Tenants Must Respond To Eviction Notices To Get Hearings. But Many May Have Missed The Deadline.

Metro ATL Eviction Data Collective found landlords in Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett Counties filed nearly 6,000 eviction lawsuits since the start of the pandemic in mid-March. So far, tenants submitted answers in less than a fifth of those cases.

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A key deadline in eviction cases came and went this week. And housing advocates worry thousands of tenants around metro Atlanta may not have known.

Normally, when tenants get an eviction notice, they must respond within a week. This is their opportunity to tell the court what their defense is.

But as Lindsey Siegel of Atlanta Legal Aid said, these are not normal times. In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Georgia’s Chief Justice delayed deadlines, including those related to eviction.