Glossary
The following terms may be used on this site.
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- Account number
- Unique number assigned to identify an individual
property.
- Acreage
- Unit used to define the quantity of land
- Ad valorem tax
- Means "According to value". A tax that is imposed on the value
of property, real or personal.
- Advertisement
- Notice given in a manner designed to attract public
attention.
- Alias execution
- Replacement for lost or destroyed execution
(O.C.G.A.48-3-7).
- Appraised Value
- A valuation or a determination as to value of property.
- Assessment/Assessed Value
- 40% of fair market value of property used to compute ad valorem
taxes.
- Bar the right of redemption
- Procedure that extinguishes the ability to repurchase property
forcibly sold to satisfy a judgment or other claim against a
debtor.
- Bona fide purchaser
- One who has purchased property for value without any notice of
any defects in the title of the seller.
- Calendar week
- A block of seven days registered on the calendar beginning with
Sunday and ending with Saturday.
- Deed (GED) Book/Page
- Identifies the book number and page number of a recorded legal
document on the General Execution Docket of the Superior
Court.
- Defaulter
- A taxpayer whose taxes have not been paid on the date they are
due. Same as a delinquent taxpayer. Also a taxpayer who has failed
to return their property.
- Defendant
- The person defending or denying; the party against whom relief
or recovery is sought in an action or suit or the accused in a
criminal case.
- Execution
- The process and/or form used for levying on and selling enough
of a delinquent taxpayer's property to satisfy unpaid taxes.
- Execution docket
- Tax Commissioner's execution docket or GED in Clerk of Superior
Court's office.
- Execution transferee
- The appropriate person to whom an execution must be transferred
when he or she pays taxes and costs due on an execution.
- Exemption
- Relief from a certain amount or proportion of tax liability
granted to a property owner upon approval of an application.
- Fair market value
- The price at which property would change hands between a
willing buyer and a willing seller, neither being under any
compulsion to buy and both having reasonable knowledge of the
relevant facts.
- Fieri facias (Fi.Fa.)
- Means you "cause it to be done." A judicial writ directing the
sheriff to satisfy a judgment from the debtor's property.
- Foreclosure
- To shut out; to bar; to terminate. A termination of all rights
of the mortgagor or his grantee in the property covered by the
mortgage. Procedure by which mortgaged property is sold on default
of mortgagor in satisfaction of mortgage debt.
- Grantee
- The person to whom property is transferred (the buyer).
- Grantor
- The person who transfers the property to another (the
seller).
- Improvement
- Buildings or other more or less permanent structures or
developments located on a parcel of land.
- In personam
- The legal process directed against a person.
- In rem
- The legal process directed against a property.
- Interest
- A right, claim, title or legal share in something; compensation
required by law to be charged on principal tax liability after the
established due date.
- Interested parties
- Those who have a legally recognized private interest.
- Interpleader
- An equitable proceeding to determine the rights of rival
claimants to property held by a third party having no interest
therein.
- Legal description
- A detailed description of real property. Such must be complete
enough that a particular parcel of land can be located and
identified.
- Levy
- The process whereby a sheriff or other state official empowered
by writ or other judicial directive actually seizes, or otherwise
brings within his or her control, a delinquent taxpayer's property
to satisfy the judgment; the legislative rate or amount of
taxation.
- Lien
- A claim, encumbrance, or charge on a taxpayer's property to
obtain payment of overdue taxes.
- Life estate
- An estate whose duration is limited to the life of the party
holding it, or some other person. A legal arrangement whereby the
beneficiary (i.e. the life tenant) is entitled to the income from
the property during his or her life. Upon the death of the life
tenant, the property goes to the person holding the remaining
interest or to the grantor by reversion.
- Mortgagee
- The person who takes, holds, or receives a mortgage.
- Mortgagor
- The debtor; the party who mortgages the property. The party to
a mortgage who gives legal title or a lien to the mortgage in order
to secure the mortgage loan.
- Net Assessment
- Actual value used to compute tax liability after exempt credit
has been made.
- Net Rate
- Individual millage rate set by specified governing
agency.
- Notice
- Information; knowledge of the existence of a fact or state of
affairs; Communication to a person by an authorized person, or
actually derived by him or her from a proper source.
- Nulla bona
- The name of the return made by the sheriff to a writ of
execution when he or she has not found any goods of the defendant
within his or her jurisdiction on which to levy.
- Overbid
- Amount paid above the delinquent taxes, any fees and
interest.
- Owner
- The person in whom is vested the ownership, dominion, or title
of property; proprietor.
- Penalty
- A sum of money exacted for punishment for doing some act which
is prohibited or for not doing some act which is required; 10% of
the principal tax liability.
- Personal property
- In broad and general sense, everything that is the subject of
ownership which is not under the denomination of real estate. A
right or interest in things which are personal, or any right or
interest which one has in things movable.
- Pointing out
- The act of a delinquent taxpayer in pointing out or selecting
property that he or she prefers to be levied on. (O.C.G.A.
48-3-4).
- Property Address
- The physical address of a parcel of land.
- Property Class
- Identifies the type of property.
- Real property
- Land, and generally whatever is erected or growing upon or
affixed to land. Also rights issuing out of, annexed to, and
exercisable within or about land. A general term for lands,
tenements, and hereditaments; property which, on the death of the
owner intestate, passes to his or her heir.
- Redemption
- A repurchase; a buying back. The act of a vendor of property in
buying it back again from the purchaser at the same or enhanced
price.
- Redemption period
- A time period during which a defaulted mortgage, land contract,
deed of trust, tax deed, etc., can be redeemed. Such period is
commonly provided by state statute.
- Sales Tax Credit
- Offset granted due to the collection of local sales tax.
- Security deed
- A deed pledging property to secure a loan.
- State Credit
- Reduction granted in result of homeowner's tax relief enacted
by the Governor and the General Assembly of the State of
Georgia.
- Statute of limitations
- Statutes of the federal government and various states setting
maximum time periods during which certain actions can be brought or
rights enforced. After the time period set out in the applicable
statute of limitations has run, no legal action can be brought
regardless of whether any cause of action ever existed.
- Summons of garnishment
- An order issued by an appropriate officer to a person owing the
delinquent taxpayer money or holding property of the delinquent
taxpayer which may be used to pay the taxes and costs due (O.C.G.
A. 48-3-12).
- Tax deed
- The deed given upon a sale of real property made for
non-payment of taxes. The deed whereby the officer of the law
undertakes to convey the title of the property to the purchaser at
the tax sale. This is sometimes called a sheriff's deed.
- Tax District
- Defines the municipality or unincorporated area within Fulton
County.
- Tax sale
- A sale of land for unpaid taxes; a sale of property, by
authority of law, for the collection of a tax assessed upon it, or
upon its owner which remains unpaid.
- Temporary Tax Bill
- Property tax bill based on return value or 85% of the value
proposed by the Board of Assessors due to an appeal.
- Title
- The right to or ownership in land; means whereby the owner of
lands has the just possession of his or her property.
- Transfer
- An act by parties by which the title to property is conveyed
from one person to another.
- Transferee
- The person to whom a transfer is made.
- Warranty deed
- A deed which conveys the title to property whereby the seller
guarantees the title to be good and unencumbered except as stated
and agrees to defend and protect the purchaser against any loss
that may arise in the future from any defect in the title at he
time of conveyance.
- Writ
- A written court order or a judicial process, directing that a sheriff or other judicial officer do what is commanded by the writ; or giving authority and commission to have it done.