Vague Rules, Uneven Enforcement: How Subjective HOA Standards Invite Selective Enforcement in South Carolina

The letter quotes a rule you cannot look up, because it does not really exist as a rule. Your fence, your paint color, your boat, or your mailbox "detracts from the attractiveness of the community," or fails to be "in harmony with the surrounding structures," or creates a "nuisance." The letter does not say what measurement you failed. It cannot. The standard is a feeling, and the feeling belongs to the board.

Then you drive through your own neighborhood and count the same fence, the same paint, the same boat at other houses. No letters there. Some of those houses belong to board members.

That pattern has a name: selective enforcement. And its root cause usually sits in the documents themselves. Subjective standards in covenants and bylaws give a board discretion with no edges. Discretion with no edges gets used unevenly — against the homeowner who complained, who ran against the president, who asked to see the books. This post explains how subjective HOA standards work in South Carolina, the legal limits courts have placed on them, and how a homeowner builds the record that beats a standard nobody can define. For the full map of homeowner rights, start with our South Carolina HOA homeowner rights guide.

The Words That Give a Board Unlimited Discretion

Read your declaration and bylaws and highlight every standard that depends on somebody's taste:

• "Aesthetically pleasing," "attractive," or "in keeping with the character of the community"
• "Harmonious" with neighboring structures or the natural surroundings
• Approval that may be withheld in the board's "sole discretion"
• "Nuisance," "unsightly," or "annoyance" with no definition and no examples
• Architectural review based on "purely aesthetic considerations"

Developers write these phrases on purpose. A drafter cannot list every fence style and paint color a community might face over fifty years, so the documents hand the judgment calls to a board or an architectural review committee. South Carolina courts understand the reason. In Palmetto Dunes Resort v. Brown, 287 S.C. 1, 336 S.E.2d 15 (Ct. App. 1985), a homeowner argued that a covenant allowing disapproval for "aesthetic considerations" was too indefinite to enforce. The Court of Appeals disagreed. The opinion states the obvious truth: it is impossible to establish absolute standards to guide a judgment of taste. A subjective clause, standing alone, is not void just because it is subjective.

That holding is the start of the analysis, not the end. The same sentence of Palmetto Dunes that saves the clause also limits it. The court's words: the discretion the covenant vests in the association is "constrained only to exercise its judgment reasonably and in good faith." Reasonableness and good faith are legal standards a court can measure. Taste is not the end of the inquiry. It is the beginning.

Why Subjective Standards Turn Into Selective Enforcement

Selective enforcement needs two ingredients, and subjective standards supply both.

The first ingredient is discretion without a yardstick. When the rule is "attractive," almost any house can fail it on the day the board wants it to fail, and almost any house can pass it on every other day. The board never has to explain why your fence fails and the identical fence three doors down passes, because the standard contains no facts to compare.

The second ingredient is complaint-driven enforcement. Most associations do not patrol. They respond to complaints. Combine a yardstick-free standard with complaint-driven enforcement and the outcome is predictable: the rule lands on the people somebody dislikes, and it sleeps through the violations at the homes of board members, their friends, and the quiet majority. The standard did not change. The target did.

South Carolina courts have seen this pattern for decades, and their response has been consistent. They do not strike the subjective clause. They police its application — through reasonableness, good faith, published guidelines, and strict construction of the covenant's actual words. Each limit is a tool. A homeowner who knows the tools can use every one of them.

Limit One: Discretion Must Be Reasonable and in Good Faith

The Palmetto Dunes ceiling is the rule across South Carolina HOA law. A board or architectural committee holds discretion, and courts will not second-guess honest judgment calls. But the judgment must be exercised reasonably and in good faith, and the association bears the practical burden of showing that it was.

Look at why the association won in Palmetto Dunes. The board followed its own published "policy, procedures and building guidelines." It applied stated considerations — how the house would look to neighbors, roof line, window treatments, general harmony with the area. Its members testified to specific, articulable concerns about the plans, and the court found the board "administered the architectural controls professionally and fairly throughout." The board had even approved similar plans before, and the court still upheld the denial, because the board explained the difference: the earlier houses, once built, had disappointed, and the board said so openly.

Every element of that winning record is a test your board can fail. Did your board follow published guidelines, or does nobody seem able to produce them? Did it state specific concerns, or send a form letter quoting the subjective phrase and nothing else? Did it explain why approved projects differ from yours, or does it refuse to discuss them? A denial built on nothing but the phrase itself is the opposite of the record that won in Palmetto Dunes.

The South Carolina Supreme Court stated the same duty in O'Shea v. Lesser, 308 S.C. 10, 416 S.E.2d 629 (1992): a planned community board owes its members a duty "to exercise judgment reasonably and in good faith."

Limit Two: Aesthetic Decisions Must Connect to the Community's Plan

In Sea Pines Plantation Co. v. Wells, 294 S.C. 266, 363 S.E.2d 891 (1987), the Supreme Court upheld an architectural rejection for aesthetic reasons because the rejection "bears a sufficient relation to the subdivision's general plan of development," and because the covenants had not been "arbitrarily or discriminately enforced."

Two requirements hide inside that holding. First, relation to the plan: an aesthetic decision must trace back to the community's actual development scheme — its recorded covenants, its design guidelines, its stated purposes — not to a board member's personal taste in the moment. Second, no discriminatory enforcement: the court treated evenhanded application as part of what made the rejection lawful. A board that cannot connect your violation to the plan, and cannot show it treats like cases alike, is outside the shelter of Sea Pines.

Limit Three: Ambiguity Is Resolved in the Homeowner's Favor

Restrictive covenants in South Carolina "are to be strictly construed, with doubts resolved in favor of a free use of property." Hamilton v. CCM, Inc., 274 S.C. 152, 263 S.E.2d 378 (1980). A restriction reaches your land only through the covenant's express terms or plain and unmistakable implication.

This limit matters most where the standard is vaguest. If the declaration bans "unsightly conditions" and the board reads that phrase to cover your vegetable garden, your work truck, or your child's basketball goal, the question is not whether the board finds the item unattractive. The question is whether the recorded words, strictly read, reach the item at all. A board may not stretch a subjective phrase to cover conduct the drafters never clearly restricted. Stretching is where selective enforcement hides, because the stretch only ever seems to reach the targeted homeowner.

"Sole Discretion" Is Not a Blank Check

Many declarations go further than "aesthetic considerations." They say approval may be refused "on any ground, including purely aesthetic grounds," in the committee's "sole and uncontrolled discretion." Homeowners read that language and assume the fight is over before it starts.

It is not. The declaration in River Hills Property Owners Association v. Amato, 326 S.C. 255, 487 S.E.2d 179 (1997), contained that kind of broad discretion, and the Supreme Court still measured the denial against reasonableness and good faith. The association won — and the reasons it won read like a checklist your board must satisfy. The committee tied its denial to specific covenants, including view protections written into the documents. It stated reasons connected to the community's plan. It offered the homeowners alternative placements that would have been approved.

A board armed with "sole discretion" language that denies with no reasons, cites no covenant, and offers no path to yes has not done what the River Hills board did. The broader the claimed discretion, the more the case turns on how the board actually behaved — and behavior is proved with documents, not adjectives.

The Paper Test: If It Is Not Recorded, It May Not Be a Rule

Subjective standards breed a second problem. Boards enforce "policies" — a design guideline adopted at a Tuesday meeting, a fine practice somebody remembers, an ARC checklist from a prior board — that exist nowhere in the recorded documents.

The South Carolina Homeowners Association Act, S.C. Code §§ 27-30-110 through 27-30-170, attacks that problem directly. Under § 27-30-130, governing documents must be recorded in the county land records to be enforceable. Rules and regulations must be made accessible to any member who asks, and to remain enforceable they must be recorded by January 10 of the year after their adoption or amendment. A subjective "standard" the board cannot produce from the recorded documents may not be an enforceable rule at all.

Amendments get their own validity test. In Queen's Grant II Horizontal Property Regime v. Greenwood Development Corp., 368 S.C. 342, 628 S.E.2d 902 (Ct. App. 2006), the Court of Appeals listed the conditions for a valid covenant amendment. The last condition: the amendment's terms must not be "unreasonable, indefinite, or against public policy." An amendment that adds a taste-based standard with no definition walks straight into the indefiniteness condition.

Before you argue about whether you violated the standard, make the board prove the standard exists: the recorded declaration, the recorded rule, the adoption record, and the guidelines the board claims to follow. You can read the Act's text in the South Carolina Code of Laws, Title 27, Chapter 30.

Warning Signs Your Board Is Making It Up as It Goes

Subjective enforcement leaves fingerprints. Watch for these:

• The violation letter quotes a phrase but identifies no facts — no measurements, no photographs, no dates
• The explanation changes when you ask questions, or the board refuses to explain at all
• Identical conditions at other homes, including board members' homes, draw no letters
• Enforcement begins right after you criticized the board, ran for a seat, requested records, or filed a complaint
• The board cannot produce the guideline or policy it claims to apply
• Neighbors received verbal warnings or quiet extensions while you received a fine
• The "standard" expands after you comply — fix the cited item and a new objection appears

Any one of these can have an innocent explanation. A cluster of them is a selective enforcement case taking shape, and it is exactly the record that defeats the reasonableness and good faith showing the board needs under Palmetto Dunes and Sea Pines. Where the pattern shows retaliation or self-dealing, our post on HOA board bad faith covers what counts and what it costs the board.

How to Build the Record That Beats a Subjective Standard

Demand the exact text. Write to the board and ask for the recorded provision you violated, the guidelines applied to your property, and the factual basis for the violation. A board with a real standard can answer in one letter. A board enforcing a mood cannot.

Ask for the reasons in writing. Frame the request on the case law: South Carolina requires discretion to be exercised reasonably and in good faith, and a board that states its reasons can prove both. Refusals and shifting explanations become exhibits.

Document the comparables. Photograph identical or worse conditions at other addresses, with dates. Note which belong to board members. Comparable evidence is the spine of every selective enforcement case, because it converts "they are picking on me" from a complaint into a proof.

Use your records rights. If your association is incorporated under the South Carolina Nonprofit Corporation Act, its inspection provisions, S.C. Code §§ 33-31-1602 through 33-31-1605, apply directly. Section 27-30-150 extends access to the annual budget and membership lists to homeowners in every association, incorporated or not. Enforcement files, ARC decisions, and minutes show whether the standard has ever been applied to anyone else.

Use the hearing, and make a record at it. Attend, bring a witness, and state your comparables and your requests on the record. If the board will not meet, keep the letter that refused.

Watch the clock for waiver. In Janasik v. Fairway Oaks Villas Horizontal Property Regime, 307 S.C. 339, 415 S.E.2d 384 (1992), the Supreme Court held that a regime that watched a violation and waited — until after the owners had spent heavily on the improvements — waived its right to enforce. A standard that slept for years while your project stood in plain view, then woke when you fell out of favor, carries a waiver problem the board created for itself.

What a Court Can Do About It

A homeowner facing enforcement of a subjective standard can ask a South Carolina court for a declaratory judgment that the provision does not reach the conduct, or that the board's application of it was unreasonable or in bad faith. Courts can enjoin enforcement, and covenant cases sound in equity, so the judge weighs the conduct of both sides — a board with a discriminatory enforcement record starts that balancing behind. Monetary disputes under the Homeowners Association Act can also be heard in magistrates court, which has concurrent jurisdiction under § 27-30-160. Where a board's deception or self-dealing crosses into trade practices, the South Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act may add claims and fee exposure.

None of this requires you to prove the board members are bad people. It requires you to prove the standard was applied to you in a way it was not applied to others, without a reasonable, good faith explanation. That is a documents case. Build the documents and the case follows.

Talk to a South Carolina HOA Lawyer About Your Violation Letter

Traywick Law Offices represents homeowners across the Charleston area and South Carolina in covenant, bylaw, and architectural review disputes, including selective enforcement cases built on subjective standards. If your HOA is enforcing a rule against you that it cannot define and does not enforce against your neighbors, bring us the letter and the documents. We will read the recorded covenants, test the board's standard against Palmetto Dunes, Sea Pines, and the recording requirements of the Homeowners Association Act, and tell you plainly where you stand.

Call Traywick Law Offices at (843) 343-5092, or request a legal opinion through our intake page.

This article is general information about South Carolina law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney-client relationship, and it is not a substitute for advice about your specific documents and facts.