South Carolina closed a two-year session with no HOA law enacted
South Carolina closed a two-year session with no HOA law enacted
2026-09-19 · South Carolina · Legislation
The 126th General Assembly finished its two-year term without enacting a single piece of homeowners-association legislation. Roughly a dozen HOA bills were filed between December 2024 and April 2026. None of them was ratified.1
That leaves the operative statute exactly where it stood before the session opened. The South Carolina Homeowners Association Act, Chapter 30 of Title 27, carries no amendment later than 2019 Act No. 66; the Horizontal Property Act, Chapter 31, carries none later than 2006 Act No. 250.2
What the record shows
The 2026 session ran from January 13 to May 14, 2026. The acts ratified in that session run from Act No. 95 through Act No. 277 — 180 entries. Not one of those subject lines names a homeowners association, a condominium, a horizontal property regime, a common-interest community, a property owners association or a community manager.1
The only Title 27 amendments ratified in 2026 were to Chapter 37 (ejectment) and Chapter 40 (residential landlord and tenant). Chapters 30 and 31 — the two chapters that govern South Carolina associations — were not touched.
The last ratification of the term was R277, on August 26, 2026. Nothing followed it.
Bills that moved, and where they stopped
Two bills came close enough that the outcome was not a foregone conclusion.
- H. 3447 passed the House 110-2 on February 27, 2025, went to the Senate on March 4, 2025, was referred to Judiciary, and recorded no further action for the remaining fourteen months of the term.3
- S. 903 passed the Senate 39-0 on April 16, 2026, received third reading April 28, arrived in the House April 29 and was referred to Labor, Commerce and Industry. It never left that committee.4
The rest — H. 5204, S. 366, H. 4006, H. 3425, H. 3350, H. 4460, H. 4579, H. 5068, S. 68, H. 3235, H. 5522 — never received a committee vote of any kind.
What "dead" means mechanically in South Carolina
South Carolina's General Assembly sits in two-year terms. A bill filed in the first regular session carries over to the second. Anything still unpassed when the second year ends is finished: it is not held over, and its committee referral, its favorable committee report and its one-chamber passage all lapse with it.5
The 127th General Assembly convenes in January 2027. Prefiling normally opens in December 2026. A measure that cleared the House 110-2 in 2025 starts again at first reading, in a chamber whose membership has changed in the intervening election.
The post-session calendar did not offer a second chance either. The sine die resolution, S. 883, confined anything taken up after May 14 to appropriations conference reports, vetoes, revenue-shortfall measures, appointments, ceremonial resolutions and congressional redistricting. Governor McMaster's Executive Order No. 2026-09, issued May 14, 2026, convened an extra session limited to the General Appropriations Act and congressional districts.6 Neither window admitted an association bill.
The consequence on the ground
Because nothing was enacted, every question a South Carolina association faces is answered by the same authorities that answered it in 2024: the 2018 Homeowners Association Act as amended in 2019, the 1976-era Horizontal Property Act, the Nonprofit Corporation Act in Title 33, the recorded declaration itself, and the decisions of the state's appellate courts.
Several things people expect to find in state law are still absent from it. South Carolina has no statutory cap on assessment increases, no mandatory reserve study or reserve-funding requirement, no milestone or structural inspection regime for condominium buildings, no licensing requirement for community-association managers, no statutory internal dispute-resolution procedure, and no registration scheme for associations. Bills addressing each of those were filed in this term and each one died.
What the Department of Consumer Affairs still does
The one statutory oversight mechanism that exists stayed in place: Sections 27-30-330 and 27-30-340 require the Department of Consumer Affairs to collect HOA complaint data and report annually to the General Assembly. Act No. 221 of 2026 restructured the Department within the executive branch but did not amend Chapter 30, Article 3, so those duties are unchanged.
The Department takes complaints and publishes the counts. It has no authority to fine a board, void a rule, order a document produced, or resolve a dispute — and no 2026 legislation gave it any.
What to watch
The next filing window is December 2026, for a session beginning in January 2027. Three sponsors have filed association bills more than once across terms: Rep. Rutherford (H. 3180 in 2023-2024, H. 3447 in 2025-2026), Rep. Kilmartin (H. 5204 and H. 4460, and a co-sponsor of H. 3180) and Sen. Kimbrell (S. 366, and a co-sponsor of S. 903). No sponsor, and no organization, has publicly announced a 2027 filing.
Related South Carolina HOA Topics
- List of Acts, 2026 Session, South Carolina General Assembly ↩
- S.C. Code Title 27, Chapter 30 — South Carolina Homeowners Association Act (section histories) ↩
- H. 3447 bill history, 126th General Assembly ↩
- S. 903 bill history, 126th General Assembly ↩
- Community Associations Institute, 2026 South Carolina End of Legislative Session Report ↩
- S. 883, sine die resolution, 126th General Assembly ↩
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