South Carolina HOA Meetings and Records: 48-Hour Budget Notice, Five-Day Inspection Demand

South Carolina sets no minimum number of board meetings, no open-meeting rule, no quorum standard and no agenda requirement in the Homeowners Association Act. The Act's single notice provision is narrow and specific. Section 27-30-140(1) says that before a homeowners association may take action to increase an annual budget in any single year, it must provide notice to homeowners at least forty-eight hours in advance of the meeting in which a decision to raise the annual budget is made. The permitted notice methods are listed: posting in a conspicuous place in a common area in the community, posting on an internet website maintained by the association, electronic mail, or a method provided in the association's bylaws that ensures actual notice. Two days is the floor, the trigger is a budget increase rather than a meeting generally, and nothing in the section requires the association to publish the proposed figure in advance.

The carve-out in Section 27-30-140(2) is the part most South Carolina owners miss: the section does not apply to a homeowners association incorporated under the South Carolina Nonprofit Corporation Act found in Chapter 31 of Title 33. Most South Carolina community associations are incorporated nonprofits, so for them the forty-eight hour budget notice is not the operative rule at all. What governs instead is Chapter 31 of Title 33. Section 33-31-701(a) requires a corporation with members to hold a membership meeting annually at a time stated in or fixed in accordance with the bylaws, and at that annual meeting the president and chief financial officer must report on the activities and financial condition of the corporation. Section 33-31-701(f) is a caution: failure to hold the annual meeting on time does not by itself invalidate corporate action.

Members of an incorporated association can also force a meeting. Under Section 33-31-702(a)(2), holders of at least five percent of the voting power may sign, date and deliver written demands describing the purpose of a special meeting, and under subsection (c), if notice is not given within thirty days after the demands are delivered to a corporate officer, a person who signed may set the time and place and give the notice themselves. Section 33-31-705(c)(1) makes notice fair and reasonable if the corporation notifies members of the place, date and time of each annual, regular and special meeting no fewer than ten days, or thirty days if notice is mailed by other than first class or registered mail, and no more than sixty days before the meeting date. Section 33-31-701(g) and 33-31-702(f), added by 2023 Act No. 68 effective May 19, 2023, let the board authorize members to participate and vote by remote communication if the corporation implements reasonable measures to verify that each person voting is a member or proxy holder.

On records, Section 27-30-150 is deliberately narrow. It applies the access provisions of Sections 33-31-1602, 33-31-1603, 33-31-1604 and 33-31-1605 to all homeowners associations not subject to the South Carolina Nonprofit Corporation Act, and it states the purpose: allowing homeowners access to inspect and copy a homeowners association's annual budget and homeowners membership lists. An unincorporated South Carolina association therefore owes a member the budget and the membership list, not the full nonprofit records catalogue.

An incorporated association owes more, because the Nonprofit Corporation Act applies to it directly. Section 33-31-1601(e) requires a corporation to keep at its principal office its current articles and bylaws with all amendments, board resolutions relating to the characteristics, qualifications, rights, limitations and obligations of members or classes of members, minutes of all member meetings and records of member-approved actions for the past three years, all written communications to members generally within the past three years including the financial statements furnished under Section 33-31-1620, a list of the names and business or home addresses of current directors and officers, and the most recent report of each type filed with the Secretary of State. Section 33-31-1601(a) through (c) separately requires permanent minutes of member and board meetings, appropriate accounting records, and a member record permitting an alphabetical list by class showing each member's votes.

The demand mechanics come from Section 33-31-1602. For the Section 33-31-1601(e) records, a member is entitled to inspect and copy at a reasonable time and location specified by the corporation after giving written notice or a written demand at least five business days before the date the member wishes to inspect. For the harder category, meaning excerpts from board and committee minutes, accounting records, and the membership list, the member must give the same five business days' notice and additionally satisfy subsection (c): the demand must be made in good faith and for a proper purpose, the member must describe with reasonable particularity the purpose and the records sought, and the records must be directly connected with that purpose. Section 33-31-1603 fills in the rest: an agent or attorney has the same rights as the member, the right to copy includes copies made by photographic, xerographic or other means where reasonable, and the corporation may impose a reasonable charge covering the costs of labor and material that may not exceed the estimated cost of production or reproduction.

Refusal is enforced in court, not by an agency. Section 33-31-1604(a) provides that if a corporation does not allow a member who complied with Section 33-31-1602(a) to inspect and copy the Section 33-31-1601(e) records, the circuit court in the county where the corporation's principal office in this State is located, or its registered office if it has no principal office here, may summarily order inspection and copying at the corporation's expense on the member's application. For the good-faith category under Section 33-31-1602(b) and (c), subsection (b) directs the court to dispose of the application on an expedited basis.

The fee-shifting rule is the real leverage. Section 33-31-1604(c) provides that if the court orders inspection and copying, it also shall order the corporation to pay the member's costs, including reasonable counsel fees, incurred to obtain the order, unless the corporation proves that it refused inspection in good faith because it had a reasonable basis for doubt about the member's right to inspect. The word is shall, not may. Section 33-31-1604(d) lets the court impose reasonable restrictions on the member's use or distribution of the records.

There are limits on what a member may do with what she gets. Section 33-31-1605 provides that without the board's consent a membership list may not be obtained or used for any purpose unrelated to a member's interest as a member, may not be used to solicit money or property unless the money or property will be used solely to solicit member votes in a corporate election, may not be used for any commercial purpose, and may not be sold or purchased. Section 33-31-1603(d) lets the corporation satisfy a membership-list demand by supplying a list compiled no earlier than the date of the demand.

Monetary disputes arising under the Homeowners Association Act may be brought in magistrates court under Section 27-30-160, subject to the seven thousand five hundred dollar limits in Section 22-3-10, but an inspection order is injunctive and belongs in circuit court. Complaints to the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs are recorded under Section 27-30-340, which specifically logs whether a homeowner was denied access to the governing documents and what remedies the homeowner pursued, and are reported publicly by January thirty-first each year. Section 27-30-340(E) bars the department from issuing HOA guidelines or arbitrating disputes.