Does a Georgia landlord owe security to a tenant’s visitors

· 3 min read

A landlord’s duty in Georgia can reach beyond its tenants to the people those tenants invite, particularly within the common areas the landlord controls. Whether security is owed to a visitor turns on the visitor’s status and on who controlled the space where the harm occurred.

Control of the premises drives the duty

Georgia premises law ties responsibility to control. A landlord that leases individual units typically retains control over shared spaces such as entryways, hallways, stairwells, parking areas, and perimeter gates. Within those areas the duty of ordinary care under O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1 generally rests with the landlord rather than the tenant. So when a tenant’s guest is harmed in a common area, the landlord is often the party whose conduct is examined, because the landlord was charged with keeping that space reasonably safe.

The visitor’s status in the common area

A tenant’s invited guest using the common areas to reach the unit is generally treated as a lawful visitor to whom the landlord owes a duty of reasonable care, which can include protection against foreseeable criminal acts. The same does not extend without limit. The duty is strongest for those with a legitimate reason to be on the property and weakest for trespassers, and it covers the areas under the landlord’s control rather than the interior of a tenant’s unit, which the tenant ordinarily controls. Reasonable measures a landlord might owe in common areas include:

  • Functioning locks and access controls on shared entrances.
  • Adequate lighting in hallways, stairwells, and lots.
  • Repair of known security defects, such as a broken gate, within a reasonable time.

Foreseeability and proof still apply

A landlord’s duty to a tenant’s visitor is not a guarantee of safety. It demands reasonable care only against hazards the landlord had reason to anticipate, and whether a hazard was foreseeable depends on past incidents of a like kind and the broader setting, the test drawn from Sturbridge Partners, Ltd. v. Walker. For injuries occurring on or after April 21, 2025, Georgia’s negligent-security statute, O.C.G.A. § 51-3-51, frames a claim by an invited guest, who is generally an invitee: the criminal act and the resulting injury must have been foreseeable, the act must have exploited a known hazardous condition that posed an unusual risk, and the landlord’s failure of ordinary care must have caused the harm. The visitor still has to link a lapse in security to the injury. O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33 then portions the fault among the landlord, the guest, and the criminal, ending recovery if the guest’s portion reaches half; under the new framework, an apportionment is presumed unreasonable if the share assigned to the criminal is less than the combined share assigned to the landlord and any other non-wrongdoers, and a verdict that fails to place a reasonable degree of fault on the criminal may be set aside. Filing is bound by the two-year limit in O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33.

The bottom line

A Georgia landlord can owe security to a tenant’s visitors in the common areas it controls, where the duty of ordinary care may include reasonable protection against foreseeable crime. The scope depends on control of the space, the visitor’s status, and whether the danger was foreseeable, with Georgia’s fault rules deciding how responsibility is shared.

This article is for general educational and informational purposes only and is not legal advice. It does not create an attorney-client relationship, and Georgia law may change. For advice about a specific situation, consult a licensed Georgia personal injury attorney.

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