Updated September 5, 2026. Quick answer: South Carolina’s HOA Act doesn’t set a statewide vote threshold for a special assessment; its main statutory control is a 48-hour advance notice rule tied to any board decision to raise the annual budget, and that rule doesn’t even apply to HOAs organized as nonprofit corporations. The condo act likewise leaves special-assessment approval to the bylaws, defaulting only to a general 51% majority for co-owner decisions.
Key statute: S.C. Code Ann. §§ 27-30-110 to 27-30-340 (South Carolina Homeowners Association Act); S.C. Code Ann. §§ 27-31-10 to 27-31-260 (South Carolina Horizontal Property Act, for condominiums)
How South Carolina lets an association approve it
The Homeowners Association Act has no dedicated special-assessment vote provision; the closest is § 27-30-140 on annual budget increases, which regulates notice but not the vote threshold. Under the Horizontal Property Act, bylaws must state the “[m]ethod of collecting from the co-owners for the payment of the common expenses,” and absent a different bylaw rule, “a majority of at least fifty-one percent is required to adopt decisions” (§ 27-31-160(b)); modifying “the system of administration” itself requires “the co-owners representing two-thirds of the total value of the property” (§ 27-31-160).
The notice you’re owed
S.C. Code § 27-30-140: “Before a homeowners association may take action to increase an annual budget in any single year, the homeowners association 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,” via posting in a common area, an association website, email, or bylaw-specified methods ensuring “actual notice.” Critically, “[t]he provisions of this section do not apply to a homeowners association that is incorporated under the South Carolina Nonprofit Corporation Act”; since most SC HOAs are organized that way, this notice rule may not reach the typical association. The Horizontal Property Act has no comparable notice provision for condo assessments.
Paying it: plan, interest, and late fees
Both acts are silent; neither the Homeowners Association Act nor the Horizontal Property Act gives owners a statutory right to pay a special assessment in installments or sets or caps an interest rate or late fee for delinquency. These terms are left to the declaration/bylaws.
Under the Horizontal Property Act, “[a]ll sums assessed by the administrator, or the board of administration… but unpaid, for the share of common expenses chargeable to any apartment shall constitute a lien on such apartment prior to all other liens except only (i) tax liens… and (ii) mortgage and other liens, duly recorded,” foreclosable “by suit… in like manner as a mortgage of real property” (§ 27-31-210(a)). The Homeowners Association Act chapter reviewed contains no comparable lien section.
Does South Carolina require a reserve study?
No. Having read the Homeowners Association Act (Title 27, Ch. 30) and the Horizontal Property Act (Title 27, Ch. 31) in full, neither imposes a reserve-study or reserve-fund requirement.
Honest gaps
The two acts genuinely diverge: the condo act has an explicit lien provision and a 51%-majority default vote rule, while the HOA Act has neither; only a conditional 48-hour budget-increase notice that exempts nonprofit-corporation HOAs (i.e., most of them) from even that. We did not review the separate South Carolina Nonprofit Corporation Act (Title 33, Ch. 31) that governs most HOAs’ internal voting procedure, so an assessment-vote rule could exist there outside the Homeowners Association Act itself.
Source note. Read from https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t27c030.php; https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t27c031.php on September 5, 2026.
Related: HOA rules in a 55+ community · how a special-assessment foreclosure actually works · lump sum vs. a payment plan.
General information drawn from each state’s own statutes as read at its official legislature or code-publisher site (or a verbatim codified mirror where noted), not legal advice. Special-assessment law is state law, and every association’s own declaration and bylaws add rules on top of the statutory floor described here. We are not a law firm and this is not legal advice.