Facing Eviction in South Carolina? How the Process Works and How to Fight It

A notice on the door. A letter from the landlord. A paper from the court with a date on it. Most tenants do not know which paper is a warning, which one is a lawsuit, and which one means law enforcement can put them out.

South Carolina eviction, called ejectment in the statutes, is a court process with set steps. A landlord cannot skip the court, change the locks, or shut off the power to force you out. You cannot ignore the court papers and expect the process to stop. The deadlines are short.

This guide walks through the process in order: the notices, the filing in magistrate court, the Rule to Show Cause, the hearing, the Writ of Ejectment, and an appeal. It also covers the defenses tenants actually win with. For background on tenant rights generally, start with our guide to South Carolina landlord-tenant disputes and tenant rights. If you need to reach the firm fast, the Charleston contact page lists the phone number and office details.

What Notice Must a Landlord Give Before Filing for Eviction in South Carolina?

Eviction starts with notice, and the notice depends on the reason. Giving the wrong notice is one of the first things a magistrate can examine.

Nonpayment of Rent: The Five-Day Rule

For residential rent, S.C. Code Section 27-40-710(B) covers failure to pay. If rent is unpaid when due and the tenant fails to pay within five days from the date due, 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 time.

There is a trap inside this rule that surprises tenants. The landlord's duty to give that separate written notice is satisfied for any lease term after the landlord has given one such notice, and it is also satisfied if the notice is contained in conspicuous language in the written rental agreement itself. The statute even sets out the warning wording, which in substance says: if you do not pay your rent on time, this is your notice, and if you do not pay within five days of the due date the landlord can start to have you evicted, with no other notice as long as you live in the rental unit.

Section 27-37-10(B) matches that point from the ejectment side. For residential agreements, nonpayment within five days of the date due counts as legal notice that the landlord has the right to begin ejectment proceedings if the written agreement specifies, in bold conspicuous type, that nonpayment counts as that notice, and the requirement is satisfied if the agreement contains the notice described in Section 27-40-710(B).

So check your lease before you argue that no notice came. If your lease carries that bold warning, the landlord may not owe you a fresh five-day letter each time rent is late. If your lease has no such language and no earlier written notice was ever given, a filing that skips the required notice is open to challenge. Either way, the five days run from the rent due date. Paying the full rent owed within that window, and keeping proof of payment, is the cleanest way to stop a nonpayment case before it starts.

Other Lease Breaches: The Fourteen-Day Chance to Cure

For breaches other than nonpayment, S.C. Code Section 27-40-710(A) gives a longer window. If the tenant is out of compliance with the rental agreement in a covered way, the landlord may deliver a written notice that names the acts and omissions that make up the breach and states that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt of the notice, if the breach is not remedied in fourteen days.

Two protections sit inside that rule. If the breach can be remedied and you adequately remedy it before the date in the notice, the agreement does not terminate for that breach. If the fix cannot be finished within fourteen days but you start within that time and pursue it in good faith to completion within a reasonable time, the agreement may not terminate either. Document the cure with photographs, receipts, or the landlord's written acknowledgment.

Do not confuse the categories. A landlord who files on a breach without the fourteen-day cure notice has given you a defense. Read the notice against the lease and against what you actually did.

End of Term and Holdover

Section 27-37-10(A) also allows ejectment when the term of tenancy or occupancy has ended, and when the terms or conditions of the lease have been violated. A tenant who stays after the tenancy has lawfully ended holds over, and a landlord can file. Even then, the landlord must use the court process described below. The end of a lease is not a license for a lockout.

How Does the Court Case Start, and What Is a Rule to Show Cause?

If notice runs out without payment, cure, or a move-out the landlord accepts, the landlord files in magistrate court for the county where the property sits. The landlord starts the case with an Application for Ejectment, court form SCCA/732. A word of caution on form numbers, because old websites repeat old numbers: the current South Carolina Judicial Branch forms list shows the Application for Ejectment as SCCA/732, the Rule to Vacate or Show Cause as SCCA/733A in its current revision, and the Writ of Ejectment as SCCA/734. Older copies of the rule form carry the number SCCA/733. The number matters less than the content, but if you search a form number and find advice tied to an outdated copy, check the current list at the Judicial Branch before you rely on it.

Section 27-37-20 states what happens next. On the landlord's application, a magistrate with jurisdiction issues a written rule requiring the tenant to vacate the premises at once or to show cause why the tenant should not be ejected, before the magistrate, within ten days after service of a copy of the rule on the tenant.

That rule — the Rule to Vacate or Show Cause — is the paper that matters most in the early case. It is not junk mail and it is not a bluff. The ten days run from service, meaning from when the rule is properly delivered under the service rules, not from when the landlord says the case was filed. Section 27-37-30 covers service, including posting and mailing steps that can count as service when its requirements are met and time has passed. If you are not sure whether you were served or when, treat the earliest date as real until a lawyer or the court tells you otherwise, and act at once.

Your job inside those ten days is to respond and get a hearing. Go to the magistrate court named in the rule, before the date it states, and show why you should not be ejected: rent was paid, notice was defective, the breach was cured, the amount claimed is wrong, or another defense in this post applies. Ask how the court wants your response filed and keep stamped copies of anything you hand in. Clerks can explain procedure but cannot give you legal advice.

What Happens If I Ignore the Eviction Papers or Miss the Hearing?

You can lose your home by default without anyone ever hearing your side.

Section 27-37-40 covers failure to show cause. If the tenant fails to appear and show cause within the ten days, the magistrate shall issue a warrant of ejectment, and the tenant shall be ejected by the regular or special constable or by the sheriff of the county. No hearing on the merits happens, because there is nobody there to contest the case. Defenses you could have won with — payment, bad notice, retaliation, the landlord's own noncompliance — are waived in practice if you never show up to raise them.

If you do appear and contest the case, Section 27-37-60 provides that the magistrate hears and determines the case as any other civil case, allowing trial by jury if either party demands one. Bring your proof: the lease, rent receipts and bank records, the notices you received, photographs, repair requests, and witnesses. Organize it before you arrive. Magistrates run crowded dockets, and a clean, dated set of records is heard differently from a phone full of unsorted screenshots.

If a true emergency keeps you from a hearing date, contact the court at once, before the date, and ask what you must file to seek more time. Do not assume a phone call moves anything.

What Is a Writ of Ejectment, and How Much Time Do I Get After Judgment?

If the verdict is for the landlord after a contested case, Section 27-37-100 states that the magistrate shall, within five days, issue a writ of ejectment, and the tenant shall be ejected by the constable, special constable, or sheriff. Note what that five days is: a deadline for the magistrate to issue the writ after the verdict. It is not five extra days granted to the tenant to stay, and tenants who read it that way run out of time while waiting.

Once an officer executes the writ, the time left is very short. South Carolina practice under the ejectment statutes gives the occupants 24 hours to vacate voluntarily after the officer presents the writ, before the officer returns to carry out the removal. Treat the writ as the final paper. By the time it issues, the argument phase is over unless an appeal with a proper bond is in place. Do not count on retrieving property left behind from a curb. If judgment goes against you and no appeal stops the writ, use every hour to move your property and your family in an orderly way. Only law enforcement carries out a writ. Your landlord cannot lawfully do the removal.

Can I Appeal an Eviction Judgment in South Carolina?

Yes, either party may appeal in an ejectment case. Section 27-37-120 says an appeal is heard and determined as other appeals in civil cases from magistrate court, which means the general magistrate appeal deadline and procedure apply — ask the magistrate court or a lawyer for the exact deadline on your judgment and count it from the judgment, not from the writ.

Here is the point tenants get wrong most often, and it comes from Section 27-37-130: an appeal by itself does not stay ejectment. To stop the removal while the appeal is heard, the tenant must give an appeal bond, in an amount fixed by the magistrate, conditioned on payment of costs and damages the landlord may sustain. If the tenant fails to file that bond within five days after service of the notice of appeal, the appeal shall be dismissed by the trial magistrate.

You will see websites say flatly that a tenant has five days to appeal an eviction. That is not what the statute says. The five-day figure in Section 27-37-130 is the bond deadline after the notice of appeal is served. Confusing the two deadlines can be fatal in both directions: a tenant who thinks the appeal itself is due in five days may give up a valid appeal, and a tenant who files an appeal but ignores the bond can watch the appeal get dismissed and the writ go forward. If you lose at the hearing and want to appeal, get the bond amount, the bond deadline, and the appeal deadline confirmed in writing the same day.

Can My Landlord Change the Locks or Shut Off Utilities to Force Me Out?

No. South Carolina law bars self-help removal, and it puts a price on it.

Section 27-40-760 limits recovery of possession. A landlord may not recover or take possession of the dwelling unit by action or otherwise, including by willfully cutting off required services, except in cases of abandonment, surrender, or termination, or as otherwise allowed in the chapter. In plain words, possession comes back through the court process, not through a lock change, a removed door, or a shutoff of water or power meant to make you leave.

Section 27-40-660 gives the tenant the remedy when a landlord crosses that line. If the landlord unlawfully removes or excludes the tenant, or willfully diminishes services by interrupting or causing the interruption of essential services, the tenant may recover possession or terminate the rental agreement and, in either case, recover an amount equal to three months' rent or twice the actual damages, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees. If the agreement is terminated, the landlord must also return the security deposit that is recoverable under the deposit statute.

If this happens to you, document it the same day: photographs of the changed lock, the landlord's messages, and a written demand for restoration. Then get legal help quickly, because a self-help claim can also serve as a defense and counterclaim in the eviction case itself.

What Defenses Can Stop or Slow an Eviction in South Carolina?

A defense is not an excuse. It is a legal reason the landlord should not win, or should not win yet. These are the defenses tenants raise most often, and what each one needs to stand up.

Payment and wrong amounts. In a nonpayment case, proof that rent was paid, was paid in part the landlord accepted, or that the amount claimed includes fees the lease never allowed, attacks the core of the filing. Bring bank records, receipts, money order stubs, and messages confirming payment. Cash with no receipt is the hardest payment to prove, which is why you should never pay rent in cash without a signed receipt again.

Defective notice. If the landlord skipped the five-day duty where it applied, filed on a breach without the fourteen-day cure notice in Section 27-40-710(A), or filed before the notice time ran, say so with dates. Courts enforce the notice steps the statutes set. Show the magistrate the notice, the envelope or delivery proof, and your calendar math.

Cure. If you fixed the breach inside the fourteen days, or started a fix that could not finish in time and pursued it in good faith, bring the proof described earlier. A cured breach is not a ground to terminate under the statute's own terms.

The landlord's noncompliance and habitability. Landlords owe duties too. Section 27-40-440 requires a landlord to follow building and housing codes that materially affect health and safety, make repairs and do what is reasonably necessary to keep the premises fit and habitable, keep common areas reasonably safe, and maintain supplied systems and appliances in good and safe working order. Section 27-40-610 gives the tenant a remedy when the landlord materially fails the rental agreement or the Section 27-40-440 duties in a way that materially affects health and safety or the physical condition of the property: the tenant may give written notice naming the breach and stating the agreement will terminate on a date not less than fourteen days after the landlord receives it if the breach is not remedied, and may pursue the remedies the section provides, including actual damages and, for willful noncompliance, reasonable attorney's fees. Documented repair failures matter most when you gave written notice, allowed the time the law sets, and can show the condition with photographs, code complaints, or inspection records. Do not simply stop paying rent over repairs without advice. A tenant who withholds rent outside the written-notice structure can hand the landlord a clean nonpayment case.

Retaliation. Section 27-40-910 bars a landlord from retaliating by raising rent above fair market value, decreasing essential services, or bringing an action for possession after the tenant has complained to a government agency about a building or housing code violation materially affecting health and safety, or complained to the landlord about a violation of the chapter. If the landlord acts in violation, the tenant can use the remedies Section 27-40-660 provides as a defense in a retaliatory action for possession. The statute has exceptions — a landlord may still bring an action where the code violation was caused mainly by the tenant's own lack of reasonable care, where the tenant is in material noncompliance, or where fixing the code issue requires alteration or demolition that would deprive the tenant of use of the unit. Timing and paper decide retaliation claims. Keep the complaint, the agency record, and the date the eviction followed it.

Discrimination and other law. Federal and state fair housing law can also apply when an eviction targets a protected trait. Those claims have their own proof and deadlines. If the facts suggest discrimination, raise it with a lawyer promptly rather than assuming the magistrate hearing is the only forum.

Frequently Asked Questions About Eviction in South Carolina

I got a paper taped to my door saying Rule to Show Cause, what do I do right now?

Act the same day. That rule, issued under Section 27-37-20, orders you to vacate or show cause before the magistrate within ten days after service. Read the court name, address, and date on it. Go to that magistrate court before the date stated, file your response as the court directs, and ask for your hearing. Bring the lease, rent proof, and any defense documents. Doing nothing is the fastest way to lose: under Section 27-37-40, a tenant who fails to appear and show cause within the ten days faces a warrant of ejectment without a hearing on the merits.

My lease says if I don't pay in five days I can be evicted with no other notice, is that legal?

It can be. Section 27-40-710(B) allows the landlord's separate written notice duty to be satisfied by conspicuous warning language in the written rental agreement itself, and Section 27-37-10(B) treats nonpayment within five days of the due date as legal notice of the right to start ejectment when the agreement carries that warning in bold conspicuous type. Find the clause in your lease. If it is there, do not build your plan on a missing-notice argument. If it is not there, and no earlier written notice was given, raise the defect with the court.

Can I just pay the rent after the landlord files and stay?

Payment after filing can help and sometimes settles a nonpayment case, but it is not an automatic legal reset once the case is in court, and a landlord may refuse a partial payment or seek costs. Offer full payment of what is truly owed, get any agreement to stop the case in writing, and confirm with the court that the case is dismissed or withdrawn.

My landlord changed the locks while I was at work, what can I do?

That is the self-help conduct Sections 27-40-760 and 27-40-660 address. A tenant who is unlawfully removed or excluded may recover possession or end the agreement and recover three months' rent or twice actual damages, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees. Document everything the same day, demand restoration in writing, make a report, and get a lawyer involved quickly.

The place has had no hot water and a leaking ceiling for months, can I use that?

Possibly, if you built the record the law expects. Section 27-40-440 obliges the landlord to keep the premises fit and habitable. Section 27-40-610 sets the remedy path, starting with written notice naming the breach and giving at least fourteen days to remedy it. Complaints to a housing code agency also matter for retaliation protection under Section 27-40-910 if an eviction follows. Photographs, dated written repair requests, and agency records turn a complaint into a defense.

I lost my hearing, how long before I have to be out?

After a verdict for the landlord, Section 27-37-100 requires the magistrate to issue a writ of ejectment within five days. When an officer executes the writ, occupants get 24 hours to vacate voluntarily before removal. An appeal does not pause that clock by itself. Under Section 27-37-130, you must give an appeal bond in the amount the magistrate fixes, and failing to file the bond within five days after service of the notice of appeal gets the appeal dismissed. If you intend to appeal, handle the bond the same day you file the notice of appeal, and move your property as if the writ may still issue, so an adverse ruling does not put your belongings on a curb.

Get Help Fighting an Eviction in South Carolina

Eviction cases move fast, and they are won on paper: the lease, the notices, the service date, and the rent records. Do not wait to get advice. The ten days after service of the Rule to Show Cause, and the five days to put up an appeal bond after a loss, leave no room for a slow start.

Traywick Law Offices, LLC helps South Carolina tenants understand eviction notices, raise defenses, and respond inside the deadlines, from its office at 38 Romney St, Suite 104, Charleston, SC 29403. For a free consultation, call (843) 343-5092 or start with the free consultation intake form. Bring every paper you have received, including the envelope. In eviction cases, the envelope and its date can matter as much as the paper inside it.

This post is general information about South Carolina law, not legal advice about your tenancy. Have your documents reviewed at once if a case has been filed.