South Carolina adopted the uniform model as the South Carolina Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, in Title 27 of the Code. Because it is a full adoption, an SC rental agreement mostly needs to agree the commercial terms and stay out of the act's way. The two places a landlord still has real work to do are the deposit accounting and the disclosure of who owns and manages the property.
The owner and agent have to be identified
The act requires the tenant to be told, in writing, who is authorised to manage the premises and who the owner or the owner's agent is, for service of notices. This is a line in the lease and a line that has to be kept current when management changes. A tenant who cannot identify who to serve has a defence to arguments about notice that nobody wanted to have.
Deposits and the itemised accounting
The act sets the period for returning the deposit with a written itemised list of damages. Where a landlord rents more than a certain number of units and applies different deposit standards to different units, the act requires those standards to be posted or disclosed. That is an easy obligation to meet and an easy one to be unaware of.
Prohibited provisions
As in every adopting state, the act lists terms a rental agreement may not contain, including waivers of rights and agreements to pay the landlord's legal costs. Those clauses are standard in templates written for other markets. Remove them; their presence weakens a document rather than strengthening it.
Notice, entry and non-payment
Notice before entry, notice to end a periodic tenancy and the non-payment sequence are set by the act. South Carolina's non-payment notice interacts with a provision allowing the requirement to be stated in the rental agreement itself, which is worth getting right because it changes what has to be served later.
Questions people ask about sc rental agreement
Where is South Carolina's act?
Title 27 Chapter 40 of the South Carolina Code, the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act.
Must the owner be named in the agreement?
The act requires written disclosure of who manages the premises and who the owner or agent is for service, and it must be kept current.
Is a written rental agreement required?
Not in every case, but without one the act's defaults apply and the disclosure obligations still do.