Free South Carolina Landlord Forms
Every South Carolina landlord form we publish, organised by the stage of the tenancy it belongs to, each one paired with the South Carolina Code section and the deadline that triggers it — including the one lease clause that can remove the need to serve a five-day notice ever again.
Every form linked on this page is free, fillable in your browser, and downloadable as a PDF with no account, no membership and no paywall. South Carolina landlord forms are governed by the South Carolina Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, at Title 27 Chapter 40 of the South Carolina Code, and it contains a provision almost no landlord uses and almost no competing page explains: a sentence you can put in the lease that satisfies the pay-or-quit notice requirement for the whole tenancy.
The short version
- Nonpayment of rent — five days from the due date, § 27-40-710(B).
- You may never need to serve that notice separately. The statute lets the required wording sit in the rental agreement in conspicuous language, and if it does, no separate notice is needed — even after the original term ends.
- Any other material breach — fourteen days from receipt to remedy, with termination on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt, § 27-40-710(A).
- Month-to-month termination — thirty days before the termination date; week-to-week is seven days, § 27-40-770.
- Entry — twenty-four hours notice, with two different permitted time windows depending on why you are entering, § 27-40-530.
- Security deposit — no statutory cap at all; itemised within thirty days of a three-part trigger, § 27-40-410.
- Get the deposit wrong and it is treble — three times the amount wrongfully withheld plus reasonable attorney’s fees.
The Lease Clause That Replaces the Five-Day Notice
Section 27-40-710(B) sets the ordinary rule: where rent is unpaid when due and the tenant fails to pay within five days from the date due, the landlord may terminate the rental agreement, provided the landlord has given the tenant written notice of the nonpayment and of the intention to terminate if the rent is not paid within that period.
Then it supplies two ways to satisfy that notice obligation once and for all.
The written-notice requirement is satisfied if the rental agreement itself contains the wording, in conspicuous language. The statute treats this provision, or one substantially equivalent, as compliance: “This is your notice. If you do not pay your rent within five days of the due date, the landlord can start to have you evicted.” Where the agreement carries it, the landlord is not required to furnish any separate or additional written notice before commencing eviction proceedings for nonpayment — and that remains true after the original term has expired, including on a month-to-month holdover. Separately, the obligation is also satisfied for any later lease term once the landlord has given one such notice.
This is the single most useful thing a South Carolina landlord can know, and it is startlingly under-published. A correctly drafted lease removes an entire procedural step from every future nonpayment case, permanently. If you take one action after reading this page, check whether your agreement carries that sentence — and if it does not, add it at the next renewal.
Two cautions. The wording must be conspicuous, so burying it in dense boilerplate risks the point. And the clause satisfies the notice requirement; it does not shorten the five days, which the tenant still gets from the due date. Our South Carolina eviction notice laws guide covers how this interacts with the magistrate court stage.
Every South Carolina Landlord Form, by Stage of the Tenancy
Alphabetical form lists are the least useful arrangement, because a landlord arrives knowing what has happened, not what the document is called. The index below is ordered by where you are in the tenancy.
Starting the tenancy
- South Carolina residential lease agreement — the master document, and in South Carolina it does more work than almost anywhere: it is where the § 27-40-710(B) notice wording belongs, and where a landlord of more than four adjoining units must set out how deposits are calculated.
- Lead-based paint form — required by federal law, not South Carolina law, for any dwelling built before 1978.
- Move-in / move-out condition checklist — the most valuable optional form here, because the deposit penalty is treble and the defence to it is a documented baseline.
During the tenancy
- Notice to enter the property — § 27-40-530, at least twenty-four hours, and note the two different permitted time windows set out below.
- Rent increase notice — South Carolina has no rent control. For a month-to-month tenancy the operative constraint is the § 27-40-770 thirty-day termination period.
- Late rent notice — a courtesy reminder. Useful, but if your lease carries the statutory wording you already have the notice you need.
- Rental Application
- Sublease Agreement
When the tenant breaches
- Five-day notice to pay rent or quit — § 27-40-710(B). Use it where your lease does not carry the statutory wording, or where you would simply rather serve one.
- Notice to cure or quit — § 27-40-710(A), fourteen days. The notice must specify the breach and state that the agreement terminates on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt if it is not remedied.
- Unconditional quit notice — for conduct you are not prepared to let the tenant cure.
Ending the tenancy without fault
- Notice of non-renewal — used when a fixed term is ending and you do not intend to renew.
- Tenant notice to vacate — the tenant’s side of § 27-40-770: thirty days for month-to-month, seven for week-to-week.
After the tenant moves out
- Security deposit itemisation — § 27-40-410, the written notice itemising each deduction together with the amount due.
- Security deposit return letter — the covering document that goes with the refund.
The Fourteen-Day Cure Notice
Where the breach is not about rent, § 27-40-710(A) applies. The landlord delivers a written notice specifying the acts and omissions constituting the breach and stating that the rental agreement will terminate upon a date not less than fourteen days after receipt if the breach is not remedied within that fourteen-day period.
Note the shape carefully, because it differs from several neighbouring states. South Carolina uses one number, used twice — fourteen days to cure, and termination fourteen days after receipt. It is not the two-number cure-then-terminate structure that Virginia runs, where the tenant gets twenty-one days to fix the problem but the agreement does not end for thirty. Do not carry a neighbouring state’s split into a South Carolina notice.
Because the period runs from receipt, provable delivery matters. Hand delivery with a witness, or certified mail with a return receipt alongside ordinary first-class mail, both give you a defensible receipt date; an untracked drop-off leaves the fourteen days without an anchor.
Entry: Twenty-Four Hours, and Two Different Time Windows
Section 27-40-530 requires the landlord to give the tenant at least twenty-four hours’ notice of an intent to enter and to enter only at reasonable times. It also says, in terms, that a landlord shall not abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant — a standard that sits alongside the notice period rather than being satisfied by it.
What almost no competing page mentions is that South Carolina supplies two different permitted windows, depending on why you are entering.
| Purpose of entry | Permitted hours |
|---|---|
| Regularly scheduled services | 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. |
| Services requested by the tenant | 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. |
| Emergency | No time restriction |
The logic is sensible once you see it: a tenant who has asked for something is treated as consenting to a wider window than a landlord arriving on the landlord’s own schedule. The practical consequence is that a contractor sent at seven in the evening for routine work is outside the section, even with a week’s notice. Our South Carolina landlord entry laws guide covers the listed purposes and the emergency exception.
Security Deposits: No Cap, a Three-Part Trigger, and Treble Damages
South Carolina is one of a minority of states with no statutory maximum on a residential security deposit. Section 27-40-410 contains no cap at all. What the section regulates instead is how deposits are explained in advance and returned at the end, and it does both in ways that catch landlords out.
The four-unit rule
A landlord renting more than four adjoining dwelling units must set out, in advance, how deposits are calculated. Where the landlord rents more than four adjoining dwelling units on the premises and imposes different deposit standards for different tenants, the standards must be made known prior to the consummation of the rental agreement — either by conspicuous posting on the premises or by individual notice to each prospective tenant. If you run a small block and charge different deposits to different tenants, this applies to you, and the moment to comply is before signing, not after.
Thirty days — from the latest of three events
Any deduction must be itemised by the landlord in a written notice to the tenant, together with the amount due if any, within thirty days. The trigger is where South Carolina differs from almost everywhere: the thirty days run from termination of the tenancy, delivery of possession and demand by the tenant — whichever is later.
That three-part trigger cuts both ways. A tenant who moves out but never demands the deposit has not started your clock. Equally, a landlord who assumes the clock started at move-out and waits for a demand that arrives late may find the thirty days measured from a date they were not tracking. Diarise all three events.
The penalty is treble. A tenant may recover three times the amount wrongfully withheld together with reasonable attorney’s fees. With no cap on the deposit itself, that exposure scales with whatever you took — which is the real reason a South Carolina landlord should think carefully before setting a large deposit and then being slow with the itemisation. Our South Carolina security deposit laws guide covers the permitted deductions.
Which South Carolina Form Do I Need?
- The tenant has not paid rent. Check the lease first. If it carries the § 27-40-710(B) wording in conspicuous language, you need no separate notice. If it does not, serve the five-day notice.
- You want to stop serving these notices altogether. Add the statutory wording at the next renewal.
- The tenant has breached the agreement in some other material way. Fourteen days from receipt under § 27-40-710(A), specifying the breach and the termination date.
- The conduct is not something you will let the tenant cure. Use the unconditional quit notice.
- Nobody is at fault and the tenancy should end. Thirty days before the termination date for month-to-month; seven for week-to-week.
- You need to get into the property. Twenty-four hours, and pick an hour inside the right window — nine to six for your own scheduled work, eight to eight if the tenant asked.
- You are setting deposits across more than four adjoining units. Make the standards known before signing, by posting or individual notice.
- The tenant has moved out. Thirty days from the latest of termination, delivery of possession and the tenant’s demand, with a written itemisation.
How to Fill Out a South Carolina Five-Day Notice
- Confirm you actually need one. If the lease carries the statutory wording, or you have already given one such notice in an earlier term, the obligation is satisfied.
- Name every tenant on the rental agreement, and identify the premises exactly as the agreement does.
- State the rent owed as a figure and the period it covers.
- Count five days from the date the rent was due, not from the date you noticed or the date you wrote the notice.
- State both elements the statute requires — the nonpayment, and your intention to terminate the rental agreement if the rent is not paid within the period. A demand for money alone is not a § 27-40-710(B) notice.
- Give the end date rather than leaving the tenant to count.
- Date it, sign it and record delivery. Keep the record with the lease.
What Happens If the Form Is Wrong
A defect that shortens a tenant’s statutory period — four days instead of five, a cure notice terminating on day ten — goes to your right to bring the action at all, and is the kind of problem that sends you back to the start. A defect that lengthens a period, or gives the tenant more information than the statute requires, generally works in the tenant’s favour and creates no problem for the landlord.
Two South Carolina failures are worth naming separately. The first is importing a neighbouring state’s cure structure — serving a twenty-one-day cure with a thirty-day termination because that is what a multi-state template produced. South Carolina uses fourteen for both. The second is relying on a lease clause that is not conspicuous: if you have skipped the separate notice because the wording is in the agreement, the conspicuousness of that wording becomes load-bearing, and burying it in small print undermines the whole strategy.
What This Page Does Not Have
We would rather scope this honestly than promise documents we do not host. South Carolina landlords also commonly want a rental application, a sublease or assignment agreement, a rent receipt, and an abandoned-property notice. Those are not yet published as South Carolina-specific forms.
We have also declined to publish magistrate court form numbers, filing fees and any late-fee or grace-period figure for South Carolina, because we could not confirm them from a primary source when this page was verified. The magistrate’s office for your county is the right place to confirm the first two.
Common South Carolina Landlord Form Mistakes
- Serving a five-day notice you did not need. Harmless, but it wastes time you did not have to spend if the lease already carries the wording.
- Not putting the statutory wording in the lease. The commonest missed opportunity in South Carolina landlord practice.
- Burying that wording in boilerplate. The statute requires it to be conspicuous.
- Counting the five days from when you noticed the rent was late. It runs from the due date.
- Using a twenty-one or thirty day cure period. South Carolina is fourteen, used twice.
- Entering at seven in the evening for scheduled work. That window closes at six.
- Assuming a deposit cap exists. There is none — but the treble penalty scales with whatever you took.
- Starting the thirty-day deposit clock at move-out. It runs from the latest of termination, delivery of possession and the tenant’s demand.
- Charging different deposits across more than four adjoining units without saying so in advance.
Free Fillable Forms Versus the Paid South Carolina Form Sites
The South Carolina results are dominated by subscription form packages, with the deepest ranking page a paid landlord-tenant forms product, and the usual membership-walled association directory listing about a dozen South Carolina form titles with no South Carolina law attached.
What none of them does is explain the provision that matters most here. A landlord who reads only a form index will keep serving five-day notices for years without ever learning that a single sentence in the lease would have made them unnecessary. That is the difference between an index and a guide, and it is why this page pairs the two.
Every form linked from this page is free, fills in the browser, and downloads as a finished PDF. There is no account, no trial, and no upsell attached to the documents themselves. What we ask in return is straightforward: if you are about to hand keys to someone, run the screening first, because nearly every dispute described on this page is cheaper to prevent than to litigate.
South Carolina Landlord Forms: FAQ
How many days is a South Carolina notice to pay rent or quit?
Five days from the date the rent was due, under § 27-40-710(B). The landlord must have given written notice of the nonpayment and of the intention to terminate if the rent is not paid within that period.
Can a South Carolina lease replace the five-day notice?
Yes. Section 27-40-710(B) treats the written-notice requirement as satisfied where the rental agreement contains, in conspicuous language, this or a substantially equivalent provision: “This is your notice. If you do not pay your rent within five days of the due date, the landlord can start to have you evicted.” Where it does, no separate notice is needed — including after the original term has expired. The obligation is also satisfied for later terms once the landlord has given one such notice.
What is the South Carolina notice period for a lease violation?
Fourteen days. Under § 27-40-710(A) the notice must specify the breach and state that the rental agreement terminates on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt if the breach is not remedied within that period. South Carolina uses one number twice, not a cure-then-terminate split.
How much notice ends a month-to-month tenancy in South Carolina?
At least thirty days before the termination date under § 27-40-770. A week-to-week tenancy requires at least seven days.
How much notice must a South Carolina landlord give before entering?
At least twenty-four hours under § 27-40-530, and entry only at reasonable times. The statute also forbids abusing the right of access or using it to harass the tenant.
What hours can a South Carolina landlord enter?
Two windows apply. For regularly scheduled services, between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. For services requested by the tenant, between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. In an emergency there is no time restriction.
Is there a security deposit cap in South Carolina?
No. Section 27-40-410 contains no maximum. South Carolina regulates how deposits are explained and returned rather than how large they may be.
How long does a South Carolina landlord have to return a deposit?
Thirty days, but from a three-part trigger: termination of the tenancy, delivery of possession, and demand by the tenant — whichever is later. Within that window any deduction must be itemised in a written notice together with the amount due.
What is the penalty for wrongly withholding a South Carolina deposit?
The tenant may recover three times the amount wrongfully withheld together with reasonable attorney’s fees. Because there is no cap on the deposit itself, that exposure scales with the sum taken.
Must a South Carolina landlord explain how deposits are calculated?
Where the landlord rents more than four adjoining dwelling units and imposes different deposit standards for different tenants, the standards must be made known before the rental agreement is consummated, by conspicuous posting on the premises or by individual notice to each prospective tenant.
Which court hears South Carolina evictions?
Eviction proceedings are brought in the magistrate court for the county where the property is located. Confirm the current forms and filing fee with the magistrate’s office, since we have not published figures we could not verify from a primary source.
Related South Carolina Guides
- South Carolina landlord-tenant laws — the full statutory overview.
- South Carolina eviction notice laws — the five-day rule and the lease clause.
- South Carolina security deposit laws — the three-part trigger and treble damages.
- South Carolina lease termination laws — thirty and seven day periods.
- South Carolina breaking lease laws — early termination and mitigation.
- South Carolina rent increase laws — why South Carolina has no rent control.
- South Carolina late fee laws — what the Act does and does not regulate.
- South Carolina landlord entry laws — the two permitted time windows.
- South Carolina habitability laws — the landlord’s repairing duties.
- South Carolina pet and ESA laws — pet deposits and assistance animals.
- South Carolina tenant screening laws — background checks and adverse action.
Published by Tenant Screening Background Check · Editorial Team
Established 2004. Our editorial team has spent two decades helping landlords and property managers run lawful tenant screening and follow state landlord-tenant codes across all fifty states. For this page we worked from the South Carolina Code itself on the General Assembly’s own site, rather than from secondary summaries — almost none of which mention that a sentence in the lease can satisfy the five-day notice requirement for the whole tenancy.
Screen South Carolina Applicants Before They Sign
Most South Carolina landlord-tenant disputes trace back to a tenant a thorough screening would have flagged. Order FCRA-ready credit, criminal and eviction reports and start every tenancy on solid ground.
Last reviewed 2026. This page is general information about South Carolina landlord-tenant law, not legal advice. We have deliberately omitted magistrate court form numbers and filing fees we could not verify from a primary source. Confirm the current requirements with the magistrate’s office for your county or with a South Carolina attorney before you serve a notice or file a case.
