Georgia Ante Litem Notice Requirements

What Is an Ante Litem Notice in Georgia?

An ante litem notice is a formal written notice you must send before you can sue a government entity in Georgia.

It applies when a city, a county, or the State of Georgia caused your injury, through a government vehicle, a dangerous road, or the negligence of a public employee.

The deadlines are short and unforgiving: six months to notify a city, twelve months to notify a county or the state.

Miss the notice and the case is barred before it begins, even though the ordinary deadline to file a lawsuit is two years.

This is the deadline that quietly ends government cases, because it runs long before the two-year statute of limitations most people have heard of.

If a government entity may be at fault for your injury, the notice clock is already running.

The Three Ante Litem Deadlines in Georgia

The deadline and the rules depend on which level of government you are pursuing. All three run from around the date of the injury, and all three are far shorter than the two-year deadline to file the lawsuit itself.

Suing a City: 6 Months

A claim against a Georgia municipality requires written notice within six months of the injury under O.C.G.A. § 36-33-5.^[1] The notice must describe the time, place, and extent of the injury and state the specific amount of money you are demanding. A crash with a city vehicle, a fall caused by a poorly maintained city sidewalk, or an injury from a malfunctioning city traffic signal all run on this six-month clock, the shortest of the three.

Suing a County: 12 Months

A claim against a Georgia county must be presented in writing within twelve months of the date it accrues under O.C.G.A. § 36-11-1.^[2] County exposure tends to involve county vehicles, county road and bridge maintenance, and the acts of county employees and departments. The window is longer than a city's, but county sovereign immunity is also broader, so what the county has actually waived, often only up to its insurance coverage, becomes part of the analysis.

Suing the State: 12 Months

A claim against the State of Georgia falls under the Georgia Tort Claims Act, which requires a written notice within twelve months of the date the loss was or should have been discovered, under O.C.G.A. § 50-21-26.^[3] The notice has to go by certified mail or statutory overnight delivery to the Risk Management Division of the Department of Administrative Services, with a copy to the state agency involved. State exposure covers things like a crash with a state DOT or GDOT vehicle, a state trooper, or a hazard on a state-maintained highway.

What a Georgia Ante Litem Notice Must Contain

Sending something late is fatal, and so is sending the wrong thing on time. The required content varies by entity, but a complete notice generally identifies:

• The government entity you are putting on notice.
• The time and place of the incident.
• The acts or omissions you say caused the injury.
• The nature and extent of the loss you suffered.
• The amount of the loss claimed, stated specifically for a city claim.

Georgia courts have dismissed claims over a missing or understated demand amount and over notice sent to the wrong office. The dollar figure in particular is a recurring trap: a municipal notice that fails to state a specific amount, or that demands less than the case is worth, can cap or kill the claim. This is detail work where a mistake is permanent.

Ante Litem Notice vs. the Statute of Limitations

These are two separate deadlines, and the ante litem notice almost always comes first.

The statute of limitations is the deadline to file the lawsuit, two years for most Georgia injury claims. The ante litem notice is an earlier, separate requirement to warn the government, six or twelve months out. You can be well inside the two-year window to sue and still have lost the case because the six-month city notice already expired. That is why a government claim has to be identified early, while every deadline is still open. The longer filing window is covered on our page about the Georgia statute of limitations.