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O.C.G.A. § 7-4-18

Criminal penalty for excessive interest

Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case Community State Bank v. Strong (2011)

Most recently applied in Community State Bank v. Strong (August 2011)

Ga

How often courts cite this section

20022010201110
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(a) Any person, company, or corporation who shall reserve, charge, or

take for any loan or advance of money, or forbearance to enforce the collection of any sum of money, any rate of interest greater than 5 percent per month, either directly or indirectly, by way of commission for advances, discount, exchange, or the purchase of salary or wages; by notarial or other fees; or by any contract, contrivance, or device whatsoever shall be guilty of a misdemeanor; provided, however, that regularly licensed pawnbrokers, as defined in Code Section 44-12-130, are limited in the amount of interest they may charge only by the limitations set forth in Code Section 44-12-131.

(b) This Code section shall not be construed as repealing or impairing the usury laws now existing but shall be construed as being

cumulative thereof.

(c) Nothing contained in Code Section 7-4-2 or 7-4-3 shall be construed to amend or modify the provisions of this Code section.

(d) Notwithstanding the foregoing, fees and other charges agreed upon by a financial institution and depositor, as defined in Code Section 7-1-4, in a written agreement governing a deposit, share, or other account, including, but not limited to, overdraft and nonsufficient funds, delinquency or default charges, returned payment charges, stop payment charges, or automated teller machine charges, shall not be

considered interest.

Current official text: Official Code of Georgia Annotated (LexisNexis). Digitized from the Internet Archive scan of the OCGA. Reproduced from public-domain Georgia statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.