Why writings are required
The Statute of Frauds exists to keep the most consequential bargains out of a swearing contest. In Georgia it lives at O.C.G.A. 13-5-30, and 13-5-30(a)(4) covers any contract for the sale of lands, or any interest in or concerning lands.
Leases: the one-year line
Georgia rule. O.C.G.A. 44-7-2(a) allows contracts creating the landlord and tenant relationship for any time not exceeding one year to be made by parol — orally. So a one-year lease may be oral, but an 18-month term must be written.
Three traps follow. Georgia does not permit all leases to be oral; the allowance stops at one year. The tenant taking possession does not automatically cure the defect — the part-performance exceptions in O.C.G.A. 13-5-31 demand more than possession alone. And attestation by an officer and one other witness comes from O.C.G.A. 44-5-30, which governs deeds, not leases.
Oral cancellation no longer works
Georgia rule, post-2019. Since the 2019 amendment codified at O.C.G.A. 13-5-30(b), any agreement to modify, alter, cancel, revoke, release or rescind a contract subject to the Statute of Frauds must itself be in writing signed by all parties, unless the party resisting enforcement admits the agreement in court.
State it outright: the old assumption that parties may always orally undo what they wrote is exactly what the amendment abolished. A broker's note confirming the cancellation in the file is not a substitute for signatures. But it is also too broad to say only a court may rescind — rescission may be mutual or unilateral without a court under O.C.G.A. 13-4-62.
Parol evidence
O.C.G.A. 13-2-2(1) bars prior or contemporaneous oral or written agreements offered to contradict a complete writing. It is not absolute: fraud, duress, mutual mistake, ambiguity, collateral agreements and later written modifications all remain provable. And personal property is routinely listed as included or excluded in a purchase contract.