§ 44-13-6 - Duty to provide full schedule of property; effect of fraudulent omissions - Georgia Statutes

O.C.G.A. 44-13-6 (2010)
44-13-6. Duty to provide full schedule of property; effect of fraudulent omissions

It shall be the duty of any person who shall claim the benefit of the exemption allowed in this article to act in perfect good faith. As it is in the power of the debtor claiming an exemption of personal property to conceal part of his property or money and to claim the balance as exempt, it shall be the duty of the debtor, when he shall take steps in the probate court to have an exemption of personal property set off to him, to make a full and fair disclosure of all the personal property, including money, stocks, and bonds, which he may possess at the time. All such money or property which he may hold in excess of the exemption shall be subject to levy and sale for the payment of his just debts. If the money or other personal property which the debtor possesses at the time of his application or at the time he obtains the order of court setting off exempt property shall be fraudulently concealed or shall not be delivered up for the benefit of his creditors, no exemption shall be made in his favor until it shall be so delivered up. All orders of the court obtained by the fraudulent concealment of property or obtained while the debtor had personal property, money, stocks, or bonds which he kept out of the reach of the levying officer or did not in good faith deliver up for the benefit of his creditors shall be null and void and of no effect. In such event, the property set off to the debtor by such order or judgment shall be subject to levy and sale as if no such order or judgment had been rendered; and all property in which the debtor shall have invested the money, stocks, bonds, or personal property fraudulently concealed by him or kept out of the reach of his creditors shall be subject to levy and sale and liable to be sold for the payment of any debt then in existence. The debtor who is guilty of willful fraud in the concealment of part of his property which he possessed when he sought the benefit of the exemption shall on account of his fraud lose the benefit of the exemption, and his property shall be subject to the payment of all just debts which he owed at the time such fraud was committed; but the property, when once set off to him by order of the court, shall be exempt as against all debts contracted after that time.