Georgia asset protection: the state where your own agreement can give the creditor more

Almost every state in this project builds creditor protection the same way: the legislature writes a floor, and your operating agreement builds on top of it. Georgia inverted the design. Its statute says outright that the charging order is not the creditor’s exclusive remedy, names garnishment as an alternative route to your LLC interest, and then bars foreclosure and forced dissolution as defaults that your own articles or operating agreement can change.

That last clause is the one to sit with. In Georgia, the document you sign can subtract from the protection the statute would otherwise give you.

What the statute actually says

The charging order protection page explains the toll booth generally. Georgia’s version, at O.C.G.A. § 14-11-504, moves in three steps and each one matters.

Georgia’s statute states that the charging order is not exclusive, and then names garnishment as a route to your LLC interest.

Subsection (a) is ordinary: a court may charge the member’s LLC interest with payment of the judgment, and to the extent charged the creditor has only the rights of an assignee, which means distributions and nothing else. Exemption laws are preserved.

Subsection (b) is where Georgia departs from everyone. It provides that the remedy conferred by the section is not to be deemed exclusive of others that may exist, and it names one specifically: the right of a judgment creditor to reach the member’s LLC interest by garnishment served on the company. Wyoming, Texas, Ohio, New Jersey, and North Carolina all say the charging order is the only route. Georgia says the opposite in its own text.

Georgia then bars foreclosure, forced dissolution, and management interference, which is the protection that actually matters.

The same subsection then closes the doors that count. A judgment creditor has no right, under the LLC chapter or any other state law, to interfere with the management of the company, to force its dissolution, or to seek a court order requiring a foreclosure sale of the LLC interest. Foreclosure is the remedy that transfers ownership, and Georgia takes it away. That single sentence puts Georgia ahead of California, ahead of Illinois, and ahead of Florida’s treatment of single-member companies.

So Georgia is a genuine hybrid, and it does not fit the usual tiers. The creditor has more than one procedural path. The creditor still cannot take your interest, run your company, or wind it up.

The clause that makes Georgia unique

Read the proviso in subsection (b) once more, because six words at the front of it change the character of the whole statute.

Georgia’s foreclosure bar applies “except as otherwise provided in the articles of organization or a written operating agreement.”

Those protections against foreclosure, dissolution, and interference are defaults. The statute says expressly that they apply except as otherwise provided in the articles or a written operating agreement. Everywhere else in this project the operating agreement can add protection and cannot subtract the statute’s. In Georgia it can subtract.

The practical consequence belongs in every Georgia operating agreement review. A provision that permits a transfer, a forced sale, or a dissolution triggered by a member’s insolvency or by a judgment against a member is doing something in Georgia that it would not do in Ohio or Texas: it may be read as the agreement providing otherwise, which is the condition the statute attaches to its own protection. Forms copied from a strong state, or drafted without this clause in mind, can be worse than no form at all. The governance page treats this as the drafting question it is.

The homestead just doubled

Georgia spent more than a decade with one of the least generous homestead exemptions in the Southeast. That changed three weeks before this page was written.

Georgia’s homestead rose from $21,500 to $50,000 on July 1, 2026, and to $100,000 for a home that is the primary residence of both spouses.

House Bill 1024, signed May 11, 2026 and effective July 1, 2026, amended O.C.G.A. § 44-13-100(a)(1). The single-debtor cap rose from $21,500 to $50,000. The spousal cap rose from $43,000 to $100,000, with an added requirement that the property be the primary residence of both spouses, which clarifies a point that had generated litigation. Beginning July 1, 2031 the amounts adjust annually for inflation.

Nearly every published Georgia exemption table still shows the old numbers, including sources dated this year. Check the date on anything you read about Georgia exemptions, and confirm the current figures against the amended statute.

Two more Georgia rules matter here. The homestead applies automatically, with no declaration to record, unlike Nevada. And Georgia has opted out of the federal bankruptcy exemptions, so Georgia residents use Georgia’s list rather than choosing the federal one the way New Jersey debtors can.

What Georgia does not have

Two absences shape the rest of the picture, and both cut against married couples and against anyone relying on non-entity protection.

Georgia does not recognize tenancy by the entireties, so the married-couple tool that carries Florida and North Carolina does not exist here.

In Florida, entireties ownership protects a jointly held LLC interest from a creditor of one spouse. In North Carolina it protects the home. In Georgia there is no such form of ownership to use. Georgia also has no domestic asset protection trust statute, so the self-settled trust route available in Ohio, Nevada, Wyoming, and the other trust states is closed.

Put that together and Georgia’s non-entity protection is thin even after the homestead increase. What remains is what this site recommends everywhere and means with particular force here: adequate liability insurance first, clean separation of money, a genuine multi-member structure where the LLC holds anything significant, and an operating agreement drafted by someone who has read § 14-11-504(b).

The courts

Georgia created a statewide Business Court by constitutional amendment approved in 2018, and it began hearing cases in 2020. It is among the newer serious business courts in the country, with statewide jurisdiction over designated business disputes rather than the county-by-county divisions most states use. As with every young court, the interpretive record is still being built, and the courts page explains why a strong statute with a thin body of decisions is a promise rather than a track record.

The bottom line

Georgia’s statute says expressly that the charging order is not the exclusive remedy, and it names garnishment as an available alternative.

The same subsection bars foreclosure sale, forced dissolution, and interference with management, which is the protection that decides whether you keep the company.

Those bars apply except as otherwise provided in the articles or a written operating agreement, so a Georgia agreement can subtract statutory protection.

Review any Georgia operating agreement for transfer, forced sale, or dissolution triggers tied to a member’s insolvency or judgment.

The homestead rose to $50,000, and to $100,000 for a home that is the primary residence of both spouses, effective July 1, 2026.

Georgia recognizes no tenancy by the entireties and has no asset protection trust, so insurance and structure carry more of the load here than in neighboring states.

What this page does not cover

This page is about how creditors reach you in Georgia. The drafting consequences of a statute your agreement can override are on the governance page. Series treatment, taxes, and the cost of moving property are on the structure and cost page. Fees and the annual registration deadline are on the filing page.

Last verified July 2026.