Consumer Affairs logged 452 HOA complaints against 339 associations — and told the legislature what it cannot do about them
Consumer Affairs logged 452 HOA complaints against 339 associations — and told the legislature what it cannot do about them
2026-09-19 · South Carolina · Regulation
The one recurring, state-produced dataset on South Carolina association disputes was published on February 4, 2026, and its most consequential passage is the Department's account of its own powerlessness.1
The Homeowners Association Annual Report is required by Section 27-30-340, a duty created when the Homeowners Association Act took effect in May 2018. It is due to the Governor and the General Assembly by January 31 each year.
The numbers, as the report states them
The Department received 586 HOA complaints in calendar year 2025, down about 5% from 617 in 2024. It excluded 134: thirteen failed statutory inclusion requirements, thirty-nine were duplicates, four were referred to the Human Affairs Commission, and seventy-eight — 13% — were closed as abandoned because the complainant never filed the required supplemental questionnaire.
That leaves the report's headline figure: 452 complaints against 339 associations and management companies, a 4% increase in included complaints over 2024. Those 452 complaints raised 1,104 separate concerns, up 30%.
The three largest concern categories:
- Failure to adhere to or enforce covenants and bylaws — 16.8%
- Maintenance and repairs — 11.7%
- A request to access information or view documents ignored — 9.5%
Where the complaints come from
Twenty-three of South Carolina's forty-six counties. By volume: Horry 31%, Richland 12%, Greenville 9%. Per thousand residents: Horry 0.38, Georgetown 0.24, Dorchester 0.16.
Over the longer run, the Department reports total consumer complaints up 111% from 2019 to 2025 and HOA-specific complaints up 176% across the same span. HOA complaints were 8.5% of everything the Department received in 2025.
What happens to a complaint
The outcome data is the part that describes the system rather than the grievances. Of the complaints resolved, 68% closed as an "adequate business response." Four — 0.88% — closed as "consumer satisfied." Nineteen per cent closed as "undetermined" because the facts were disputed, up four points year on year, an increase the Department attributes to its own statutory limits.
One figure moved the other way: complaints closed "unsatisfied" because the association never responded at all fell from 42 (9.7%) in 2024 to 25 (5.5%) in 2025.
The Department's process is voluntary mediation. It states in the report that it cannot compel an association to participate, cannot require an outcome, and cannot arbitrate. That is the single most important structural fact about association oversight in South Carolina: the state has a complaint collector, not a regulator.
The questionnaire data
Because the statute requires a supplemental questionnaire, the report carries information no other source collects:
- 85% of the associations complained about used a management company.
- 90% of complainants were told association membership was a condition of ownership — but only 32% received the governing documents before purchase, against 53% after.
- 98% had already raised the issue with the association before coming to the Department.
The 32% figure speaks directly to what a buyer receives at closing. A purchaser bound by a recorded declaration they first read after signing is the ordinary case, not the exception.
The four recommendations, and what became of them
The Department put four proposals to the General Assembly, framed as avoiding "a heavy regulatory burden":
- A mandated internal dispute-resolution process inside each association, made known to members, under a flexible statutory framework. Nearly half of 2025 complainants — 48.5% — asked for exactly this.
- Extending the Nonprofit Corporation Act's voting provisions — Sections 33-31-708, 33-31-721, 33-31-722, 33-31-723 and 33-31-724, covering ballot content, votes per member, quorum, what constitutes a majority, and proxies — to associations whose bylaws are silent on voting.
- Expanding magistrate's court authority. Magistrate jurisdiction is capped at $7,500; 65% of complainants wanted oversight by a state agency, an ombudsman or a magistrate.
- Requiring an association responding to a complaint to attach the governing-document provision it relies on.
The report footnotes that H. 3350, introduced January 14, 2025, "encompasses several of these recommendations." H. 3350 died in House Labor, Commerce and Industry without a committee vote, as did every other association bill of the term. None of the four recommendations was enacted.
What complainants themselves asked for
On enforcement: state agency oversight 31%, internal dispute resolution 26%, magistrate's court 16.8%, an HOA ombudsman 16.6%. On changes to governing documents: open meetings and notice 27.5%, parameters for viewing and copying records 18.1%, and forbidding associations from placing liens or foreclosing 14.1%.
A caution on the numbers in circulation
Press coverage of this report has reproduced the figures inconsistently. One account rendered the 2025 total as 568 rather than 586 and described "339 complaints filed against specific HOAs" rather than 452 complaints against 339 associations; another reported "nearly 6,000 HOA complaints," which is off by an order of magnitude. The Department's own document is the authority for all of the figures above.
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