How much notice does a landlord have to give before filing an eviction for unpaid rent in South Carolina?

5 days. The five days run from the date rent is due. No separate notice letter is needed if the lease carries the statute's conspicuous nonpayment warning, or if the landlord already gave one such notice earlier in the same lease term.

How much notice is required to evict for a lease violation in South Carolina?

14 days. The 14-day notice is a cure-or-quit notice, and the clock runs from receipt rather than mailing. It must specify the acts and omissions constituting the breach and state that the agreement terminates on a date not less than 14 days after receipt if the breach is not remedied.

How long does an eviction take in South Carolina?

Roughly 18 calendar days of pure statutory waiting for an uncontested nonpayment eviction: 5 business days, then 10 days, then 24 hours. Once filing, issuance of the rule, and service are added, it commonly runs three to five weeks in practice.

How long does a tenant have to appeal an eviction judgment in South Carolina?

No eviction-specific deadline — the standard civil appeal window applies (see notes).

Can a landlord change the locks or shut off utilities instead of going to court in South Carolina?

No — South Carolina bars self-help eviction by statute; a landlord must go through the court process. S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-760 bars a landlord from recovering or taking possession 'by action or otherwise,' including by wilfully interrupting essential services, except in case of abandonment, surrender, termination, or as permitted in the chapter.

What is the eviction process and timeline in South Carolina?

Verified August 12, 2026 All South Carolina topics →

In South Carolina a landlord can begin evicting for unpaid rent once the rent is five days late, and no separate written notice is required if the lease contains the state's official conspicuous nonpayment warning.

Cited to S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-710 (Residential Landlord and Tenant Act — noncompliance with rental agreement; failure to pay rent) § 27-40-710(A) (14-day cure-or-quit); § 27-40-710(B) (5-day nonpayment period, once-per-term notice, and conspicuous lease-clause substitute); § 27-40-710(C) (magistrate or circuit court; broker/property-manager appearance); § 27-40-710(D) (48-hour street-property removal) and 19 more South Carolina statutes · Verified August 12, 2026

That five-day period is effectively five business days, because South Carolina court rules drop weekends and holidays out of any deadline shorter than seven days. Even without the lease clause, one written nonpayment notice covers the rest of that lease term, so a tenant may get no second warning. For other lease violations the landlord must give a written 14-day notice that lets the tenant fix the problem, and a tenant who starts the fix in time and finishes within a reasonable period keeps the lease. Illegal activity in the unit does not get that 14-day cure right. Cases are filed in Magistrates Court, where the judge issues a Rule to Vacate or Show Cause giving the tenant ten days after service to leave or ask for a hearing; if the tenant does nothing, the judge issues a warrant of ejectment, and if the tenant loses a contested hearing the writ issues within five days. When the officer arrives to carry out the writ, the occupants get 24 hours to leave on their own before anyone may force entry. Landlords may never change the locks or shut off utilities themselves: a tenant who is illegally locked out can recover three months' rent or double actual damages, whichever is greater, plus attorney's fees.

South Carolina eviction process at a glance

Nonpayment notice (pay-or-quit)	5 days
Nonpayment notice rules (day counting, cure rights, service)	The five days run from the date rent is due. No separate notice letter is needed if the lease carries the statute's conspicuous nonpayment warning, or if the landlord already gave one such notice earlier in the same lease term. S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-710(B): where rent is unpaid when due and the tenant "fails to pay rent within five days from the date due," the landlord may terminate the rental agreement, but only "provided the landlord has given the tenant written notice of nonpayment and his intention to terminate the rental agreement if the rent is not paid within that period." Two statutory routes satisfy that written-notice duty without a separate 5-day letter. (1) Once-per-term: the duty "is satisfied for any lease term after the landlord has given one such notice to the tenant" -- a single notice earlier in the same lease term covers later defaults in that term. (2) Lease clause: the duty is also satisfied "if the notice is contained in conspicuous language in a written rental agreement," and 27-40-710(B) prescribes the exact block -- "IF YOU DO NOT PAY YOUR RENT ON TIME / This is your notice. If you do not pay your rent within five days of the due date, the landlord can start to have you evicted. You will get no other notice as long as you live in this rental unit." -- "or a substantially equivalent provision." Where the lease carries it, the statute is emphatic: the clause "fully satisfies" the written-notice requirement, "applies to a month-to-month tenancy following the specified lease term in the original rental agreement," and "the landlord is not required to furnish any separate or additional written notice to the tenant in order to commence eviction proceedings for nonpayment of rent even after the original term of the rental agreement has expired." S.C. Code Ann. 27-37-10(B) mirrors this on the ejectment side: nonpayment within five days "constitutes legal notice" that ejectment may begin "if a written rental agreement specifies in bold conspicuous type that nonpayment of rent constitutes such notice," satisfied by the 27-40-710(B) block. The lease clause waives the separate notice; it does not waive the 5-day period itself, which still must elapse before filing. Day counting: 27-40-240(D) provides that "the time within which an act is to be done must be computed by reference to South Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure." SCRCP 6(a) excludes the day rent fell due, includes the last day unless it is a Saturday, Sunday, or state or federal holiday (in which case the period runs to the next such day), and -- because five days is "less than seven days" -- excludes intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. The 5-day period therefore runs in business days, typically about seven calendar days. It is a cure period: full payment within it defeats termination. Service and delivery of notice: under 27-40-240(B)(3) a tenant receives notice when it is "delivered in hand to the tenant or mailed by registered or certified mail to the tenant at the place held out by him as the place for receipt of the communication, or in the absence of the designation, to the tenant's last known place of residence," and "proof of mailing pursuant to this subsection constitutes notice without proof of receipt."
Lease-violation notice period	14 days
Lease-violation notice rules (cure vs. termination)	The 14-day notice is a cure-or-quit notice, and the clock runs from receipt rather than mailing. It must specify the acts and omissions constituting the breach and state that the agreement terminates on a date not less than 14 days after receipt if the breach is not remedied. S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-710(A): for tenant noncompliance with the rental agreement OTHER THAN nonpayment of rent, other than noncompliance with 27-40-510 materially affecting health and safety or the physical condition of the property, and other than 27-40-540 (illegal activity), the landlord "may deliver a written notice to the tenant specifying the acts and omissions constituting the breach and that the rental agreement will terminate upon a date not less than fourteen days after receipt of the notice, if the breach is not remedied in fourteen days." This is a cure-or-quit notice, and the cure rights are broad. The agreement does not terminate if "the breach is remediable by repairs or otherwise and the tenant adequately remedies the breach before the date specified in the notice" (27-40-710(A)(1)); nor if "the remedy cannot be completed within fourteen days, but is commenced within the fourteen-day period and is pursued in good faith to completion within a reasonable time" (27-40-710(A)(2)) -- i.e., a late-finishing cure is protected so long as it was timely begun and diligently pursued. Materiality: the statute does not use a "material noncompliance" threshold for subsection (A); it reaches any noncompliance with the rental agreement within the stated carve-outs, with the notice required to specify the acts and omissions constituting the breach. The 14-day clock runs from receipt of the notice, not from mailing (contrast the mailing rule in 27-40-240(B)(3), which supplies when receipt occurs). Day counting: 14 days is not "less than seven days," so under SCRCP 6(a) (applied via 27-40-240(D)) these are calendar days -- the day of receipt is excluded, intermediate weekends and holidays are counted, and a last day falling on a Saturday, Sunday, or state or federal holiday rolls to the next day that is none of those. Parallel health-and-safety track: 27-40-720(a) lets the landlord, after 14 days' written notice specifying the breach (or "as promptly as conditions require in case of emergency"), enter and cure a repairable 27-40-510 breach at the tenant's expense; 27-40-720(b) lets the landlord terminate for a non-repairable 27-40-510 breach materially affecting health and safety on the same 14-day / emergency timing. South Carolina's RLTA contains no repeat-violation escalation provision -- there is no URLTA-style "substantially the same act" clause shortening notice or defeating the cure right for recurring breaches. 27-40-710(D), which is sometimes cited as a repeat-violation subsection, in fact governs municipal or county removal of an evicted tenant's personal property placed on a public street after 48 hours "excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays."
Unconditional-quit grounds	South Carolina has no free-standing unconditional-quit statute; the functional equivalents are the express carve-outs from the 14-day cure right in 27-40-710(A). (1) Illegal activity: 27-40-540 requires that "a tenant shall occupy his dwelling unit only as a dwelling unit and shall not conduct or permit any illegal activities thereon." A 27-40-540 violation is expressly excluded from 27-40-710(A)'s cure track and is instead routed into 27-40-710(B), which allows the landlord to "terminate the rental agreement" where "the tenant is in violation of Section 27-40-540" -- with no 14-day cure period attached. (2) Health and safety: noncompliance with 27-40-510 materially affecting health and safety or the physical condition of the property is likewise excluded from (A) and governed by 27-40-720, which in an emergency requires the tenant to comply "as promptly as conditions require" rather than within 14 days, after which the landlord may terminate under 27-40-720(b). (3) End of term / holdover: 27-37-10(A)(2) permits ejectment where "the term of tenancy or occupancy has ended," and 27-40-770(c) gives the landlord an action for possession where the tenant "remains in possession without the landlord's consent after expiration of the term of the rental agreement or its termination" -- no cure notice applies, though the underlying periodic tenancy must first be terminated by written notice at least 7 days before the termination date for week-to-week or at least 30 days for month-to-month (27-40-770(a)-(b)). Enhanced damages for a bad-faith holdover: reasonable attorney's fees, and for a wilful holdover up to three months' periodic rent or twice actual damages, whichever is greater, plus fees (27-40-770(c)). 27-40-710(B) is textually awkward as applied to 27-40-540 violations, because its notice sentence is drafted entirely around rent -- it conditions termination on the landlord having given "written notice of nonpayment and his intention to terminate the rental agreement if the rent is not paid within that period." The statute never states what notice, if any, must precede termination for illegal activity. Landlords should not assume no notice is required on this ground.
Court and action	Magistrates Court of the county in which the premises lie: "any magistrate having jurisdiction shall issue a written rule" on the landlord's application (S.C. Code Ann. 27-37-20); 27-40-710(C) also permits the landlord to obtain "judgments, or evictions in magistrate's or circuit court without posting bond." The action is ejectment under Title 27, Chapter 37. Act No. 252 of 2026 (H.3387, ratified June 29, 2026, signed June 30, 2026, effective on approval) redesignated Chapter 37 as "Ejectment Proceedings" and redesignated the existing tenant sections (27-37-10 through 27-37-160) as Article 1, "Ejectment of Tenants" -- section numbers for the tenant-eviction track are unchanged. Commencement is by a sworn Application for Ejectment (S.C. Judicial Department form SCCA 732, rev. 04/2026), which tracks the three statutory grounds in 27-37-10(A). The magistrate then issues the Rule to Vacate or Show Cause (form SCCA 733A), commanding the tenant to vacate forthwith or contact the court within ten days to schedule a hearing. A real estate broker-in-charge or licensed property manager may, in the conduct of his licensed business, "complete a form writ of eviction and present facts to judicial officers on behalf of his landlord/principal" where no separate charge is made (27-40-710(C)). Housing authorities gained a parallel route on May 19, 2026: Act No. 233 of 2026 added housing authorities to 33-1-103's list of entities that may designate an employee or principal to represent them in magistrates court without engaging in the unauthorized practice of law, and a new 31-3-70 confirms a housing authority may designate an employee or a manager to do so. Governing procedure: Chapter 37 for the ejectment mechanics; the RLTA (Chapter 40) for notice, defenses, rent-into-court (27-40-790) and appeal stays (27-40-800); and the South Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure, which under SCRCP 81 "apply insofar as practicable in magistrate's courts ... to the extent they are not inconsistent with the statutes and rules governing those courts," and which 27-40-240(D) makes controlling for time computation under the RLTA. Act No. 252 also added Article 3 (27-37-200 through 27-37-350), an ex parte "Ejectment of Unlawful Occupants of a Residential Dwelling" track for squatters with a hearing "within twenty-four hours of filing the verified petition" (27-37-230(B)); it is NOT available against tenants -- 27-37-200(5) defines unlawful occupants as persons "who are not afforded any protections provided to a tenant under state law," and 27-37-230(A)(7) requires the petition to state that the property "has not been leased to any person and the unlawful occupant or occupants are not current or former tenants."
Filing to hearing	No statute sets a deadline between application and issuance of the rule; the magistrate issues it on the landlord's application (27-37-20). The rule itself sets the window: it requires the tenant "forthwith to vacate the premises occupied by him or to show cause why he should not be ejected before the magistrate within ten days after service of a copy of such rule upon the tenant" (27-37-20). That is a 10-day response window running from service -- not a scheduled hearing date; the tenant must contact the court within it to obtain a hearing (form SCCA 733A). Service (27-37-30): (A) by the methods provided for a summons in the court of common pleas or magistrates court; (B) where no person can be found in possession and the premises "have remained abandoned, as defined in Section 27-40-730 ... for a period of fifteen days or more immediately before the date of service," by affixing the rule "to the most conspicuous part of the premises"; or (C) after two unsuccessful attempts at personal service "separated by a minimum of forty-eight hours" and occurring "at times of day separated by a minimum of eight hours," each documented by affidavit or officer's certificate, by posting the rule plus the documentation and mailing a copy by ordinary mail in the presence of the magistrate's clerk, who must verify and mail it. Under that mail route, "mailing of the rule constitutes service when the requirements of items (1) and (2) have been met and ten days have elapsed from the time of mailing," and the 10-day show-cause period "begins to run on the eleventh day after mailing" -- unless "the tenant contacts the magistrates court prior to the eleventh day," in which case it runs from the time of contact (27-37-30(C)(3)). Contested cases: "If the tenant appear and contest ejectment the magistrate shall forthwith hear and determine the case as any other civil case, allowing trial by jury if demanded by either party" (27-37-60); either party may demand a jury (27-37-80), and the magistrate may grant a new trial (27-37-90) or a change of venue (27-37-50). Where the tenant raises defenses or counterclaims, 27-40-790(a)-(b) requires the tenant to pay the landlord rent accruing after issuance of the rule and rent allegedly owed before it (or produce receipts/cancelled checks); the court holds a hearing "as soon as is feasible after the issues have been joined" to fix disputed amounts, and if the tenant fails to comply "the court shall issue a warrant of ejectment."
Writ of possession and lockout	Two distinct instruments, depending on how the case ends. (1) Default: "If the tenant fails to appear and show cause within the aforesaid ten days then the magistrate shall issue a warrant of ejectment and the tenant shall be ejected by his regular or special constable or by the sheriff of the county" (27-37-40; echoed by 27-40-790(c), "Should the tenant not appear and show cause within ten days, the court shall issue a warrant of ejectment pursuant to SECTION 27-37-40"). No statutory waiting period attaches to issuance of the default warrant. (2) After a contested trial: "If the verdict be for the plaintiff the magistrate shall within five days issue a writ of ejectment and the tenant shall be ejected by the constable or special constable or the sheriff of the county" (27-37-100) -- a five-day outer limit on issuance, not a mandatory five-day wait. Execution (27-37-160) supplies the lockout timing: the constable or deputy sheriff "shall proceed to the premises, present to the occupants a copy of the writ and give the occupants twenty-four hours to vacate voluntarily." If the occupants refuse within 24 hours or the premises appear unoccupied, the officer announces identity and purpose, and "if necessary, the deputy sheriff, but not a constable, may then enter the premises by force, using the least destructive means possible." If the premises appear occupied but no one responds, the officer posts a copy of the writ taped or stapled at each corner and attached at the top of the front or back door or in the most conspicuous place, and "twenty-four hours following the posting of the writ," if the occupants have not left, a deputy sheriff -- but again not a constable -- may enter by force. The officer may exercise discretion "in granting a delay in the dispossession of ill or elderly" occupants. Personal property placed on a public street is removed by municipal or county officials "after a period of forty-eight hours, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays," and where the locality does not collect street trash the landlord may itself dispose of it after 48 hours; "the notice of eviction must clearly inform the tenant of the provisions of this section" (27-40-710(D)). Rent continues to accrue after the rule issues, and the landlord's acceptance of rent does not waive the right to insist on ejectment or renew the tenancy (27-37-150).
Appeal window	No eviction-specific deadline — the standard civil appeal window applies (see notes)
Best-case uncontested timeline (derived from statutory minimums — contested cases run longer)	Roughly 18 calendar days of pure statutory waiting for an uncontested nonpayment eviction: 5 business days, then 10 days, then 24 hours. Once filing, issuance of the rule, and service are added, it commonly runs three to five weeks in practice. That is a derivation from the statutory minimums cited on this page, not a promise or a prediction. Day 0: rent falls due. The 5-day period of 27-40-710(B) must expire; because five is "less than seven days," SCRCP 6(a) (applied by 27-40-240(D)) excludes intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, so this is about 5 business days -- roughly 7 calendar days when one weekend intervenes. The landlord may then file the Application for Ejectment. No statute times the magistrate's issuance of the Rule to Vacate or Show Cause or its service, so that stretch is court- and process-server-dependent and is NOT included in the statutory floor below. From service, the tenant has 10 days to vacate or show cause (27-37-20). If the tenant does neither, the magistrate "shall issue a warrant of ejectment" (27-37-40) -- again with no statutory timer on issuance. Execution then adds a mandatory 24 hours after the officer presents or posts the writ (27-37-160). Summing only the periods the statutes actually fix -- 5 business days plus 10 days plus 24 hours -- yields roughly 18 calendar days of pure statutory waiting; in practice, once filing, issuance of the rule, and service are added, an uncontested nonpayment eviction commonly runs about three to five weeks. Where the written lease contains the conspicuous 27-40-710(B) clause, or the landlord already gave one notice earlier in the lease term, no separate notice letter is needed and the front end is only the 5-day grace period. Anything that adds time: a contested hearing under 27-37-60, a jury demand under 27-37-80 (which can push the case to a jury term), the two-attempt posting-and-mailing service route, which alone requires that "ten days have elapsed from the time of mailing" before service is complete (27-37-30(C)(3)), a new trial under 27-37-90, an appeal to the circuit court with a stay under 27-40-800, or ordinary magistrate court congestion.
Self-help eviction (lockout, utility shutoff) barred	Yes
Self-help scope and tenant remedies	S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-760 bars a landlord from recovering or taking possession 'by action or otherwise,' including by wilfully interrupting essential services, except in case of abandonment, surrender, termination, or as permitted in the chapter. The bar is statutory, not merely a rule of case law. S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-760: "A landlord may not recover or take possession of the dwelling unit by action or otherwise, including wilful diminution of required essential services to the tenant by interrupting or causing the interruption of services, except in case of abandonment, surrender, termination, or as permitted in this chapter." Scope therefore covers both physical ouster (lockouts, removal) and constructive ouster by cutting essential services. Tenant remedies, 27-40-660: if a landlord "unlawfully removes or excludes the tenant from the premises, or wilfully diminishes services to tenant by interrupting or causing 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' periodic rent or twice the actual damages sustained by him, whichever is greater, and reasonable attorney's fees"; if the agreement is terminated the landlord must return the security deposit recoverable under 27-40-410. 27-37-140 separately preserves a damages action: "In case any tenant is wrongfully dispossessed he may have an action for damages against the landlord." 27-40-630 governs wrongful failure to provide essential services. Abuse-of-access remedies are in 27-40-780(b). Narrow statutory carve-out permitting landlord entry without process: under 27-40-730(d), where the unit "has been abandoned or the rental agreement has come to an end" AND the tenant "has removed a substantial portion of his property or voluntarily and permanently terminated his utilities" and has left property worth $500 or less, the landlord "may enter the dwelling unit, using forcible entry if required, and dispose of the property." Above that value the landlord "may have the property removed only pursuant to the provisions of Sections 27-37-10 to 27-37-150" (27-40-730(e)), and a landlord who disposes of over-$500 property under (d) "is not liable unless the landlord was grossly negligent" (27-40-730(f)). Abandonment is defined by 27-40-730(a)-(b): unexplained absence for 15 days after default in rent, or immediately where the tenant voluntarily terminated the utilities.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, South Carolina Eviction Process Laws (verified August 12, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/eviction-process/south-carolina/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the South Carolina statute in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

Act No. 252 of 2026 is already in force — H. 3387 was ratified June 29, 2026, signed by the Governor June 30, 2026, and takes effect 'upon approval by the Governor.' It redesignates Title 27 chapter 37 as 'Ejectment Proceedings' and the existing tenant sections as Article 1, 'Ejectment of Tenants' — section numbers 27-37-10 through 27-37-160 are unchanged.
Five-day termination notice against a domestic-violence perpetrator — Act No. 184 of 2026 (H. 3569, in force May 18, 2026) added SC Code 27-40-350: if a protected tenant ends the lease early after a qualifying domestic-violence incident and the perpetrator remains as the sole tenant, the landlord may terminate the perpetrator's tenancy on five days' written notice and recover actual damages from the perpetrator. A special termination track alongside the standard notices shown here; no figure on this page changes.
What Act 252 changed about appeal stays — It amends 27-40-800 to replace the appeal undertaking or bond with an affidavit, and provides that no court shall stay execution of an ejectment judgment unless the tenant files that affidavit promising to pay rent as it comes due.
The new squatter track does not reach tenants — Act 252 adds Article 3, sections 27-37-200 to 27-37-350, an ex parte unlawful-occupant removal track with a hearing within 24 hours of filing the verified petition. By its own terms it does not apply to tenants.
Official code pages lag Act 252 — As of July 24, 2026 the code pages at scstatehouse.gov for chapters 40 and 37 still displayed the pre-Act 252 text: Article 3 was absent from the published chapter 37 page, and 27-40-800 still showed the bond and undertaking language. The enacted Act, cited separately here, is the operative text — this is a publication lag in the official code, not a conflict in the law.
The eviction-records law does not take effect until January 1, 2027 — Act No. 214 of 2026 (H. 4270), signed May 19, 2026, adds section 30-2-60 governing removal of eviction records from the public index. It is not in force now and, being a records-privacy provision, changes nothing on this page.
The bill to stretch five days to ten was not enacted — H. 3339 of 2025-2026 would have amended 27-37-10(B) to change 'five days' to 'ten days' for the lease-clause legal-notice rule. It was not enacted and remains in House Judiciary with no action since April 29, 2025, so the five-day figure is current. H. 744 and H. 983, on eviction expungement and record removal, were likewise not enacted.
The lease clause waives the notice, never the five days — This is the trap secondary sources get wrong. A conspicuous nonpayment clause in the lease — and, independently, the one-notice-per-lease-term rule — discharges the landlord's duty to serve a separate written notice. Neither shortens nor eliminates the five-day period, which must still elapse before the landlord may terminate and file.
The two statutes disagree on how conspicuous the clause must be — 27-37-10(B) requires the clause be 'in bold conspicuous type' while 27-40-710(B) requires only 'conspicuous language.' A landlord relying on the clause should satisfy the stricter bold-type formulation.
The two statutes are not drafted in parallel — 27-40-710(B) says the clause satisfies the landlord's notice obligation; 27-37-10(B) says the nonpayment itself 'constitutes legal notice.' The practical result is the same, but the drafting is not.
Five days runs in business days, fourteen in calendar days — SCRCP 6(a) applies through the express directive in 27-40-240(D). Because five days is 'less than seven days,' intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and holidays drop out of the nonpayment period, while the 14-day period runs in calendar days with only the last-day weekend or holiday rollover. The 14 days runs from RECEIPT of the notice.
The business-day count is a construction, not one statutory line — It is the plain result of reading 27-40-240(D) together with SCRCP 6(a), but no single statutory sentence states it.
The 10-day show-cause period may not count the same way — SCRCP 81 makes the civil rules applicable in magistrates court only 'insofar as practicable' and only where 'not inconsistent with the statutes and rules governing those courts.' The SCRCP 6(a) computation is on firmest footing for the chapter 40 periods that 27-40-240(D) expressly routes to the rules, and is less certain for the 10-day show-cause period in 27-37-20, which sits in chapter 37 with no equivalent directive. That 10-day period is stated here as the statute states it, with no business-day gloss.
The appeal window is the general civil one, not an eviction rule — 27-37-120 sets no window of its own — it provides only that an ejectment appeal 'shall be heard and determined as other appeals in civil cases from the magistrate's court.' The 30 days comes from 18-7-20, the general magistrate-court civil appeal statute: notice of appeal within thirty days after written notice of the judgment; no written notice is necessary where the judgment was announced at trial in the appellant's or his attorney's presence; and thirty days after personal notice where judgment was rendered on process not personally served and the defendant did not appear. It is statutory and unambiguous, but because it is the general civil window incorporated by reference rather than an eviction-specific provision, the appeal-window answer is left blank here and the detail carried in this note instead.
Appealing does not stop the eviction by itself — Under 27-37-130 an appeal does not stay ejectment unless the tenant gives an appeal bond, and failure to file it 'within five days after service of the notice of appeal' requires the trial magistrate to dismiss the appeal.
The stay under the amended 27-40-800 dissolves on a missed payment — As amended by Act 252, no court may stay execution of an ejectment judgment unless the tenant files an affidavit promising to pay rent as it accrues, and the stay dissolves if the tenant misses a payment by more than five days.
The self-help ban is statutory, with one narrow carve-out — 27-40-760 expressly bars a landlord from recovering or taking possession 'by action or otherwise,' including wilful interruption of essential services. The one genuine carve-out is 27-40-730(d) — forcible entry and disposal of property worth $500 or less, on abandonment or at the end of the agreement, where the tenant has removed a substantial portion of his property or permanently terminated utilities — so the prohibition should not be read as absolute.
The uncontested timeline is a derivation, not a promise — It separates the periods the statutes actually fix — 5 business days plus 10 days plus 24 hours, roughly 18 calendar days — from the untimed steps of issuing the rule, serving it, and issuing the default warrant, which no statute constrains.
Default and contested cases end with different instruments — The statutory scheme is uniform statewide, and the one split shown here is remedial rather than geographic: a default yields a 'warrant of ejectment' under 27-37-40 with no timer on issuance, while a contested case decided for the landlord yields a 'writ of ejectment' that 27-37-100 requires within five days.
County practice varies even though the statute does not — Scheduling, how quickly a magistrate issues and a constable serves the rule, and whether a county uses constables or deputy sheriffs all vary locally and are not statutory. The last of those matters under 27-37-160, since only a deputy sheriff may force entry.
Out of scope — tenancies the RLTA itself excludes — 27-40-120 puts these outside the Act: residence at an institution incidental to detention or to medical, geriatric, educational, counseling or religious service; occupancy by a purchaser under a contract of sale; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in a portion of a structure operated for its benefit; transient occupancy in a hotel, motel or other accommodations subject to the accommodations sales tax under 12-36-920; occupancy by an employee whose right to occupy is conditional on employment in and about the premises; occupancy by a condominium owner or a holder of a proprietary lease in a cooperative; premises used primarily for agricultural purposes; premises regulated by the Vacation Time Sharing Plan Act; and residence, temporary or not, at a charitable or emergency protective shelter.
Out of scope — other regimes this page does not cover — Commercial leases run on a distinct rent-payment regime at 27-37-155; manufactured and mobile-home park lot tenancies are not addressed here; the 27-37-200 to -350 unlawful-occupant track does not reach tenants; distress for rent under Title 27 chapter 39 is left to 27-40-740; and federal overlays such as the CARES Act 30-day notice for covered properties and VAWA, plus any local ordinance requirements, sit on top of everything stated here.
Four sections are routinely miscited — 27-40-30 is 'Supplementary rules of law applicable,' not the exclusions provision — exclusions are at 27-40-120. 27-40-540 is 'Tenant to use and occupy' (illegal activities), not the self-help provision — self-help is barred by 27-40-760, with remedies at 27-40-660. 27-40-710(D) concerns removal of an evicted tenant's personal property from a public street, not repeat violations; South Carolina has no repeat-violation escalation clause. And 27-40-770 is 'Periodic tenancy; holdover remedies,' not abandonment — abandonment is 27-40-730.
No deadline governs the court's own steps — No official South Carolina source states a deadline between filing the Application for Ejectment and the magistrate's issuance or service of the Rule to Vacate or Show Cause, and none fixes a deadline for issuing the default warrant of ejectment under 27-37-40. This page says so rather than estimating.
Notice before an illegal-activity termination is unstated — The notice language in 27-40-710(B) addresses only nonpayment, so the text does not state what notice, if any, must precede a termination on 27-40-540 illegal-activity grounds. Landlords should not assume none is required.
Statutes only — court decisions are not reflected here — Every value here rests on statutory text alone; no controlling South Carolina appellate decision is reflected, so any judicial gloss on these provisions is not covered by this page.
The official code and the court forms trail the new Act — The 27-40-800 amendment by Act 252 is very recent, effective June 30, 2026, and no official code page or form yet reflects it. Form SCCA 733A still dates from 11/2019, and form SCCA 732 was revised 04/2026, before the Act took effect.
Sources — official texts only — Every figure on this page comes from the official South Carolina Code of Laws published by the Legislature at scstatehouse.gov and from the South Carolina Judicial Branch at sccourts.org; no secondary source, blog or law-firm summary supplied any value. The citations point at those official texts as they stood on July 24, 2026.

Common questions: South Carolina eviction process

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

How much notice does a landlord have to give before filing an eviction for unpaid rent in South Carolina?: 5 days. The five days run from the date rent is due. No separate notice letter is needed if the lease carries the statute's conspicuous nonpayment warning, or if the landlord already gave one such notice earlier in the same lease term.
How much notice is required to evict for a lease violation in South Carolina?: 14 days. The 14-day notice is a cure-or-quit notice, and the clock runs from receipt rather than mailing. It must specify the acts and omissions constituting the breach and state that the agreement terminates on a date not less than 14 days after receipt if the breach is not remedied.
How long does an eviction take in South Carolina?: Roughly 18 calendar days of pure statutory waiting for an uncontested nonpayment eviction: 5 business days, then 10 days, then 24 hours. Once filing, issuance of the rule, and service are added, it commonly runs three to five weeks in practice.
How long does a tenant have to appeal an eviction judgment in South Carolina?: No eviction-specific deadline — the standard civil appeal window applies (see notes).
Can a landlord change the locks or shut off utilities instead of going to court in South Carolina?: No — South Carolina bars self-help eviction by statute; a landlord must go through the court process. S.C. Code Ann. 27-40-760 bars a landlord from recovering or taking possession 'by action or otherwise,' including by wilfully interrupting essential services, except in case of abandonment, surrender, termination, or as permitted in the chapter.

Statute citations

S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-710 (Residential Landlord and Tenant Act — noncompliance with rental agreement; failure to pay rent) § 27-40-710(A) (14-day cure-or-quit); § 27-40-710(B) (5-day nonpayment period, once-per-term notice, and conspicuous lease-clause substitute); § 27-40-710(C) (magistrate or circuit court; broker/property-manager appearance); § 27-40-710(D) (48-hour street-property removal) (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-240 (Notice; computation of time) § 27-40-240(B)(3) (delivery in hand or registered/certified mail; proof of mailing is notice); § 27-40-240(D) (time computed by reference to the SCRCP) (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-540 (Tenant to use and occupy — illegal activities) § 27-40-540 (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-720 (Noncompliance affecting health and safety) § 27-40-720(a)–(b) (14 days, or as promptly as conditions require in an emergency) (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-730 (Remedies for absence, nonuse, and abandonment) § 27-40-730(a)–(b) (15-day abandonment; immediate on voluntary utility termination); § 27-40-730(d)–(f) ($500 property threshold) (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-760 (Recovery of possession limited — self-help prohibition) § 27-40-760 (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-660 (Tenant's remedies for landlord's unlawful ouster or exclusion) § 27-40-660 (three months' periodic rent or twice actual damages, whichever greater, plus attorney's fees) (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-770 (Periodic tenancy; holdover remedies) § 27-40-770(a) (7 days, week-to-week); § 27-40-770(b) (30 days, month-to-month); § 27-40-770(c) (holdover damages) (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-790 (Payment of rent into court) § 27-40-790(a)–(c) (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-800 (Undertaking on appeal and order staying execution) — as amended by Act No. 252 of 2026 § 27-40-800(b), (e) (affidavit-based stay; stay dissolves on failure to pay within five days of the due date). NOTE: the text published at this URL is the pre-Act 252 version; see the Act 252 citation below for the operative text. (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-120 (Exclusions from application of the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act) § 27-40-120(1)–(9) (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Code Ann. §§ 27-37-10 to 27-37-160 (Ejectment of Tenants; Art. 1 of Ch. 37 as redesignated by Act No. 252 of 2026) § 27-37-10(A)–(B) (grounds; lease-clause legal notice in bold conspicuous type); § 27-37-20 (rule to vacate or show cause within ten days after service); § 27-37-30(A)–(C) (service, posting, two-attempt posting-and-mailing); § 27-37-40 (warrant of ejectment on default); § 27-37-60, -80, -90 (trial, jury, new trial); § 27-37-100 (writ of ejectment within five days of verdict for plaintiff); § 27-37-120, -130 (appeal; bond within five days after service of notice of appeal); § 27-37-140 (wrongful dispossession damages); § 27-37-150 (rent accrual; no waiver by acceptance); § 27-37-160 (24-hour execution) (verified 2026) Official source
Act No. 233 of 2026 (H. 3335) — §§ 33-1-103, 31-3-70 (housing-authority representation in magistrates court) Approved and effective May 19, 2026. SECTION 1 (adds housing authorities to § 33-1-103's designated-representative rule); SECTION 2 (new § 31-3-70, employee or manager may represent a housing authority) (verified 2026) Official source
Act No. 252 of 2026 (H. 3387) — Ejectment Proceedings; new Art. 3 (Ejectment of Unlawful Occupants); amendment of § 27-40-800 Ratified R 269 on June 29, 2026; signed by the Governor and effective June 30, 2026. SECTION 2.A. (adds Art. 3, §§ 27-37-200 to 27-37-350); SECTION 2 (redesignates Ch. 37 as Ejectment Proceedings and existing sections as Art. 1, Ejectment of Tenants); SECTION 4 (amends § 27-40-800); SECTION 5 (takes effect upon approval by the Governor) (verified 2026) Official source
Act No. 252 of 2026 (H. 3387) — conference report text as adopted June 25, 2026 (operative statutory language) § 27-37-200(5) and § 27-37-230(A)(7) (unlawful-occupant track excludes current and former tenants); § 27-37-230(B) (hearing within twenty-four hours of filing); SECTION 4 (revised § 27-40-800 affidavit stay) (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Code Ann. § 18-7-20 (Appeals from magistrates court — when and how appeal shall be taken) § 18-7-20 (notice of appeal within thirty days after written notice of judgment; no written notice needed where judgment announced at trial in the presence of the appellant or his attorney); § 18-7-10 (appeal to circuit court; supersedeas on bond) (verified 2026) Official source
South Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 6 (Time) SCRCP 6(a) (day of the event excluded; last day included unless Saturday, Sunday, or state or federal holiday; intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and holidays excluded when the period is less than seven days) (verified 2026) Official source
South Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 81 (Applicability) SCRCP 81 (rules apply insofar as practicable in magistrate's courts to the extent not inconsistent with the statutes and rules governing those courts) (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Judicial Department Form SCCA 732, Application for Ejectment (Eviction) (rev. 04/2026) Grounds checkboxes tracking § 27-37-10(A)(1)–(3) (verified 2026) Official source
S.C. Judicial Department Form SCCA 733A, Rule to Vacate or Show Cause (Eviction) (amended 11/2019) "within ten (10) days of receiving this notice"; "FAILURE TO VACATE THE PREMISES OR RESPOND WITHIN TEN (10) DAYS MAY RESULT IN THE ISSUANCE OF A WRIT OF EJECTMENT" (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official South Carolina Legislature site (scstatehouse.gov), Code of Laws Title 27: sections 27-40-410, 27-40-530, 27-40-770, 27-40-710, 27-40-310, 27-40-120, and 27-39-60 each read twice independently with all key figures matching verbatim (30-day deposit deadline and its three-trigger clause, 3x penalty, more-than-four-adjoining-units posting rule, 24-hour entry notice, 9-6 and 8-8 no-notice service windows, 30-day/7-day periodic termination notice, 5-day nonpayment cure). Also read once: 27-40-720 and 27-40-730 (cross-referenced access rights), 27-40-210(11) rent definition, 27-40-10 and 27-40-110 (short title, statewide territorial application). Negative checks run against the full chapter text: no deposit cap, no escrow/trust requirement, no deposit interest, no late-fee amount or grace-period regulation. Pending-bill check 2026-07-09, corrected 2026-08-12: H. 3346 (Rent Control Act) died in House LCI committee at sine die 2026-05-14, but H. 3569 (domestic violence in rental properties) did not die — it was ratified R180 on 2026-05-14 and approved 2026-05-18 as Act No. 184, in force on approval; its enacted text (new section 27-40-350 and definitions 27-40-210(19)-(20)) was read in full on the official bill page 2026-08-12, and its deposit-return exception and five-day perpetrator termination notice are now recorded on this page. The post-sine-die special session was limited to redistricting and the budget.