How long do you have to file a property damage claim in Georgia?

In Georgia you have four years to file a lawsuit for damage to your car or other property, under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-31. That is longer than the two years you have for injuries to your body. After a crash, the property damage claim and the injury claim run on different clocks, and the shorter one controls what matters most.

What does O.C.G.A. § 9-3-31 say?

The published heading is “Injuries to personalty.” The entire section is one sentence:

Actions for injuries to personalty shall be brought within four years after the right of action accrues.

“Personalty” is the old legal word for personal property, which includes a vehicle. The section traces to colonial-era laws and has not been substantively amended.

What does it mean for you?

A car crash creates two different claims. One is for your body. The other is for your car, your phone, the child seat, the tools in the truck bed. Georgia gives the property claim four years and the injury claim two. People sometimes hear “four years” and assume it covers everything. It does not. If you wait three years to act, the car claim is alive and the injury claim is dead.

In practice the property claim resolves early and separately. The at-fault driver’s insurer pays for repairs or the total loss value, often within weeks, because it is cheap and clear. What you should watch for is the paperwork. A property damage release should release only the property claim. If the form you are asked to sign mentions “all claims” or “bodily injury,” stop and send it to a lawyer before signing. We have seen injury claims disappear in a property settlement.

One more use of this section. Diminished value, the amount your repaired car is worth less because it now has an accident history, is a property claim too, with the same four year window. Georgia recognizes it, and most insurers will not mention it.

Related Georgia laws

• O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33: the two year deadline for injuries to the person
• Every Georgia injury deadline on one page
• O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11: UM coverage, which includes $25,000 for property damage

Sources

• Official Code of Georgia Annotated on legis.ga.gov (official text)
• O.C.G.A. § 9-3-31 on Justia (2025 Georgia Code)
• Text verified against the published code on 2026-10-16. Statute text is public record. Nothing on this page is legal advice about your specific case.

What should you do next?

If an insurer is pushing a quick property damage check with a release attached, let us read the release first. It takes ten minutes and it can save your injury claim.

Call Kenneth S. Nugent, P.C. at 770-820-0711, any hour, any day. The call is free, the case review is free, and there is zero fee unless we win. Nine offices across Georgia, and we come to you if you cannot come to us.

One more thing. Don’t sign anything from an insurance company before you talk to a lawyer. A signature on the wrong form can give away rights you did not know you had.