ATLANTA — Our viewers were asking. As thousands of residents have become jobless during this coronavirus outbreak, many are worried about paying their mortgage or rent next month. So are jurisdictions still serving evictions during this crisis?
Because 11Alive News is "Where Atlanta Speaks," we reached out to the Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb, Clayton, Douglas, Cherokee, and Forsyth sheriff's offices to get their response.
The question was simple: Can you tell us whether or not the sheriff’s office is still carrying out evictions during the COVID-19 outbreak?
DeKalb Sheriff's Office:
No. Please note our response to judicial orders regarding evictions, as posted on our website.
Fulton Sheriff's Office:
Those orders are on hold.
(The Fulton County Marshal’s Department is also not serving them)
Douglas Sheriff's Office:
We are not.
Gwinnett Sheriff's Office:
As you can imagine, eviction orders have slowed dramatically during the state of emergency. There is a shelter in place order in effect. Any eviction orders received by our office would be handled on a case by case basis.
Cherokee Sheriff's Office:
The Magistrates office is accepting requests for eviction which means that Dispossessory notices are still coming to us to be served to residents.
However, the hearings where the property owners obtain the Writ of Possession (kick-out order) will not happen prior to April 14th by order of the Ga Supreme Court. This date may also be pushed back as the situation develops. If someone had already scheduled an eviction, then that is still a fully valid court order and we are still going to those as per usual to keep the peace as any one of them can be carried out by the property owners without our involvement. The Sheriff’s Office’s only roles in this process are to deliver the notices for the eviction hearings and to keep the peace during the actual set out. We do not make eviction decisions, nor can we order a property holder to not execute an otherwise legal eviction. As a property owner is fully authorized under the law to execute said order in our absence.
11Alive is still waiting to hear back from Cobb, Clayton and Forsyth.
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