Lancaster County, SC Building Safety: Building Permits (2026)

The Lancaster County Building and Manufactured Home Permit Ordinance, codified at Chapter 7, Article II, governs unincorporated Lancaster County. Section 7-22 applies the permit requirement to construction, alteration, renovation, relocation, removal and demolition of any building, structure or attached appurtenance, and to placing or moving a manufactured home into, out of or within the county, except when the mover is an authorized manufactured home dealership. The ordinance exempts ordinary repairs such as replacing siding, trim, gutters, lamps or like-for-like windows where no structural change is required; the building official decides case by case whether work counts as an ordinary repair, and that call is final.

Section 7-23 designates the county building official as the enforcement official, empowers stop-work orders served on the owner, agent or person performing the work, and bars any public utility or electric cooperative from energizing a building, structure or manufactured home until the required permit has issued. C. Tax Commission Rule Number 117-1740, and if the assessor later finds the improvement's market value exceeded the permit valuation by more than ten percent, the owner is billed the additional fee. A building permit expires if work is not started within six months of issuance or is halted for six months.

Emergency equipment repairs may be permitted after the fact, but the application must be filed by the next business day. The City of Lancaster, Kershaw, Heath Springs and Van Wyck each enforce their own building permit ordinance and fall outside this chapter's reach.