Our Practice

We are a small, specialized litigation firm . Nearly all of our work relates to real property in Georgia: who holds title to the land, the extent of its boundaries, what may be done on it, and what was promised about its present or future ownership. Most of our cases are heard in the superior courts of Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett counties, although we practice throughout the state of Georgia and in the Court of Appeals or the federal courts. The ledger below describes the types of matters we typically handle.

Boundary: A fence, a driveway, or a building over the line; two surveys that disagree; a new owner questioning a line no one questioned for forty years. Many of these turn on possession as much as paper: in Georgia, twenty years of open, exclusive use can ripen into title, and seven under a recorded deed. We take more boundary cases than any other kind, and where the neighbors can agree, we draft and record the boundary-line agreement that settles the question for the next owner too.
Easement: Rights of way, shared driveways, drainage and utility lines, and parcels with no road frontage of their own. An easement may be written into a deed, earned by long use, or implied by necessity, and the dispute is usually over whether it exists, how far it runs, and what the other side may do with it.
Title: A break in the chain, a deed that was never valid, a forged or fraudulent instrument, a lien that should have been released, a survey that was wrong from the start. Some clouds lift with a corrective deed and a few letters. The rest take a quiet title action in superior court, often before a special master.
Partition: Partition cases help divide property held by people who can no longer hold it together: siblings who inherited a house, former partners, co-owners who cannot agree whether to sell. Georgia lets any co-owner ask the court to sell the property and divide the proceeds. We bring these actions and defend them, although most settle before a forced sale becomes necessary.
Purchase & Sale: A purchase and sale agreement makes promises that are easy to sign and sometimes hard to keep. Between the contract date and the closing, a buyer may lose financing or receive a low appraisal, an inspection may turn up more than either side expected, or one party may simply decide that it would rather terminate the transaction. We represent buyers and sellers when that happens. Many of these disputes concern the earnest money and who is entitled to it, which usually turns on the deadlines the contract set and whether each side met them. After closing, the questions shift to what the seller knew about the property and whether it should have been disclosed. Georgia expects a buyer to inspect, but it does not allow a seller to conceal a defect the buyer could not reasonably have found.
Interpleader: When a broker or closing attorney holds money that two parties claim, the court decides who gets it. We handle these actions over earnest money and escrowed funds on behalf of the closing firm.
Construction: Defective, unfinished, or unpaid work, on either side of the contract. Georgia requires an owner to give a contractor written notice of a defect and a chance to inspect and offer a repair before suing, and the claim is often resolved in that exchange. We handle the process for owners making the claim and for builders answering one, along with any subsequent arbitration or litigation.
Associations: Owners of homes and condominiums in Georgia live under a declaration of covenants and a board elected to enforce the covenants and bylaws, but in some cases the board does not fulfill its duties equitably. The Georgia Property Owners' Association Act, the Condominium Act, and the declaration itself give an association real power over the people who live within it, but they also set limits on that power, and the courts will enforce those limits. When a board exceeds its authority, ignores its own governing documents, or singles out an owner, we hold the association accountable for it.
Landlord / Tenant: Disputes between landlords and tenants, under commercial leases and residential ones. For a landlord that may involve a tenant who has stopped paying and will not leave, a space returned in poor condition, or a guarantor who would rather not honor the guaranty. For a tenant it may mean a security deposit withheld without the accounting Georgia requires, a lockout or a utility shut-off, or repairs that were promised and never made. Georgia's dispossessory procedure moves quickly and has rules of its own. Some of the most interesting cases we have handled began with a lease.
Business Disputes: Contract disputes between businesses and their counterparties; disputes among the owners of a company over control, money, or how to part ways; and the collection of what a judgment says is owed. Most of these come to us through property the parties hold together. However, we also accept business disputes that are unrelated to real property.