Georgia doesn't have mortgages. It has security deeds. Here's the difference.

Most of the country is a lien-theory state: when you finance a home, the lender gets a lien against your title, and you keep legal title yourself. Georgia is not one of them.

Georgia is a title-theory state

Under O.C.G.A. § 44-14-60, what closes your Georgia purchase is not a mortgage -- it is a security deed, sometimes called a deed to secure debt. You convey legal title to the lender as security for the loan, and you keep the right to have that title reconveyed once the debt is paid.

In practice this changes very little about day-to-day ownership. You live there, you insure it, you pay the tax bill, you can sell it. The difference shows up in the paperwork and, more consequentially, in what happens if the loan goes unpaid.

Why it matters: foreclosure

Because the lender already holds legal title under the security deed, Georgia foreclosure can proceed non-judicially -- through the power of sale contained in the deed itself, without a court case. That is faster and less expensive than the court-supervised process required in most lien-theory states, which is exactly why Georgia's foreclosure timeline runs in roughly 60 days rather than the many months typical elsewhere.

What this means for you at closing

You will see "Security Deed," not "Mortgage," on your closing documents, and that is correct -- not a typo. It gets recorded with the Clerk of Superior Court alongside your warranty deed, for the same flat $25 recording fee as any other instrument, and it is what our intangible recording tax is actually charged on.