Win one Georgia property tax appeal and your assessed value stays frozen for three full years — here's how the 299c freeze works and what HB 581 changed.
299c Property Tax Freeze Georgia: How One Appeal Win Protects Your Value for Three Years Most Georgia homeowners who win a property tax appeal celebrate the one-year savings and move on. What they don't realize is that a little-known provision in Georgia law — O.C.G.A. § 48-5-299(c) — quietly freezes their assessed value for two additional years after the appeal. That 299c property tax freeze georgia homeowners rarely hear about can triple the financial impact of a single successful challenge. In a state where 122,174 property tax appeals were filed in 2025 alone and metro Atlanta accounts for 69% of all Georgia appeals, the stakes are real. Yet fewer than 5% of homeowners ever appeal, and even fewer understand what happens after they win. Here's everything you need to know about how the freeze works, what changed in 2025, and how to make the most of it. What Is the 299c Property Tax Freeze in Georgia? The 299c freeze is a Georgia law that prevents your county from increasing your property's assessed value for two consecutive years after you win an appeal that reduces your value. Count the appeal year itself and you get three full years of protection. The name comes from the statute's location: O.C.G.A. § 48-5-299, subsection (c). In practice, it means that once a Board of Equalization, hearing officer, arbitrator, or superior court rules in your favor and lowers your property's fair market value, the county assessor cannot push that number back up during the protected period. Think of it as a shield. You fought to correct your value, and the law says the county has to respect that corrected number — not just for now, but for the next two reassessment cycles too. The freeze can be triggered by any of these outcomes: A Board…