Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority eFile Terms of Use

Under Georgia law, the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority (GSCCCA) is the sole owner of its compiled and developed information. None of the materials contained on this site or any part thereof, including any information, products and/or software related to the materials, may be compiled, bundled, grouped, reproduced, shared, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form by any means without the express written permission of GSCCCA except documentation kept by licensed users for backup purposes. Users of this site are granted a limited license to access the materials made available on this site. No user or any other party is permitted to sell, share, transfer, loan, license or market the materials or to engage in any similar transaction related to the materials contained on this site to any extent under any circumstances. GSCCCA provides all materials and other information and/or software distributed on this site "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties or conditions of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall GSCCCA be liable for any loss of profits, lost business, loss of use of data, interruption of business, or for indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any kind. GSCCCA may revise the terms of use of its site from time to time without notices other than posting on its site.

The performance of this website and all information contained on, downloaded or accessed from this website are provided to you on an "as is" basis, without warranties of any kind whatsoever, including any implied warranties or warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non- infringement of the rights of third parties. GSCCCA shall be not responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer on-line systems, servers, internet access providers, computer equipment, software, or any combination thereof including any injury or damage to your or any other person's computer as a result of using this website.

As a visitor or user, you acknowledge and agree that any reliance on or use by you of any services, tools, products or information available on this website shall be entirely at your own risk. In no event shall GSCCCA nor any of its data providers be liable for any direct, indirect, consequential or exemplary damages arising from the use or the performance of this website, even if GSCCCA or such provider has been advised of the possibility of such damages. It is the responsibility of the user to determine a submission has been filed with the clerk of superior court.

NO UNLAWFUL OR PROHIBITED USE

As a condition of your use of the website and any services, tools, products or information you will not use the website for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these terms, conditions, and notices. You may not use the website in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair any GSCCCA server, or the network(s) connected to any GSCCCA server, or interfere with any other party's use and enjoyment of the website. You may not attempt to gain unauthorized access to any website services, other accounts, computer systems or networks connected to any GSCCCA server or to any of the services, through hacking, password mining or any other means. You may not obtain or attempt to obtain any materials or information through any means not intentionally made available through the services.

Illegal and/or unauthorized uses of the site, including, but not limited to, unauthorized framing of or linking to the site, or unauthorized use of any robot, spider or other automated device on the site, will be investigated and appropriate legal action will be taken, including without limitation civil, criminal and injunctive redress.

A user submitting any document for recording electronically using this site represents, affirms and declares that the document is authentic, genuine, and unaltered from its executed and attested state. Users are strictly prohibited from engaging in any actions that involve fraud, deceit, or dishonesty. This includes, but is not limited to, providing any false information, misrepresenting any fact, presenting for recordation any document that has been forged or altered from its original executed state, presenting any tax form containing any false information, or intentionally concealing the truth in any form.

If you violate these Terms of Use, GSCCCA may terminate your use of the site, bar you from future use of the site, and/or take appropriate legal action against you including appropriate referral for criminal prosecution.

Compliance With Law and Rules

Users submitting electronic real estate documents shall strictly comply with all provisions of Georgia law relating to electronic recording of real estate instruments and the Real Estate Electronic Recording Rules for the State of Georgia adopted pursuant to the Georgia Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act, Code Section 44-2-35 et seq.

Account Policies

To participate in electronic filing as a submitter, each user must establish a distinct eFiling account. User accounts can be established at no charge via the online registration. Effective January 1, 2025, an efile account may only be held by a human. A user shall not apply for, attempt to have, or use, multiple active account instances. GSCCCA may deactivate any duplicate user accounts detected. GSCCCA may suspend, inactivate, or revoke the authorized status of any account holder submitter for cause and may require the account holder to perform such additional steps to maintain or reinstate their account.

Effective January 1, 2025, Georgia law requires identity verification of every person submitting a real estate document for recording electronically. The Real Estate Electronic Recording Rules for the State of Georgia defines the information a user must submit to be authorized to electronically transmit real estate documents. By making application for authorized real estate submitter status, the user/account holder agrees to the use of such information by GSCCCA and its identity providers to determine the applicant’s identity according to law and to the retention of such information as provided in the Privacy Policy herein.

Products

Any product, tool or service mentioned on this site is mentioned for identification purposes only. Product names appearing in this material may or may not be registered trademarks or copyrights of their respective companies.

Regarding Software Available on This Site

Software made available for download from this server ("GSCCCA Software") is the copyrighted work of the Georgia Superior Court Clerks' Authority and/or its vendors. GSCCCA Software is made available for downloading solely for use by registered users according to the License Agreement. Any reproduction or redistribution of software retrieved from this site is expressly prohibited by law and may result in civil and criminal penalties.

Links to Sites Outside the Dominion and Control of GSCCCA Certain weblinks found on the site may resolve to third party websites. GSCCCA does not have control of these other sites and GSCCCA is not responsible for the contents of any site outside of the GSCCCA domain. GSCCCA provides these links only as a convenience. The inclusion of any such link is merely for the convenience to the user and is not an endorsement by GSCCCA of any linked site.

Privacy Policy

GSCCCA’s general privacy policy can be found at https://www.gsccca.org/privacy-policy.

Information collected by the eFiling systems will be used to establish user accounts and to positively identify account users submitting real estate documents electronically. This may include but is not limited to sending filing status and notifications through email, mobile devices, or text messaging and verifying account information. Information collected will be subject to disclosure as required by law. In no event will information be sold to third parties without the consent of the affected parties.

Any user who seeks authorized status as a real estate electronic submitter acknowledges that Georgia law requires GSCCCA to maintain information or data, including information containing personally identifiable information, images and biometric information. Such information may be held by GSCCCA indefinitely and may be released to peace officers in the course of investigating potential crimes; in response to a subpoena, discovery request, or court order; to an individual who holds a recorded interest in real property that was the subject of an electronic document that was submitted for recording by the individual who provided such information; or to an individual who is named as a party in an electronic document. Such user also acknowledges and agrees that such information will be provided to GSCCCA’s primary identity verification provider, Persona Identities Inc., or such secondary identity verification provider(s) as determined by GSCCCA.

Specifically, as relates to GSCCCA’s identity primary verification provider, Persona Identities Inc., you consent to Persona collecting, using, and utilizing its service providers to process your biometric information to verify your identity, identify fraud, and improve Persona’s platform in accordance with its Privacy Policy. Your biometric information will be stored by Persona for no more than 3 years.

Credit Card Transaction Fee

Generally, the GSCCCA does not impose or collect any fees in addition to the normal filing fees that would be collected in the county of filing. It is the goal of the GSCCCA to offer eFiling to the public as a low-cost alternative to hardcopy filing. However, the GSCCCA will impose a small transaction fee to all credit card purchases in order to recover the cost of processing such transactions. The fee is currently calculated to be 3.5%, but may change from time to time without prior notice, as is necessary to recover the cost of these transactions. The eFiling system will always clearly indicate the credit card processing fee amount whenever it is assessed as part of a transaction, prior to being collected.

Bank Account (ACH/eCheck) Transactions

GSCCCA allows all users except real estate integrated submitters to pay for electronic filings using one or more bank accounts. Integrated submitters utilize an API process to integrate with GSCCCA’s eFiling portal for purposes of eFiling real estate documents. Payments from a bank account are termed ACH, eCheck, EFT or Electronic Funds Transfer transactions, and GSCCCA charges $0.50 per real estate package or UCC filing to cover the cost of processing the transaction. As with paper checks, there are circumstances in which the transaction may not be honored by the user’s financial institution. Should such a transaction be returned by the user’s bank as uncollectible for any reason, GSCCCA may impose a "returned check" or dishonor fee in addition to the original filing fee, and attempt to collect such fees directly from the user’s escrow account (see below).

Escrow Accounts

All users of the GSCCCA eFiling system have a virtual escrow account in the system which can be funded by the user in order to pay for filings without subsequently using a credit card or bank account. Escrow accounts can be funded at any time using a credit card or bank account. Funds deposited via credit card are generally available instantly, though funds deposited via bank account may take up to 5 banking days to become available. GSCCCA limits the number of pending bank account funded transactions, as well as, the amount to be funded per transaction. The available balance in an escrow account will be reduced by the total cost of previously authorized/pending transactions. In the event that a filing which was paid for using an escrow account is subsequently rejected by the clerk then cancelled by the filer, the amount of the previously authorized transaction will be returned to the escrow account. The eFiling system will prevent use of escrow funds should the cost of a transaction exceed the available balance of the escrow account. When alternative payment methods are used to pay for filings, such as payment via bank account by ACH, eCheck, EFT or Electronic Funds Transfer and the funds are not collectible for any reason, the cost of such failed transactions will be debited against the user’s escrow account along with any fees imposed by the GSCCCA for dishonored or returned items. Such actions may cause the escrow account to reflect a negative balance. A negative escrow account balance will automatically cause the user account to be temporarily suspended and new filings will not be permitted until the escrow balance is brought current. Only credit card and check payments are allowed when funding a negative escrow account. A user may request the return of unused escrow funds at any time by contacting the GSCCCA helpdesk.

Filing Fee Estimation

The GSCCCA eFiling system calculates anticipated filing fees based on statutory fee schedules associated with each instrument filing type. There are user provided information parameters that affect the GSCCCA anticipated fee estimate, including but not limited to proper instrument types and any tax that may be due. In all instances, the actual fees and/or taxes for the filing are determined by the Clerk of Superior Court. The clerk’s final assessment may vary from the fee estimate provided by the GSCCCA. To allow for small variances in anticipated fee calculation, the GSCCCA system will authorize the total cost of the anticipated estimated filing fees and taxes plus an additional $10 to allow uninterrupted filing due to underestimated fee calculation. Should a clerk accept a filing and a variance of $10 or less exists between the clerk assessment and the GSCCCA fee estimate, the filing will be accepted. In the event of an anticipated estimated fee variance of more than $10, the Clerk of Superior Court may reject the submission. Such rejections are typically the result of incorrect or incomplete information provided by the user at the time of submission. In all cases, if the authorized amount is greater than the actual clerk assessment, the amount of the authorized excess is not collected from the user. To ensure timely filing of all documents, it is critical that all user-provided information be accurate.

Copyright Notice

Copyright © Georgia Superior Court Clerks' Cooperative Authority, 1875 Century Boulevard, Suite 100, Atlanta, Georgia 30345. For more information, contact Mike Smith, Director, GSCCCA Communications at (404) 327-9058 or by email at Mike.Smith@gsccca.org. Any and all rights not expressly granted herein are reserved in their entirety. Contact webmaster@gsccca.org if you should have any questions or problems with this site.