections 44-7-30 to 44-7-37). Georgia does not even require a lease to be in writing. Everything else, term, rent and escalators, park rules, utilities, and who maintains the pad versus the home, is whatever you and the resident agree to in the contract.

Georgia's baseline landlord duties: repair, habitability, and deposits

O.C.G.A. Section 44-7-13 states in full: the landlord must keep the premises in repair, and he shall be liable for all substantial improvements placed upon the premises by his consent. Effective July 1, 2024, the Safe at Home Act (HB 404) amended this section to add Georgia's first statutory warranty that residential premises be fit for human habitation, implied into every residential lease entered into or renewed on or after that date. How that maps onto a bare-lot lease, where the resident owns the home and you supply only the pad, utility hookups, and common infrastructure, is not spelled out by statute, so treat your duty as covering what you actually control.

O.C.G.A. Section 44-7-14 reinforces this: once the landlord has fully parted with possession and the right of possession, it is not responsible to third persons for the tenant's negligence, provided, however, the landlord is responsible for damages arising from defective construction or for damages arising from the failure to keep the premises in repair.

On deposits, Article 2 governs. Security deposit is defined broadly in Section 44-7-30 to include damage deposits, advance rent deposits, and pet deposits. Under Section 44-7-31 any deposit shall be deposited in an escrow account established only for that purpose at a regulated institution, and tenants shall be informed in writing of the location of the escrow account. Under Section 44-7-34 you must return the full deposit within one month after the termination of the residential lease or the surrender and acceptance of the premises, whichever occurs last, less lawful deductions, never for ordinary wear and tear.

There is no Georgia statute listing required lease terms

Georgia does not impose a statutory list of lease contents or disclosures, and it does not require a written lease at all. Oral and month-to-month arrangements are valid and common in parks. If there is no fixed term, the arrangement is a tenancy at will, and O.C.G.A. Section 44-7-7 requires 60 days' notice from the landlord and 30 days' notice from the tenant to terminate. A written, fixed-term lease overrides that default.

Because the statute is silent, the contract does all the work. Whatever you need to be enforceable, lot rent and escalators, park rules, utility billing, guest and occupancy limits, maintenance responsibility for the pad versus the home, skirting and tie-down standards, and grounds for termination, must be written into the agreement. Georgia courts generally enforce clear contract terms, so any ambiguity is construed against you as the drafter.

This gap is well documented. Georgia legal commentary has long noted the necessity for specific state legislation to deal with the mobile home park landlord-tenant relationship, and no such comprehensive act has been enacted. Tenant protections specific to lot leases remain minimal, which places the burden on a well-drafted lease.

How Georgia does regulate mobile homes (just not lot leases)

Georgia's mobile-home statutes address the home as a product and as taxable property, not the lease. Installation, licensing of manufacturers and dealers, and setup standards live in O.C.G.A. Title 8, Chapter 2, Article 2, including dealer and manufacturer licensing (Section 8-2-135) and installation of manufactured and mobile homes (Sections 8-2-160 to 8-2-168), administered through the state Safety Fire Commissioner's office.

Taxation and the location permit live in Title 48. Under O.C.G.A. Section 48-5-492 the home's owner must obtain a mobile home location permit from the county tax commissioner each year by April 1, evidenced by a decal. County health, zoning, and park-licensing ordinances add spacing, sanitation, and permitting rules on top of that.

None of these regulate what your lot lease must say. They matter because they shape park operations, and because your lease should make clear that the resident, as the home's owner, is responsible for their own annual location permit or decal and personal-property tax.

Lease requirements at a glance in Georgia

• No MHP lot-lease act
  Georgia has no mobile-home-park-specific leasing statute and no required-disclosure checklist; general Title 44, Chapter 7 rules and contract law control.
• Ignore O.C.G.A. Section 44-7-60
  There is no Mobile Home Park Lot Act at Section 44-7-60; that number falls between the dispossessory (Sections 44-7-49-59) and distress-warrant (Section 44-7-70+) articles. It is a fabricated citation.
• Written lease optional but wise
  Georgia does not require a written lease; with no fixed term the tenancy is at will, requiring 60-day landlord and 30-day tenant notice under Section 44-7-7. Put it in writing anyway.
• Duty to repair and habitability
  Under Section 44-7-13 the landlord must keep the premises in repair; the 2024 Safe at Home Act added a fit-for-human-habitation warranty for residential leases from July 1, 2024.
• Security-deposit escrow
  Deposits must sit in a dedicated escrow account, and the tenant must be told the account location in writing (Section 44-7-31).
• Deposit return in one month
  Return the full deposit within one month of termination or surrender, less lawful deductions, per Section 44-7-34; no charging for ordinary wear and tear.
• Mobile-home rules are elsewhere
  Installation and licensing (Title 8, Ch. 2, Art. 2) and the annual location permit/decal and tax (Section 48-5-492) govern the home, not the lease.

Operator best practices in Georgia

• Put everything in the written lease
  Because no statute supplies default lot-lease terms, spell out rent and escalators, park rules, utility billing, pad-versus-home maintenance, and termination grounds; ambiguity is construed against you as drafter.
• Handle deposits by the book
  Use a dedicated escrow account, give written notice of its location, and return with an itemized statement within one month to preserve your deductions (Sections 44-7-31, 44-7-34).
• Keep the pad in repair
  Maintain everything you control, the lot, utility connections, roads, and common areas, to satisfy Section 44-7-13 and the Safe at Home habitability standard.
• Assign permit and tax duties clearly
  State that the resident, as the home's owner, must obtain the annual county location permit or decal by April 1 and pay personal-property tax (Section 48-5-492).
• Follow the correct termination process
  Use tenancy-at-will notice periods (Section 44-7-7) or the fixed lease term, and the statutory dispossessory process for evictions; never use self-help lockouts.
• Build a relationship with a Georgia MHP attorney
  With no MHP-specific statute and evolving 2024 tenant-protection law, have Georgia counsel review your lot-lease template and park rules before you rely on them.