Aimed at eliminating a potential issue regarding the effective date of the earlier statute and to fix certain drafting anomalies identified after previous passage, Georgia’s Restrictive Covenant Act (version 2011), is now law, as the Governor signed the bill as passed by the House and Senate late this afternoon (May 11, 2011).
The legislature made clear that the impetus for the re-enactment of the Restrictive Covenant Act was the potential issue regarding the effective date. In Section 1 of the Act, the legislature wrote:
The primary substantive change to O.C.G.A. Section 13-8-56, which is now clarified to show that it applies both to in-term covenants and to post-term covenants. No substantive changes were made to other sections in the statute as they were in the version passed by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor in 2009.
The Governor’s signing should end a period of uncertainty since the enabling amendment was passed. (For our previous post on that issue, see here.)