Free South Carolina Residential Lease Agreement

▶ Watch walk-through

A configurable South Carolina residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to the South Carolina Residential Landlord and Tenant Act — no deposit cap, a 30-day accounting backed by treble damages, and the conspicuous lease provision that replaces the five-day rent notice.

South Carolina S.C. Code 27-40 No Deposit Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

A South Carolina residential lease agreement is the written contract governed by the South Carolina Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, codified at S.C. Code Ann. Title 27, Chapter 40 and running from section 27-40-10. South Carolina adopted a uniform-act framework in 1986 and then customised it in ways that repeatedly catch out landlords working from a generic template. It sets no cap at all on the security deposit, but backs its thirty-day accounting deadline with treble damages plus the tenant’s attorney’s fees. It carries a multi-unit deposit-standards rule at 27-40-410(c) that almost every competing template describes incorrectly. It gives the landlord twenty-four hours’ entry notice with three narrow exceptions, one of which exists only if the lease says so. And it contains the single most consequential drafting option in the state: a conspicuous provision in the lease itself that, under 27-40-710(B), removes the need to serve any separate five-day nonpayment notice, for the whole tenancy and into the month-to-month that follows. The generator below builds a lease that reflects each of those rules as the statute actually reads, verified against the codified chapter and the 126th General Assembly’s enrolled acts on 2026-08-06.

Complete the fields below to generate a South Carolina residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations, the multi-unit deposit answer, the entry and nonpayment options, and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling South Carolina section at each point. Before you hand keys to anyone, run proper tenant screening — the lease governs the relationship, screening decides whether you want it. Pair the signed lease with a South Carolina move-in / move-out checklist so the thirty-day accounting rests on documented condition rather than memory.

South Carolina recognizes the standard range of residential arrangements, and the type determines how the tenancy ends. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period and expires on its own terms. A periodic tenancy renews each period until one side gives notice. Under S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-310(d), where a rental agreement does not fix a definite term, the tenancy is week to week in the case of a roomer who pays weekly rent and month to month in all other cases. That default is why an informal arrangement to pay monthly rent creates a month-to-month tenancy by operation of law, with the whole of chapter 40 attached to it, even when nothing was signed.

The Act defines a roomer narrowly at 27-40-210(13): a person occupying a dwelling unit that does not include a toilet and either a bathtub or a shower, and a refrigerator, stove and kitchen sink, all provided by the landlord, where one or more of those facilities are used in common by occupants in the structure. So the week-to-week default is not simply a matter of paying weekly — the unit itself has to be a rooming arrangement in that specific sense.

Beyond those, a room or roommate agreement covers a tenant renting one room in an occupied dwelling; a sublease transfers the tenant’s interest to a subtenant while leaving the original tenant liable to the landlord, and is only available where the lease permits it; and a lease-to-own agreement bolts a purchase option onto a tenancy, which should be drafted with counsel since the purchase terms sit outside chapter 40. A commercial lease is not governed by chapter 40 at all. And South Carolina’s own exclusion list at 27-40-120 is longer than most, running to nine items: institutional residence incidental to detention or medical, geriatric, educational, counseling or religious service; occupancy by a purchaser under a contract of sale; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in a portion of a structure run for the organization’s benefit; transient occupancy in a hotel, motel or other accommodation subject to the accommodations sales tax under 12-36-920; occupancy by an employee whose right to occupy is conditional on employment about the premises; occupancy by a condominium owner or the holder of a cooperative proprietary lease; occupancy primarily for agricultural purposes; occupancy regulated by the Vacation Time Sharing Plan Act in chapter 32 of title 27; and residence, temporary or not, at a charitable or emergency protective shelter.

One drafting point specific to South Carolina. The Statute of Frauds at S.C. Code Ann. 32-3-10(4) requires a writing for any contract or sale of lands, tenements or hereditaments or any interest in or concerning them, and subsection (5) requires one for any agreement not to be performed within one year of its making. A tenancy of a year or less can therefore rest on an oral agreement, and chapter 40 still governs it — but an oral eighteen-month arrangement is not enforceable for its full term. Landlords sometimes assume a handshake extension carries the original written lease forward; it does not, and the tenancy usually reverts to month to month under 27-40-310(d), which changes the notice needed to end it. There is also a codified fallback for imperfect signing: 27-40-320 provides that where the landlord does not sign and deliver an agreement the tenant has signed and delivered, acceptance of rent without reservation gives it the same effect as if the landlord had signed, and the mirror rule applies to a tenant who takes possession and pays rent; an agreement given effect that way for a term longer than one year is effective for one year only.

There is no limit. South Carolina sets no statutory maximum security deposit. S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-410 is the deposit section, and it governs how a deposit is held and returned without imposing any ceiling on the amount. No other section of the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act imposes one either.

This is worth stating flatly because a ranking South Carolina template page asserts that the state “explicitly limits security deposits to 2 months rent for unfurnished property or 3 months rent for furnished property,” and cites 27-40-410 for it. Open the section: those figures are not there, and nothing resembling them is. They read like a summary of a different state’s law that acquired a South Carolina citation somewhere along the way. If you are relying on a template that repeats them, the rest of its deposit treatment deserves checking too.

What the Act does do is define the thing. Under 27-40-210(18), a security deposit is a monetary deposit from the tenant to the landlord which is held in trust by the landlord to secure the full and faithful performance of the terms and conditions of the lease agreement as provided in 27-40-410. That trust framing matters: it is the reason a deposit is not simply advance rent, and it is why the deduction rules are as tightly specified as they are. The deeper treatment lives in our South Carolina security deposit laws guide.

Within thirty days — but the thirty days runs from the latest of three events, not from termination alone. S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-410(a) provides that on termination of the tenancy, property or money held as security must be returned less amounts withheld for accrued rent and for damages the landlord has suffered by reason of the tenant’s noncompliance with 27-40-510. Any deduction must be itemized by the landlord in a written notice to the tenant, together with the amount due if any, within thirty days after termination of the tenancy and delivery of possession and demand by the tenant, whichever is later.

Every ranking page states this as thirty days from termination or from the end date. It is not. Where a tenant hands back the keys a week after the lease ends, or makes no demand until later, the clock reflects that. The practical consequence runs both ways: a landlord who counts from the wrong event can be early or late, and a tenant who never makes a demand may find the clock has not started. The safest course for a landlord is to treat termination as the trigger and beat every possible deadline, which is what the generated lease advises.

The tenant’s side of the bargain is the forwarding address. The tenant must provide the landlord in writing with a forwarding or new address to which the written notice and any amount due may be sent. If the tenant fails to, the tenant is not entitled to damages under the subsection, provided the landlord had no notice of the tenant’s whereabouts and mailed the written notice and any amount due to the tenant’s last known address. So the landlord’s protection is conditional on actually mailing, not merely on the tenant’s silence.

Then the remedy the rankers omit. Under S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-410(b), if the landlord fails to return any prepaid rent or security deposit together with the notice required by subsection (a), the tenant may recover the property and money in an amount equal to three times the amount wrongfully withheld, plus reasonable attorney’s fees. Subsection (d) preserves any other damages either party is owed, and subsection (e), read with 27-40-450, binds the holder of the landlord’s interest at the time the tenancy terminates — so a purchaser who took the property without taking the deposit can find themselves answering for it unless the deposit was transferred and the tenant notified in writing a reasonable time after the transaction. Use the South Carolina security deposit itemization form to build the itemized statement and the deposit return letter to send it.

This is South Carolina’s most distinctive deposit provision, and it is the one competing templates get wrong most consistently — four different ways, on four different pages. Here is the actual text of S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-410(c), element by element.

It has two triggers, and both must be present. The subsection applies if a landlord (1) rents more than four adjoining dwelling units on the premises, and (2) imposes different standards for calculating security deposits required of different tenants on the premises. A landlord with exactly four adjoining units is outside it. A landlord with twenty adjoining units who applies one standard to everyone is also outside it.

Where it applies, the landlord has a choice of two methods. Prior to the consummation of the rental agreement, the landlord shall either post in a conspicuous place on the premises, or at the place at which rental is paid, a statement clearly indicating the standards by which the deposits are calculated, or provide each prospective tenant with a statement setting forth those standards. Both are on the face of the statute. A page that says the statement must be posted has dropped half the rule.

And the penalty is not a fine. If a landlord fails to comply as to a tenant, the difference between the security deposit required of that tenant and the lowest security deposit required of any other tenant of a comparable dwelling unit on the premises is not subject to deductions for damages by reason of that tenant’s noncompliance with 27-40-510. The landlord does not lose the deposit; the landlord loses the right to deduct damages from a specific slice of it.

Now compare what the ranking pages say. One states that a landlord who owns “four or more adjacent units in the same building” must “collect the same security deposit from all of their tenants” — wrong on the threshold, and backwards on the substance, since the subsection expressly contemplates different standards and merely regulates their disclosure. Another raises the threshold again to “more than five (5) adjoining units.” A third cites the rule to “§ 34-11-410a,” a section that does not exist at all: chapter 11 of title 34 is the bad-check chapter and runs only to 34-11-130. And several describe the statement as a posting requirement with no written alternative. Getting this right is the clearest single signal that a South Carolina lease has actually been checked against the statute, which is why the form above asks the multi-unit question directly and writes the answer into the document.

Rent is payable without demand or notice at the time and place the parties agreed. S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-310(c) supplies the defaults where the lease is silent: unless the tenant is otherwise notified in writing, rent is payable at the dwelling unit; periodic rent is payable at the beginning of any term of one month or less and otherwise in equal monthly installments at the beginning of each month; and unless otherwise agreed, rent is uniformly apportionable from day to day. That last clause is what makes a prorated first or final month lawful. Where the parties reach no agreement on rent at all, 27-40-310(b) makes the tenant liable for the fair-market rental value of the use and occupancy, which 27-40-210(4) defines as the actual periodic rental payment for comparable property to which a willing landlord and a willing tenant would agree, with the court free to consider appraisals and other relevant evidence.

South Carolina sets no statutory grace period and no cap on late fees. There is no residential late-fee statute in chapter 40 at all. What the Act does say, at 27-40-210(11), is that “rent” includes late charges, whether payable in a lump sum or in periodic payments, while excluding security deposits and other charges. That definitional point has teeth, because it means a late charge is part of the rent for the purposes of the nonpayment machinery rather than a separate contractual debt.

One myth to retire here. The deepest ranking page states that returned-check fees in South Carolina are “capped at thirty dollars per check,” citing S.C. Code Ann. 34-11-70(3). Section 34-11-70 has no subsection numbered (3), and it caps nothing. It is a criminal statute in the banking title, titled Prima facie evidence of fraudulent intent in drawing check, draft, or other written order, under which the drawer of a dishonoured instrument must tender the amount due together with a thirty-dollar service charge within ten days of a certified-mail notice, failing which the non-payment is prima facie evidence of fraudulent intent. It is a criminal-evidence provision, not a limit on what a residential lease may charge. Our South Carolina late fee laws guide covers the drafting.

South Carolina also has no rent-control statute and no rent-increase notice statute. A 2025 bill, H.3346, styled the South Carolina Rent Control Act, would have added 27-39-370 with a seven-day notice for weekly tenancies and a ninety-day notice with a seven-percent-plus-inflation cap otherwise. It was referred to the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee in January 2025 and has never been reported out, so it is not law — a point worth stating plainly, because its full text sits on the legislature’s own website and reads exactly like an enacted act. On a fixed term, rent cannot change mid-term unless the lease says so. On a periodic tenancy, a rent change is accomplished through the termination notice in 27-40-770 and an offer of new terms, and our South Carolina rent increase notice and rent increase laws guide handle the mechanics.

Twenty-four hours, at reasonable times, with three narrow exceptions. The structure of S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-530 is worth reading in order, because two ranking pages cite the wrong subsection for the twenty-four hours.

Subsection (a) is the tenant’s duty: the tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent to the landlord entering to inspect, make necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements, supply necessary or agreed services, or exhibit the unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workmen or contractors. Subsection (b) lists the three situations in which a landlord may enter without consent. Subsection (c) is where the twenty-four hours lives: except in the cases under (b), the landlord shall give the tenant at least twenty-four hours’ notice of the intent to enter and may enter only at reasonable times — and, in the same subsection, shall not abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant.

The three exceptions are specific. First, at any time in case of emergency, and the statute adds that prospective changes in weather conditions which pose a likelihood of danger to the property may be considered an emergency — a genuinely South Carolina provision, and a sensible one in a hurricane state. Second, between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. for the purpose of providing regularly scheduled periodic services such as changing furnace and air-conditioning filters or providing termite, insect or pest treatment, provided that the right to enter for those services is conspicuously set forth in writing in the rental agreement and the landlord announces the intent to enter before entering. Third, between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. for services requested by the tenant, again announcing the intent to enter before entering.

That second exception is a lease-drafting condition, not a background rule, which is why the form above makes it a checkbox with its own generator branch. A South Carolina landlord who runs quarterly pest treatment and has not conspicuously reserved the right in the lease has no 9:00-to-6:00 window at all and needs twenty-four hours’ notice every visit.

Subsection (d) closes the list: the landlord has no other right of access except pursuant to court order, as permitted by 27-40-720 and 27-40-730, when accompanied by a law enforcement officer at reasonable times for the purpose of service of process in ejectment proceedings, or where the tenant has abandoned or surrendered the premises. And subsection (e) points the other way — the tenant shall not change locks on the dwelling unit without the landlord’s permission, a duty most templates omit entirely.

The remedies for abuse sit in a different section, 27-40-780, which one ranker misattributes to 27-40-530(c). If the tenant refuses lawful access, the landlord may obtain injunctive relief without posting bond to compel access, or terminate the agreement, and recover actual damages and reasonable attorney’s fees. If the landlord knowingly makes an unlawful entry, or a repeated lawful entry in an unreasonable manner, or repeated demands for entry that are otherwise lawful but have the effect of unreasonably harassing the tenant, the tenant may obtain injunctive relief without posting bond, or terminate, and recover actual damages and reasonable attorney’s fees. Our South Carolina notice to enter form produces a dated notice, and the landlord entry laws guide covers the edge cases.

S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-440(a) places five duties on the landlord: comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; make all repairs and do whatever is reasonably necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition; keep all common areas in a reasonably safe condition and, for premises containing more than four dwelling units, in a reasonably clean condition; make available running water and reasonable amounts of hot water at all times and reasonable heat, except where the building is not required by law to be equipped for that purpose or heat and hot water are generated within the tenant’s exclusive control on a direct utility connection; and maintain in reasonably good and safe working order all electrical, gas, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air conditioning and other facilities and appliances, including elevators, supplied or required to be supplied. Two details in that last duty repay attention: appliances present in the unit are presumed to be supplied by the landlord unless specifically excluded by the rental agreement, and no appliance or facility necessary to the provision of essential services may be excluded. Where the code duty is greater than any other listed duty, the code duty controls.

Work can be shifted to the tenant, but only within limits. For a single family residence — defined at 27-40-210(14), and note that a unit sharing a wall still counts if it has direct street access and shares no heating, hot water or other essential facility — the parties may agree in writing that the tenant performs the facilities-and-appliances duty and specified repairs, maintenance, alterations and remodeling, but only in good faith and not to evade the landlord’s obligations. For any other dwelling unit, such an agreement is valid only if entered in good faith, only where the work is not necessary to cure a code violation materially affecting health and safety, and only where it does not diminish the landlord’s obligations to other tenants. And 27-40-340 forbids any rental agreement, assignment, conveyance, trust deed, mortgage or security instrument that permits the receipt of rent absent the obligation to comply with 27-40-440(a).

S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-510 sets the tenant’s eight duties: comply with tenant obligations under codes materially affecting health and safety; keep the dwelling unit and the part of the premises used reasonably safe and reasonably clean; dispose of all ashes, garbage, rubbish and other waste in a reasonably clean and safe manner; keep all plumbing fixtures reasonably clean; use all facilities and appliances reasonably; not deliberately or negligently destroy, deface, damage, impair or remove any part of the premises, nor knowingly permit anyone else to; conduct themselves and their guests so as not to disturb other tenants’ peaceful enjoyment; and comply with the lease and with rules enforceable under 27-40-520.

Those rules deserve their own note, because 27-40-520 gives the tenant a right most templates never mention. A landlord may adopt rules concerning use and occupancy, but they bind the tenant only if six conditions hold: their purpose is to promote convenience, safety or welfare, preserve the property from abusive use, or fairly distribute services; they are reasonably related to that purpose; they apply to all tenants fairly; they are explicit enough to inform the tenant what to do; they are not adopted to evade the landlord’s obligations; and the tenant has notice of them when entering the agreement or when they are adopted. Then subsection (b): a rule adopted after the tenant enters into the agreement is not valid as to that tenant if it substantially modifies the tenant’s bargain and the tenant, after receiving notice of the right to object, objects in writing within thirty days after promulgation.

When the landlord does not repair, the tenant follows 27-40-610: deliver written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the agreement terminates on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt if the breach is not remedied within fourteen days. It does not terminate if the landlord adequately remedies the breach in time, or, for a breach not affecting health and safety that cannot be remedied in fourteen days, if the remedy is commenced within the period and pursued in good faith to completion within a reasonable time. The tenant cannot terminate for a condition the tenant, a family member, or a permitted guest caused. The tenant may also recover actual damages and injunctive relief in a magistrate’s or circuit court without posting bond, and reasonable attorney’s fees where the noncompliance is wilful. Our South Carolina habitability laws guide covers the evidence a tenant needs.

No — not for ordinary repairs, and the statute says so in terms. This is one of the sharpest differences between South Carolina and the states its neighbours’ templates are written for, and two ranking pages describe a general repair-and-deduct right that does not exist here.

S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-630 is titled Wrongful failure to provide essential services, and that title is the boundary. Where the landlord is negligent or wilful in failing to provide essential services as required by the rental agreement or 27-40-440, the tenant may give written notice specifying the breach and then either procure reasonable amounts of the required essential services during the noncompliance and deduct their actual and reasonable cost from rent, or recover damages based on the diminution in the fair-market rental value of the unit plus reasonable attorney’s fees. A tenant proceeding under this section may not also proceed under 27-40-610 for the same breach, and the rights do not arise until notice has been given and the landlord has failed to act within a reasonable time, or where the condition was caused by the tenant or a permitted guest.

Then subsection (c), which is unusually blunt for a codified provision: Under no circumstances should this section be interpreted to authorize the tenant to make repairs on the rental property and deduct the cost of the repairs from rent. In the event that the tenant unlawfully acts without the landlord’s consent and authorizes repairs, any mechanic’s lien arising therefrom shall be unenforceable. So a South Carolina tenant who hires a contractor for a leaking roof and withholds the invoice from rent has no statutory footing, and the contractor’s lien fails with it.

“Essential services” is a defined term, at 27-40-210(17): sanitary plumbing or sewer services; electricity; gas, where used for heat, hot water or cooking; running water; and reasonable amounts of hot water and heat, subject to the same building and exclusive-control carve-outs as the landlord’s duty. That list is the whole of the deduction right.

The tenant’s other lever is defensive. Under 27-40-640, in an action for possession based on nonpayment or in an action for rent for a period when the tenant is in possession, the tenant may rely on the lease or the Act to assert defenses and counterclaim for any amount recoverable. But a defense or counterclaim without merit and not raised in good faith exposes the tenant to the landlord’s actual damages and reasonable attorney’s fees. And subsection (b) contains a waiver trap: the tenant is considered to have waived a maintenance violation as a defense where the landlord had no notice of it fourteen days before rent was due for non-essential services, or no notice before rent was due giving a reasonable opportunity to make emergency repairs for essential services. Complain early, in writing, and keep the copy.

Five days for unpaid rent, fourteen days to cure anything else — and the five-day notice can be built into the lease itself. S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-710 governs both tracks, and subsection (B) contains the most consequential drafting option in South Carolina residential tenancy law.

Start with the rule. If rent is unpaid when due and the tenant fails to pay within five days from the date due, or the tenant is in violation of 27-40-540, 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. Note what that is and what it is not. It is a precondition to termination. It is not a grace period: rent is late the day after it is due and any late fee the lease creates may run from then. Two ranking pages describe it as a mandatory five-day grace period, and one compounds the error into a five-day grace period followed by a separate five-day notice to quit — two periods where the statute creates one.

Then the option. The same subsection provides that the landlord’s obligation to give notice is satisfied for any lease term after the landlord has given one such notice, or if the notice is contained in conspicuous language in a written rental agreement. And it prints the provision that does it:

The statute then states the effect in unusually direct language: the presence of this provision in the rental agreement fully satisfies the written-notice requirement under the subsection and applies to a month-to-month tenancy following the specified lease term in the original rental agreement. If the rental agreement contains it, the landlord is not required to furnish any separate or additional written notice to the tenant in order to commence eviction proceedings for nonpayment of rent even after the original term of the rental agreement has expired. A substantially equivalent provision works too.

Not one of the ranking South Carolina template pages carries this. It is a pure lease-drafting condition with no cost and a large procedural effect, which is why the form above makes it an explicit checkbox with its own branch in the generator: check it and the PDF prints the statutory paragraph in a bordered block with the statutory heading, plus a paragraph explaining what that does; leave it unchecked and the PDF says in terms that a separate written notice is required each time. If you leave it out, our South Carolina five-day notice to pay rent or quit and late rent notice produce the notice you will need.

For a breach other than nonpayment — including a noncompliance with 27-40-510 materially affecting health and safety or the physical condition of the property, or with 27-40-540 — subsection (A) requires a written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the agreement terminates on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt if the breach is not remedied in fourteen days. It does not terminate if the tenant adequately remedies in time, or if the remedy cannot be completed in fourteen days but is commenced within that period and pursued in good faith to completion within a reasonable time. Our South Carolina notice to cure or quit handles that track, and the unconditional quit notice covers the cases where cure is not on offer.

Section 27-40-720 adds a self-help repair route the templates skip. Where the tenant’s noncompliance with 27-40-510 materially affects health and safety and can be remedied by repair, replacement of a damaged item or cleaning, and the tenant fails to comply as promptly as conditions require in an emergency or within fourteen days after written notice, the landlord may enter and cause the work to be done in a workmanlike manner and the tenant shall reimburse the cost, with the Act’s other remedies still available. Where such a noncompliance is not of that kind, the landlord may terminate on the same timing. And on fees, 27-40-710(C) awards the landlord reasonable attorney’s fees where the tenant’s noncompliance other than nonpayment is wilful, or where a nonpayment of rent is not in good faith — in each case only where the landlord is represented by an attorney. Our South Carolina eviction notice laws guide walks the whole sequence.

For a tenancy without a fixed term, S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-770 sets the notice periods. Either party may terminate a week-to-week tenancy by written notice given at least seven days before the termination date specified in the notice, and a month-to-month tenancy by written notice given at least thirty days before the termination date specified in the notice. The deepest ranking page states that a South Carolina landlord “must give at least thirty days’ notice before the end of the lease term if they plan to terminate a lease,” citing this section. That is a periodic-tenancy rule, not an end-of-term rule: a fixed-term lease simply expires on its own terms, and no notice is required to let it. Our South Carolina notice of non-renewal and tenant notice to vacate cover each direction, and the lease termination laws guide covers the counting.

Subsection (c) handles holdover, and it is not gentle. If the tenant remains in possession without the landlord’s consent after expiration or termination, the landlord may bring an action for possession. If the holdover is not in good faith, the landlord may recover reasonable attorney’s fees. If the holdover is a wilful violation of the Act or of the rental agreement, the landlord may also recover an amount not more than three months’ periodic rent or twice the actual damages sustained, whichever is greater, plus fees. “Wilful” is defined at 27-40-210(16) as an attempt to intentionally avoid obligations under the rental agreement or the Act. If the landlord consents to the continued occupancy, 27-40-310(d) applies instead and the arrangement becomes a periodic tenancy.

Two tenant-side exits deserve naming. Under 27-40-650, if fire or casualty damages or destroys the unit to the extent that normal use and occupancy is substantially impaired, the tenant may vacate immediately and notify the landlord in writing within seven days thereafter of the intention to terminate, in which case the agreement terminates as of the date of vacating; alternatively the tenant may vacate only the unusable part, with rent liability reduced in proportion to the diminution in fair-market rental value. Unless the fire or casualty was the tenant’s doing, the landlord returns security and all prepaid rent, accounting as of the date of the casualty. And under 27-40-620, if the landlord fails to deliver possession at the start of the term, rent abates until possession is delivered and the tenant may terminate on at least five days’ written notice and recover all prepaid rent and security, or demand performance and sue for possession and actual damages — with a wilful, bad-faith failure to deliver exposing the responsible person to the greater of three months’ periodic rent or twice the actual damages, plus fees. Our South Carolina breaking lease laws guide covers when a tenant may leave without liability.

Since 18 May 2026, yes — and this is genuinely new law that no competing page has yet. 2026 Act No. 184, ratified as R180 on 14 May 2026 and signed on 18 May 2026, added S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-350 and two definitions to 27-40-210. It takes effect on approval by the Governor, so it is in force now. The official codified chapter on the legislature’s own website does not yet carry it, and neither does any commercial mirror — which means a landlord checking the code page today would conclude, wrongly, that South Carolina has no such provision. A ranking template page still states that a South Carolina domestic violence victim “may not terminate without liability.”

The right: a protected tenant may terminate future obligations under a rental agreement within sixty days of the date of a documented qualifying incident, and may not be held liable for penalties or fees that might otherwise be imposed for that termination. The tenant remains liable for damage caused to the premises before termination, and security deposits are not required to be returned until the end of the lease where they are due to be returned under its terms.

The mechanics: the protected tenant must give the landlord written notice of the intent to terminate within sixty days after the documented qualifying incident, accompanied by documentation such as a restraining order, an order of protection, or evidence of a conviction for domestic violence or abuse. The termination is effective on the date stated in the notice so long as that date is at least thirty days after the landlord’s receipt, unless the landlord consents in writing to an earlier date. The tenant must relinquish all legal rights of possession but stays responsible for rent and other amounts owed, other than early-termination fees, through the effective date.

The limiter, which is the part every summary will drop: 27-40-210(20) defines a qualifying incident as domestic abuse or violence as defined by chapter 4 of title 20 or chapter 25 of title 16, wherein both the victim and the perpetrator are leaseholders on the same property, and where the abuse or violence is documented by a restraining order or an order of protection, or the perpetrator has been convicted of it. A tenant whose abuser is not on the lease does not come within the section as written. A “protected tenant” is simply a tenant who is a victim of a qualifying incident.

And the landlord’s position: a landlord may not require or force a protected tenant to vacate before the sixty days expire, but may agree with the tenant on an earlier termination. Any cotenants remain responsible for the full rent for the balance of the term. If the perpetrator is the remaining sole tenant obligated on the agreement, the landlord may terminate it on five days’ written notice and collect actual damages for that termination against the perpetrator. The landlord may not retaliate against a protected tenant for terminating under the section, and a landlord or property owner who acts in good faith in reliance on documentation provided to establish a qualifying incident may not be held liable for terminating or modifying a lease under it.

S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-730 sets out a ladder that a ranking page reduces to “landlords have no obligation to store tenant property left behind.” That is not the rule.

The abandonment triggers. Subsection (a): the unexplained absence of a tenant from a dwelling unit for a period of fifteen days after default in the payment of rent must be construed as abandonment of the unit. Subsection (b): if the tenant has voluntarily terminated the utilities and there is an unexplained absence after a rent default, abandonment is considered immediate and the fifteen-day rule does not apply. Both require a rent default; an absence alone is not abandonment.

The landlord’s duty on abandonment. Subsection (c) requires the landlord to make reasonable efforts to rent the unit at a fair rental. If the landlord re-lets for a term beginning before the expiration of the agreement, it terminates as of the date of the new tenancy. If the landlord fails to use reasonable efforts, or accepts the abandonment as a surrender, the agreement is considered terminated by the landlord as of the date the landlord had notice of the abandonment. That sits alongside the general duty at 27-40-50(a), under which the aggrieved party has a duty to mitigate damages.

The property itself. Subsection (d): where the unit has been abandoned or the agreement has come to an end, and the tenant has removed a substantial portion of the property or voluntarily and permanently terminated the utilities, and has left personal property with a fair-market value of five hundred dollars or less, the landlord may enter, using forcible entry if required, and dispose of it. Subsection (e): in cases not covered by (d), the landlord may have the property removed only pursuant to sections 27-37-10 to 27-37-150 — the ejectment chapter’s own procedure. Subsection (f): where a landlord disposes of property under (d) and the property was in excess of five hundred dollars, the landlord is liable if grossly negligent. So the disposal right is bounded by value, and misjudging the value carries exposure.

A separate rule governs property removed in the eviction itself. Under 27-40-710(D), personal property removed from the premises as a result of an eviction proceeding and placed on a public street or highway must be removed by the appropriate municipal or county officials after forty-eight hours, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, and may also be removed in the normal course of debris or trash collection before or after that period. Where the municipality or county does not collect trash from the public highways, the landlord may after that period remove and dispose of the property as trash is normally disposed of there. The notice of eviction must clearly inform the tenant of these provisions, and the municipality and its officials have no liability to the tenant if it does not.

Finally, 27-40-740 forecloses a route landlords in other states rely on: a contractual lien or contractual security interest in favour of the landlord in the tenant’s household goods is not enforceable unless it was perfected before the Act took effect. The landlord may enforce collection of rent by distress only under chapter 39 of title 27, and the tenant may raise defenses to a distress warrant under the Act or the lease and claim the property exemptions in 15-41-30.

S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-330 lists three provisions a rental agreement may not contain, and no ranking South Carolina page covers the section at all. A rental agreement may not provide that the tenant:

• Agrees to waive or forego rights or remedies under chapter 40 — the broadest of the three, and the one a carelessly copied clause is most likely to trip.
• Authorizes any person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the rental agreement.
• Agrees to the exculpation or limitation of any liability of the landlord arising under law, or to indemnify the landlord for that liability or the costs connected therewith.

A provision prohibited by subsection (a) is unenforceable. Subsection (b) then adds a two-tier penalty that is unusual in its structure. If a landlord deliberately uses a rental agreement containing provisions known to be prohibited and attempts to exercise the rights created by the agreement, the tenant may recover, in addition to actual damages, an amount not to exceed the security deposit plus reasonable attorney’s fees. If a landlord maliciously uses such an agreement and attempts to exercise those rights, the tenant may recover, in addition to actual damages, an amount not to exceed three months’ periodic rent plus reasonable attorney’s fees. Both tiers require the attempt to exercise, not merely the presence of the clause — but both make the clause a liability rather than a protection.

Subsection (c) preserves one thing expressly: the section does not operate to invalidate bona fide liquidated damage provisions which establish the amount of damages for loss of rent resulting from a premature termination of a lease. That is a genuine carve-out, and it is why the form above offers a liquidated-damages option with an amount field — while noting that a figure operating as a penalty rather than a genuine pre-estimate is not bona fide and will not survive.

On attorney’s fees, South Carolina takes the middle path. Unlike Alabama or Alaska, it does not list a fee-shifting clause among its prohibited provisions, so a fee clause is permitted. But 27-40-330(a)(1) voids any term by which the tenant waives rights or remedies under the Act, and the Act itself awards fees to both sides in defined situations — to the tenant under 27-40-410(b), 27-40-610, 27-40-630, 27-40-660, 27-40-780(b) and 27-40-910(h), and to the landlord under 27-40-640(a), 27-40-710(C), 27-40-750, 27-40-770(c) and 27-40-780(a). A one-sided clause purporting to shift fees to the landlord in circumstances where the Act gives them to the tenant is doing exactly what subsection (a)(1) forbids. The safest drafting, and the only clause this generator will produce, is a reciprocal prevailing-party clause.

Two more general limits sit nearby. Section 27-40-230 lets a court refuse to enforce a rental agreement, a provision of it, or a settlement waiving a claim under the Act, that was unconscionable when made, with the parties given a reasonable opportunity to present evidence as to its setting, purpose and effect. And 27-40-220 imposes an obligation of good faith on every duty under the Act and every act performed as a condition precedent to exercising a right or remedy — “good faith” meaning, under 27-40-210(5), honesty in fact in the conduct of the transaction concerned.

S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-910 is more detailed than most retaliation statutes, and no ranking page covers more than its first sentence. The prohibition, in subsection (a): a landlord shall not retaliate by increasing rent to an amount in excess of fair-market value, by decreasing essential services, or by bringing an action for possession after the tenant has complained to a governmental agency charged with enforcement of a building or housing code of a violation applicable to the premises materially affecting health and safety, or has complained to the landlord of a violation of chapter 40.

The remedy, in subsection (b), borrows 27-40-660 — the unlawful-ouster measure of the greater of three months’ periodic rent or twice the actual damages, plus fees — and makes it available as a defense in any retaliatory possession action. It cuts both ways: a defense without merit entitles the landlord to reasonable attorney’s fees, and a defense raised in bad faith lets the landlord recover up to three months’ periodic rent or treble the actual damages, whichever is greater.

Subsection (c) lists three situations in which the landlord may bring a possession action notwithstanding the prohibition: where the code violation was caused primarily by lack of reasonable care by the tenant or a permitted guest; where there is material noncompliance by the tenant under 27-40-710 or 27-40-720; or where compliance with the code requires alteration, remodeling or demolition that would effectively deprive the tenant of use of the unit. Subsection (d) preserves the tenant’s damages claim under 27-40-610(b) even where such an action is maintained.

Three further provisions are worth naming because they are entirely absent from competing pages. Subsection (e) is a safe harbour for larger landlords: notwithstanding subsection (a), a landlord who rents more than four adjoining dwelling units on the premises may increase rent without a presumption of retaliation, provided the increase applies uniformly to all tenants, or so long as the rent does not exceed fair-market value. Subsection (f) imposes a ten-day notice on the tenant: where the tenant intends to raise a retaliation defense in a possession action, the tenant must notify the landlord in writing within ten days after service of the Rule to Vacate or Show Cause, and the court hears the matter as promptly as feasible after the Answer is filed. And subsection (g) covers retaliatory non-renewal: where the landlord retaliates by refusing to renew and the tenant is not in default as to rent, the landlord may not recover possession for seventy-five days and may not raise rent above fair-market value or decrease essential services pending recovery — provided the tenant proves the violation, the landlord’s notice of it, and the landlord’s notice of the complaint before the lease expired.

Subsection (h) sets the damages: any landlord who acts in retaliation against a tenant for engaging in protected conduct is liable for damages up to three months’ rent or treble the actual damages sustained, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney’s fees — and nothing in the section prevents a damages action after the landlord has recovered possession under subsection (c), provided the ejectment was primarily retaliatory.

One under the Act, one federal, and one conditional duty that lives outside the Act entirely. That is the complete list, and it is shorter than most templates suggest and longer than the rankers’ lists in one respect they all miss.

Owner and agent identification — S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-420. A landlord, or any person authorized to enter into a rental agreement on the landlord’s behalf, shall disclose to the tenant in writing at or before the commencement of the tenancy the name and address of an owner of the premises, or of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner as agent, inter alia, for purposes of service of process and receiving or receipting notices or demands. The information must be kept current, and the section extends to and is enforceable against any successor landlord, owner or manager. Failure has two distinct consequences. Under subsection (c), a person who enters into a rental agreement on the landlord’s behalf and fails to comply becomes the landlord’s agent for service of process, for receiving and receipting notices and demands, and for performing the landlord’s obligations under the Act and the agreement, expending for that purpose all rent collected from the premises and retained on the landlord’s behalf. And under 27-40-210(6), the definition of “landlord” itself extends to a manager of the premises who fails to disclose as required by 27-40-420 — so the manager becomes the landlord for the whole Act.

Lead-based paint — federal, 42 U.S.C. 4852d and 24 C.F.R. Part 35. Any dwelling built before 1978 requires the federal disclosure, the EPA pamphlet, and any known records or reports. Not a South Carolina rule, but it applies in South Carolina and carries federal penalties. One ranking page states the cut-off as 1979; it is 1978. Our South Carolina lead-based paint disclosure form handles it.

Notice of meter conservation charge — S.C. Code Ann. 58-37-50(H)(3). This is the one no competing page mentions, and it is a genuine South Carolina landlord duty with a rent-deduction remedy attached. Where an electricity or natural gas provider financed energy efficiency and conservation measures for a rental unit and recovers the cost through a meter conservation charge on the account associated with that unit, the landlord must give a subsequent tenant a written notice of meter conservation charge, in the same manner as required by 27-40-240. If the landlord fails to, that tenant may deduct the charge from rent for up to one half of the term of the rental agreement. The subsection was carried forward when 2025 Act No. 41, the South Carolina Energy Security Act, restated 58-37-50 in full effective 12 May 2025. It applies only where the unit actually carries such a charge, which is why the form above leaves it unchecked by default.

South Carolina does not require a radon disclosure, a flood-risk disclosure, a bed bug disclosure, a mold disclosure, an asbestos disclosure, a methamphetamine contamination disclosure, an ordnance-proximity notice of the kind some western states require, a single-meter utility notice, a demolition notice, or a sex-offender registry notice in a residential lease. Every one of those comes from another state’s statute book. Including a voluntary disclosure does no harm — the generator offers a mold block explicitly labelled as not required — but citing a South Carolina section for it does, because it signals a document nobody has checked against chapter 40. Note also that a mold bill, H.3232, styled the Healthy Rental Housing Act, would have added a South Carolina mold duty at 27-40-635 and amended 27-40-420. It was referred to House Judiciary on 14 January 2025 and never reported out, so it is not law, though its full text sits on the legislature’s site and reads exactly like an enacted act.

Three enacted acts of the 126th General Assembly touch this ground, and the codified chapter on the legislature’s own site — which carries no “current through” stamp anywhere on its face — had not picked up two of them when this page was verified. Every commercial mirror reproduces the same stale text, and every ranking template page states South Carolina law from it.

• 2026 Act No. 184 (R180, H.3569) — ratified 14 May 2026, approved 18 May 2026, effective on approval. Adds S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-350, the protected-tenant domestic violence termination right, and adds definitions (19) and (20) to 27-40-210. The codified chapter still stops at definition (18) and contains no 27-40-350.
• 2026 Act No. 252 (R269, H.3387) — ratified 29 June 2026, approved 30 June 2026, effective on approval. Rewrites 27-40-800: no court may stay execution of a judgment for ejectment except where the tenant files an affidavit promising to pay rent as it becomes due after judgment, in exchange for the stay. The former “sign an undertaking” bond language is repealed. The same act creates a new squatter-ejectment article in chapter 37 of title 27, redesignates that chapter as Ejectment Proceedings, and establishes related criminal offences. The codified 27-40-800 still shows the old bond form.
• 2026 Act No. 214 (R194, H.4270) — ratified 14 May 2026, approved 19 May 2026, effective 1 January 2027. Adds S.C. Code Ann. 30-2-60: eviction filings and records made under 27-40-10 or 27-37-10 must be removed from the public index and any publicly accessible files seven years after final disposition, or after filing where no additional filing is recorded. This is future-dated, and it will change what a South Carolina tenant screening report can lawfully surface.

Equally important is what is not law. H.3232 (mold), H.3233 (a landlord duty to provide security systems, which would have added 27-40-435) and H.3346 (rent control) were all referred to committee in January 2025 and never reported out. Their full texts are published on the legislature’s website in the same format as enacted acts, and any of them could be cited by a careless summary as though it were in force. For this page, every act of the 2025 and 2026 sessions — 257 in total — was fetched and scanned in full text for chapter 40 references and for the bare words landlord, residential tenant, security deposit and rental agreement, so a freestanding new chapter could not hide behind a section-number search. The residual risk, recorded rather than claimed away: an act could in principle reach residential tenancy through wording that matches none of those probes.

• Copying a deposit cap into the lease. South Carolina has none. A template stating a two-month or three-month limit and citing 27-40-410 is quoting a figure that is not in the section.
• Counting the thirty days from termination alone. S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-410(a) runs it from the later of termination, delivery of possession, and demand by the tenant — and getting it wrong costs three times the amount withheld plus the tenant’s fees.
• Misreading the multi-unit rule. It applies above four adjoining units, not at four; it permits different standards rather than forbidding them; and the statement may be posted or given in writing.
• Leaving out the conspicuous nonpayment provision. Without it, a separate written five-day notice is required every time before the tenancy can be terminated for unpaid rent.
• Assuming a 9:00-to-6:00 entry window exists. The periodic-services exception applies only where the right is conspicuously set out in writing in the lease. Omit it and every non-emergency entry needs twenty-four hours.
• Promising a repair-and-deduct right. S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-630(c) bars it for ordinary repairs and makes a tenant-ordered mechanic’s lien unenforceable.
• Including a waiver, confession-of-judgment, exculpation or indemnity clause. All three categories are prohibited by 27-40-330(a), and attempting to exercise the rights they create costs the security deposit or three months’ rent plus fees.
• Writing a one-sided attorney-fee clause. South Carolina permits a fee clause, but a clause that strips the tenant of a fee remedy the Act grants runs straight into 27-40-330(a)(1). Make it reciprocal.
• Disposing of property worth more than five hundred dollars. Above that value the landlord must use sections 27-37-10 to 27-37-150, and gross negligence in disposal carries liability.
• Treating a fifteen-day absence as abandonment on its own. Section 27-40-730(a) also requires a default in the payment of rent, and an explained absence is not abandonment at all.
• Adopting a new house rule mid-tenancy without a right to object. Under 27-40-520(b) a rule that substantially modifies the tenant’s bargain is invalid as to a tenant who objects in writing within thirty days after promulgation.
• Importing radon, flood, bed bug or ordnance disclosures. None are required in South Carolina, and citing a South Carolina section for them is a tell that the lease was never checked against chapter 40.
• Treating a returned-check service charge as a rental fee cap. Section 34-11-70 is a criminal fraudulent-intent statute in the banking title; it caps nothing about rent.
• Relying on the codified chapter alone. It carried neither 27-40-350 nor the rewritten 27-40-800 when this page was verified, and it displays no currency stamp to warn you.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is a dispute at all. South Carolina gives a landlord a relatively fast route to possession, particularly where the lease carries the conspicuous nonpayment provision — but it also stacks treble-damages and three-months-rent remedies against a landlord who mishandles a deposit, a prohibited clause or a retaliatory act, and from 1 January 2027 the eviction record that would have warned you about an applicant starts disappearing from the public index after seven years. Verifiable income, a clean payment history, and no recent eviction filings remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background, and employment verification, and our South Carolina tenant screening laws guide covers what you may lawfully consider. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

Published by Tenant Screening Background Check

Established 2004 · 20+ Years · All U.S. States & Territories · Statute-Based · Attorney-Reviewed

A Private Eye Reports™ service trusted by landlords, property managers, and attorneys.