Document Templates

IN THE MAGISTRATE COURT OF [COUNTY NAME] COUNTY
STATE OF GEORGIA

[LANDLORD NAME],          )
    Plaintiff,            )    Civil Action No.: [CASE NUMBER]
                          )
v.                        )
                          )
[TENANT NAME],            )
    Defendant.            )

DEFENDANT'S ANSWER TO DISPOSSESSORY

COMES NOW, [TENANT NAME], Defendant in the above-styled action, and files this Answer to Plaintiff's Dispossessory Warrant, and shows the Court as follows:

1. RESPONSE TO ALLEGATIONS

   [  ] Defendant ADMITS the allegations in the Dispossessory Warrant.
   [  ] Defendant DENIES the following allegations: ___________________________

2. DEFENSES (check all that apply)

   [  ] I have paid the rent or offered to pay the rent owed.
   [  ] The landlord accepted rent after filing this action.
   [  ] The property has the following habitability issues that the landlord has failed to repair:
        _____________________________________________________________________
   [  ] I have a valid lease that does not expire until: ______________________
   [  ] The landlord did not give proper notice before filing.
   [  ] Other defense: _______________________________________________________

3. DEFENDANT'S CONTACT INFORMATION

   Name:    [TENANT NAME]
   Address: [CURRENT ADDRESS]
   Phone:   [PHONE NUMBER]
   Email:   [EMAIL ADDRESS]

4. REQUESTED RELIEF

   WHEREFORE, Defendant respectfully requests that this Court:
   a) Dismiss the Dispossessory Warrant with prejudice; or
   b) Grant Defendant additional time to pay rent or vacate; or
   c) Such other relief as this Court deems just and proper.

   This _____ day of _____________, 20____.

   ____________________________________
   [TENANT NAME], Pro Se Defendant
   [ADDRESS]
   [PHONE]

NOTE: File this Answer with the court clerk BEFORE your hearing date.
Bring copies for yourself, the judge, and the plaintiff.

IN THE [COURT NAME] OF [COUNTY NAME] COUNTY
STATE OF GEORGIA

[PLAINTIFF NAME],         )
    Plaintiff,            )    Civil Action No.: [CASE NUMBER]
                          )
v.                        )
                          )
[DEFENDANT NAME],         )
    Defendant.            )

MOTION FOR CONTINUANCE

COMES NOW, [YOUR NAME], [Plaintiff / Defendant] in the above-styled action, and respectfully moves this Court to continue the [hearing / trial] currently scheduled for [CURRENT DATE], and in support thereof states:

1. REASON FOR REQUEST

   [  ] I need additional time to gather and review important documents.
   [  ] I have a scheduling conflict on the current hearing date:
        Description: ___________________________________________________
   [  ] My attorney has a scheduling conflict on the current date.
   [  ] I need additional time to obtain legal representation.
   [  ] A key witness is unavailable on the current date.
   [  ] I have recently obtained new evidence that requires time to review.
   [  ] Other: ___________________________________________________________

2. REQUESTED NEW DATE

   I request that the hearing/trial be rescheduled to:
   [ ] Any date after: ____________________
   [ ] The following specific date (if known): ____________________

3. NOTICE TO OPPOSING PARTY

   [  ] I have notified the opposing party of this request.
   [  ] The opposing party:   [  ] Agrees   [  ] Disagrees   [  ] Unknown

4. GOOD CAUSE STATEMENT

   I certify that this request is made in good faith and not for the purpose of delay.
   Additional details supporting this request:
   _____________________________________________________________________________
   _____________________________________________________________________________

   WHEREFORE, Movant respectfully requests that this Court grant this Motion
   for Continuance and reschedule the [hearing / trial] to a new date.

   Respectfully submitted, this _____ day of _____________, 20____.

   ____________________________________
   [YOUR NAME], Pro Se [Plaintiff / Defendant]
   [ADDRESS]
   [PHONE NUMBER]
   [EMAIL ADDRESS]

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I certify that I have served a copy of this Motion on the opposing party
at the following address: [OPPOSING PARTY ADDRESS]
by [  ] hand delivery  [  ] first-class mail  [  ] email on _____________, 20____.

   ____________________________________
   [YOUR NAME]

IN THE [COURT NAME] OF [COUNTY NAME] COUNTY
STATE OF GEORGIA

[YOUR NAME],              )
    Petitioner/Plaintiff, )    Civil Action No.: [CASE NUMBER or "New Filing"]
                          )
v.                        )
                          )
[OTHER PARTY NAME],       )
    Respondent/Defendant. )

AFFIDAVIT OF INDIGENCY / POVERTY

STATE OF GEORGIA
COUNTY OF [COUNTY NAME]

Personally appeared before me, the undersigned officer duly authorized to administer oaths,
[YOUR FULL NAME], who, after being duly sworn, deposes and says:

1. PERSONAL INFORMATION
   Full Name:     _______________________________________
   Address:       _______________________________________
   Date of Birth: _______________________________________

2. INCOME (monthly, before taxes)

   Employment wages:           $ ___________
   Self-employment income:     $ ___________
   Unemployment benefits:      $ ___________
   Social Security / SSDI:     $ ___________
   Child support / alimony received: $ ___________
   Public assistance (SNAP, TANF, etc.): $ ___________
   Other income (describe): ____________  $ ___________

   TOTAL MONTHLY INCOME:       $ ___________

3. HOUSEHOLD

   Number of people in household: ___________
   Number of dependents (children, etc.): ___________

4. MONTHLY EXPENSES

   Rent or mortgage:           $ ___________
   Utilities (gas, electric, water): $ ___________
   Food:                       $ ___________
   Transportation:             $ ___________
   Medical expenses:           $ ___________
   Child care:                 $ ___________
   Other essential expenses:   $ ___________

   TOTAL MONTHLY EXPENSES:     $ ___________

5. ASSETS

   Cash on hand and in bank accounts:  $ ___________
   Vehicle(s) (estimated value):       $ ___________
   Real property (estimated equity):   $ ___________
   Other assets:                       $ ___________

6. CURRENT ASSISTANCE

   [  ] I currently receive the following public assistance:
        [  ] SNAP / Food Stamps    [  ] Medicaid    [  ] SSI
        [  ] TANF / Welfare        [  ] Other: _____________________

I hereby swear (or affirm) that the above information is true and correct to the best
of my knowledge and belief, and that I am unable to pay the court costs without
substantial hardship to myself or my family.

   ____________________________________     Date: __________________
   [YOUR NAME], Affiant

Sworn to and subscribed before me this _____ day of _____________, 20____.

   ____________________________________
   Notary Public
   My commission expires: ______________

NOTE: Most Georgia courts require notarization. Bring a valid photo ID.
Court clerks may assist you with this form.

IN THE [COURT NAME] OF [COUNTY NAME] COUNTY
STATE OF GEORGIA

[PLAINTIFF NAME],         )
    Plaintiff,            )    Civil Action No.: [CASE NUMBER]
                          )
v.                        )
                          )
[DEFENDANT NAME],         )
    Defendant.            )

[PLAINTIFF'S / DEFENDANT'S] WITNESS LIST

COMES NOW, [YOUR NAME], [Plaintiff / Defendant], and hereby discloses the following
witnesses who may be called to testify at the [hearing / trial] in this matter:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

WITNESS 1 — [Yourself]
Name:     [YOUR FULL NAME]
Role:     Pro Se Party / Direct Witness
Contact:  [YOUR PHONE NUMBER]
Expected Testimony: I will testify as to the facts of the case from my personal knowledge,
including [brief description, e.g., "the events leading to the eviction and the condition
of the rental property"].

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

WITNESS 2
Name:     [WITNESS FULL NAME]
Role:     [e.g., Neighbor, Co-worker, Expert]
Contact:  [PHONE NUMBER or "Available through counsel"]
Address:  [CITY, STATE only — omit street if preferred]
Expected Testimony: [Brief description of what this witness will say, e.g., "Will testify
to the condition of the property as observed on [date]."]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

WITNESS 3
Name:     [WITNESS FULL NAME]
Role:     [e.g., Character witness, Expert witness]
Contact:  [PHONE NUMBER]
Expected Testimony: [Brief description]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Add additional witnesses as needed using the format above]

NOTE: [YOUR NAME] reserves the right to call additional witnesses as may become
necessary based on the evidence presented at trial.

   Respectfully submitted, this _____ day of _____________, 20____.

   ____________________________________
   [YOUR NAME], Pro Se [Plaintiff / Defendant]
   [ADDRESS]
   [PHONE NUMBER]

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I certify that I have served a copy of this Witness List on the opposing party
by [  ] hand delivery  [  ] first-class mail  [  ] email on _____________, 20____.

   ____________________________________
   [YOUR NAME]

IN THE [COURT NAME] OF [COUNTY NAME] COUNTY
STATE OF GEORGIA

[PLAINTIFF NAME],         )
    Plaintiff,            )    Civil Action No.: [CASE NUMBER]
                          )
v.                        )
                          )
[DEFENDANT NAME],         )
    Defendant.            )

[PLAINTIFF'S / DEFENDANT'S] EXHIBIT INDEX

COMES NOW, [YOUR NAME], [Plaintiff / Defendant], and hereby identifies the following
exhibits to be offered into evidence at the [hearing / trial]:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

 EX. #  │  DESCRIPTION                          │  DATE(S)        │  PAGES
━━━━━━━━┿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┿━━━━━━━
  1     │  [Description, e.g., Lease Agreement] │  [Date signed]  │  1–4
        │  Purpose: Shows terms of rental        │                 │
        │  agreement between parties.            │                 │
─────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼───────
  2     │  [e.g., Rent payment receipts]        │  [Date range]   │  5–8
        │  Purpose: Proves rent was paid         │                 │
        │  through [date].                       │                 │
─────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼───────
  3     │  [e.g., Photos of property damage]    │  [Photo dates]  │  9–12
        │  Purpose: Documents condition of       │                 │
        │  property as of [date].                │                 │
─────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼───────
  4     │  [e.g., Written notices / letters]    │  [Date sent]    │  13–14
        │  Purpose: Shows communication          │                 │
        │  between parties regarding [issue].    │                 │
─────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼───────
  5     │  [e.g., Repair requests / work orders]│  [Date range]   │  15–16
        │  Purpose: Documents requests made      │                 │
        │  for repairs that were not completed.  │                 │
─────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼───────
  6     │  [Add additional exhibits as needed]  │                 │
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

PREPARATION TIPS:
• Number each page of your exhibit package consecutively.
• Tab or sticky-note each exhibit for quick reference in court.
• Bring at least 3 copies: one for the judge, one for the opposing party,
  and one for yourself.
• Only include documents you are actually prepared to present and explain.
• Organize exhibits in the order you plan to introduce them.

   Respectfully submitted, this _____ day of _____________, 20____.

   ____________________________________
   [YOUR NAME], Pro Se [Plaintiff / Defendant]
   [ADDRESS]
   [PHONE NUMBER]

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I certify that I have provided a copy of this Exhibit Index to the opposing
party by [  ] hand delivery  [  ] first-class mail  [  ] email on ___________, 20____.

   ____________________________________
   [YOUR NAME]