Few protections: 48 hours' notice of budget-increase meetings (non-incorporated HOAs).
South Carolina's Horizontal Property Act sets no owner vote for a special assessment; your master deed and bylaws decide. The Act does require the bylaws to say how owners are called to meetings and that decisions need a majority of at least 51 percent.
S.C. Code 27-31-160; 27-31-190Before a homeowners association raises its annual budget, it must give owners at least 48 hours' notice of the meeting where that is decided, by posting in a common area or on its website, by email, or by a method in its bylaws that ensures actual notice. This rule does not apply to an association incorporated as a South Carolina nonprofit. The Horizontal Property Act itself leaves the method of calling owners' meetings to the bylaws.
S.C. Code 27-30-140; 27-30-120(6); 27-31-160The Horizontal Property Act requires the board or administrator to keep a detailed book of receipts and expenditures, and that book and its vouchers must be available for owners to examine at convenient hours on working days the association announces. The Act sets no deadline and does not mention copies. If your association is a South Carolina nonprofit corporation, the Nonprofit Corporation Act also lets members inspect and copy listed records on five business days' written notice.
S.C. Code 27-31-180; 33-31-1602The association has a lien on your unit for unpaid common-expense assessments, ahead of all other liens except tax liens and recorded mortgages, and can foreclose it by suit like a mortgage. During a foreclosure you can be required to pay reasonable rent, and the association can ask for a receiver to collect it. The section cited sets no late-fee or interest cap, no notice before foreclosure and no payment-plan right.
S.C. Code 27-31-210South Carolina's Homeowners Association Act sets no owner vote for a special assessment; your declaration and bylaws decide.
S.C. Code 27-30-110 to 27-30-170Before a homeowners association raises its annual budget, it must give owners at least 48 hours' notice of the meeting where that is decided, by posting in a common area or on its website, by email, or by a method in its bylaws that ensures actual notice. This rule does not apply to an association incorporated as a South Carolina nonprofit.
S.C. Code 27-30-140If the association is a South Carolina nonprofit corporation, you can inspect and copy its articles, bylaws and the past three years of member minutes and communications on five business days' written notice, and its accounting records if you ask in good faith for a stated purpose. If it is not incorporated, the HOA Act gives you this right only for the annual budget and the membership list. If the association refuses, you can ask the circuit court to order inspection.
S.C. Code 33-31-1602; 27-30-150Unpaid assessments usually lead to late fees, interest and a lien.
Summarised from the statutes in November 2026. Not legal advice; your declaration and bylaws may add more rules.