Landlord Atlas

What does South Carolina law require a landlord to repair?

Verified August 30, 2026 All South Carolina topics →

South Carolina requires a landlord to make all repairs and do whatever is reasonably necessary to put and keep a rented dwelling in a fit and habitable condition, to comply with building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety, to keep common areas reasonably safe, to make running water, reasonable hot water and reasonable heat available at all times, and to maintain the supplied facilities and appliances in reasonably good and safe working order.

Cited to S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-440 (landlord to maintain premises) (a) to (d) and 12 more cited sources · Verified August 30, 2026

The duty comes entirely from the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act of 1986: the Supreme Court refused to imply a habitability warranty into leases the year before the Act passed, and the Act abrogated the residential common law. The tenant's route runs through notice and the courts. Written notice starts a fourteen-day cure period that ends the lease if the landlord does not fix the problem, an essential-services failure lets the tenant buy substitute service and deduct its cost or sue for the drop in fair-market rental value plus fees, and the landlord's breach can be raised as a defense and counterclaim in a nonpayment case. What South Carolina does not allow is self-help with the rent. Repairing the property and deducting the cost is prohibited outright, any resulting mechanic's lien is unenforceable, there is no withholding right and no escrow, and during a possession case the tenant must keep paying — at the court-set fair-market rental value where the dispute is about conditions. Retaliation is barred, and the damages run to whichever side acted in bad faith.

South Carolina habitability & repairs at a glance

Where the duty comes from Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it
Duty source details The duty is S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-440, part of the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act of 1986, and the statute is the whole of it. South Carolina's common law ran the other way: in Young v. Morrisey (1985) the Supreme Court held that as a general rule there is no implied warranty of fitness or habitability in leases, and refused to extend the new-home-sale warranty to a lease. A year later the legislature passed the Act, and the Supreme Court recorded in Byerly v. Connor (1992) that the common law has been abrogated as to residential property by that Act. The Court of Appeals treats the Act as in derogation of the common law, to be strictly construed, and as the source of the tenant's cause of action (Watson v. Sellers, 1989). Case law does real work in construing the duty — it is non-delegable in the sense that a landlord cannot escape liability by hiring an independent contractor (Durkin v. Hansen, 1993), and it reaches only defects relating to the inherent physical state of the leased premises (Fair v. United States, 1999) — but it supplies no separate warranty of its own.
Who is covered Statewide — no coverage split
Where the repair standards live The statute itself lists specific standards
What must be kept in repair Section 27-40-440(a) lists five duties: comply with the requirements of applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; make all repairs and do whatever is reasonably necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition; keep all common areas in a reasonably safe condition and, for premises containing more than four dwelling units, in a reasonably clean condition; make available running water and reasonable amounts of hot water at all times and reasonable heat, subject to two stated exceptions; and maintain in reasonably good and safe working order and condition all electrical, gas, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air conditioning and other facilities and appliances, including elevators, supplied or required to be supplied. Two drafting details do real work. Appliances present in the dwelling unit are presumed to be supplied by the landlord unless specifically excluded by the rental agreement, and no appliance or facility necessary to the provision of essential services may be excluded at all. And where the code duty is greater than any of the others, the landlord's duty is measured by the code. The cleanliness half of the common-areas duty applies only above four units; the safety half applies everywhere. The courts have added one scope limit the text does not show: a landlord may be held liable only for defects relating to the inherent physical state of the leased premises.
Heat standard type A duty to supply heat or maintain temperatures while the unit is occupied
Heat standard details South Carolina names heat and hot water expressly but attaches no temperature and no seasonal window. The landlord must make available running water and reasonable amounts of hot water at all times and reasonable heat — a supply duty rather than an equipment-capability standard — with two exceptions written into the same subdivision: where the building that includes the dwelling unit is not required by law to be equipped for that purpose, and where the unit is so constructed that heat or hot water is generated by an installation within the tenant's exclusive control and supplied by a direct public utility connection. Heat, hot water, running water, sanitary plumbing or sewer service, electricity, and gas where it is used for heat, hot water or cooking are all defined as essential services, so a failure of any of them runs on the essential-services track rather than the general one, and no facility necessary to providing them may be excluded from the landlord's duty by the lease.
Headline repair day count 14 days
Notice and repair-window rules Fourteen days is a notice-and-terminate clock, not a general repair deadline. Where there is a material noncompliance with the rental agreement, or a noncompliance with § 27-40-440 materially affecting health and safety or the physical condition of the property, the tenant may deliver written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt if the breach is not remedied within fourteen days. The agreement does not terminate if the landlord adequately remedies the breach before the date specified — or, for a breach not affecting health and safety that cannot be remedied within fourteen days, if the remedy is commenced inside the fourteen-day period and pursued in good faith to completion within a reasonable time. A tenant may not terminate for a condition caused by the deliberate or negligent act or omission of the tenant, a family member, or another person on the premises with the tenant's permission or allowed access by the tenant. Two other notice rules run alongside it and are easy to confuse with this one. The essential-services remedies do not arise until the tenant has given notice and the landlord has failed to act within a reasonable time. And the right to raise the landlord's breach as a defense to a nonpayment case is waived unless the landlord had notice in time — fourteen days before rent is due for violations involving services other than essential services, and, for essential services, notice before rent is due that gives a reasonable opportunity to make the emergency repairs, with no day count attached.
Repair and deduct No — expressly barred — Section 27-40-630(c) forbids it in terms: under no circumstances should that section be interpreted to authorize the tenant to make repairs on the rental property and deduct the cost of the repairs from rent, and where the tenant unlawfully acts without the landlord's consent and authorizes repairs, any mechanic's lien arising from the work is unenforceable. So a tenant who hires the repair has no deduction right and the contractor's usual security is stripped away as well. The bar sits immediately after the one deduction South Carolina does allow, which is a different thing entirely: where the landlord is negligent or wilful in failing to provide essential services, the tenant may procure reasonable amounts of the required essential services during the period of noncompliance and deduct their actual and reasonable cost from rent. Buying substitute heat or water and deducting the cost is permitted; repairing the property and deducting the cost is prohibited.
Rent withholding or escrow No — no statute or decision provides a path — There is no rent-withholding right and no escrow anywhere in the chapter — no self-help abatement, no court or agency escrow, and no municipal certification route. What a tenant has is a defense: in an action for possession based on nonpayment, or in an action for rent covering a period when the tenant is in possession, the tenant may rely on the rental agreement or the chapter to assert defenses and to counterclaim for any amount recoverable. That defense is waived unless the landlord had notice in time under the two-limb rule described with the notice mechanics, and a defense or counterclaim that is without merit and not raised in good faith exposes the tenant to the landlord's actual damages and reasonable attorney's fees. Meanwhile the tenant must keep paying. Section 27-40-790 requires the tenant to pay the landlord all rent falling due after the written rule to vacate or show cause is issued, and all rent allegedly owed before the rule was issued, with the landlord receipting each payment. Where the parties disagree about the amount and the disagreement rests on the landlord's alleged violation of the agreement or the chapter, the court holds a prompt hearing and the rent to be paid must be the fair-market rental value of the premises at the time of the hearing — the closest thing in South Carolina to a habitability rent reduction, and it is paid to the landlord, not into a registry. A tenant who fails to comply gets a warrant of ejectment: the court shall issue it and the landlord must be placed in full possession.
Termination over habitability failures Yes — a statute states the right — The general route is the fourteen-day notice under § 27-40-610(a): written notice specifying the acts and omissions, stating that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt if the breach is not remedied within fourteen days, with the cure and commence-and-pursue savings described in the notice mechanics. On termination the landlord must return the security recoverable by the tenant, and if the landlord's noncompliance was wilful the tenant may recover reasonable attorney's fees. A tenant who elects the essential-services remedies may not also proceed under this section for the same breach. Fire and casualty have their own section: where the dwelling unit or the property is damaged or destroyed by fire or casualty to an extent that enjoyment is substantially impaired, the tenant may immediately vacate and notify the landlord in writing within seven days of an intention to terminate, or, if continued occupancy is lawful, vacate the unusable part, in which case liability for rent is reduced in proportion to the diminution in the fair-market rental value of the unit. Since May 18, 2026 a separate early-termination right exists for a tenant who is the victim of a documented qualifying domestic-violence incident where both victim and perpetrator are leaseholders; that scheme belongs with the lease-termination rules, and its own bar on retaliation is noted below.
Essential-service remedies Yes — distinct statutory remedies for essential-service failures — Essential-service failures get their own section and their own elections. Where the landlord is negligent or wilful in failing to provide essential services required by the rental agreement or by § 27-40-440, the tenant may give written notice specifying the breach and then either procure reasonable amounts of the required essential services during the period of the landlord's noncompliance and deduct their actual and reasonable cost from rent, or recover damages based upon the diminution in the fair-market rental value of the dwelling unit together with reasonable attorney's fees. Those are the only two elections — South Carolina has no substitute-housing remedy of the kind other uniform-act states provide. A tenant who proceeds under this section may not also proceed under the general noncompliance section as to the same breach. The rights do not arise until the tenant has given notice and the landlord has failed to act within a reasonable time, and they do not arise at all where the condition was caused by the deliberate or negligent act or omission of the tenant, a family member, or another person on the premises with the tenant's permission or allowed access by the tenant. Note also that the defense-waiver rule treats essential services differently: there the question is whether the landlord had notice before rent was due that gave a reasonable opportunity to make emergency repairs, with no fourteen-day figure applied.
Retaliation protection Protected by a general retaliation statute — The seventy-five days is not a lookback presumption window — it is a forward bar on the landlord. Where the landlord retaliates by refusing to renew the lease and the tenant is not in default on rent, the landlord may not recover possession of the dwelling unit for seventy-five days and may not increase rent above fair-market value or decrease essential services pending recovery, provided the tenant proves the landlord's violation of the chapter, that the landlord had notice of the violation, and that the landlord had notice of the tenant's complaint before the lease expired. It attaches only to the refusal-to-renew situation; no time figure governs the rest of the section, and there is no burden-shifting presumption anywhere in it. — The section works as a defense and as a damages claim at once. A landlord may not retaliate by increasing rent to an amount in excess of fair-market value, decreasing essential services, or bringing an action for possession after a protected act. A tenant facing a retaliatory possession action gets the ouster remedies as a defense — but if the defense is without merit the landlord recovers reasonable attorney's fees, and if it is raised in bad faith the landlord may recover up to three months' periodic rent or treble the actual damages, whichever is greater. Running the other way, a landlord who retaliates against a tenant for protected conduct is liable for damages up to three months' rent or treble the actual damages sustained, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees, and a damages action survives even where the landlord lawfully recovered possession on one of the statutory grounds, provided the ejectment was primarily retaliatory. Procedure gates the defense: a tenant intending to raise it must notify the landlord in writing within ten days after service of the Rule to Vacate or Show Cause, and after the tenant answers the court hears the matter as promptly as feasible. Three grounds take a possession action outside the bar — a code violation caused primarily by the tenant's lack of reasonable care or that of a family member or permitted person, material noncompliance by the tenant under the chapter's tenant-duty sections, and code compliance requiring alteration, remodeling or demolition that would effectively deprive the tenant of the unit — and a landlord renting more than four adjoining dwelling units may raise rent without a presumption of retaliation where the increase applies uniformly to all tenants or the rent does not exceed fair-market value. Since May 18, 2026 a second and much narrower bar sits in the chapter: a landlord may not take any retaliatory action against a protected tenant in response to that tenant's early termination of the rental agreement after a documented qualifying domestic-violence incident. — Complaining to a governmental agency charged with responsibility for enforcement of a building or housing code, about a violation applicable to the premises materially affecting health and safety; and complaining to the landlord of a violation of the chapter. Note what the prohibition does not reach: it bars rent increases only where they exceed fair-market value, and service decreases only where the services are essential ones. Separately, and only for a protected tenant who ends a rental agreement early after a documented qualifying domestic-violence incident, § 27-40-350(E) bars retaliatory action in response to that termination.
Damages, penalties, and defenses For noncompliance the tenant may recover actual damages and obtain injunctive relief in a magistrate's or circuit court without posting bond, and may recover reasonable attorney's fees where the landlord's noncompliance is wilful — a term the chapter defines for itself as an attempt to intentionally avoid obligations under the rental agreement or the chapter. Fees come automatically with the essential-services diminution election, with the ouster remedy, with the prohibited-clause remedy and with a retaliation claim; they run to the landlord where a tenant's defense or counterclaim is without merit and not raised in good faith, and where a retaliation defense is without merit. The multiple-damages measures differ by section and must not be merged: unlawful removal or exclusion, or wilful interruption of essential services, carries three months' periodic rent or twice the actual damages, whichever is greater, plus fees; retaliation carries three months' periodic rent or treble the actual damages, whichever is greater, plus fees, in either direction. Prohibited lease clauses carry a graduated penalty — actual damages plus an amount not exceeding the security deposit for deliberate use, or not exceeding three months' periodic rent where the landlord acted maliciously. The landlord's defenses are: the notice-timing waiver, which is the strongest and is described with the notice mechanics; causation by the tenant, a family member, or another person on the premises with the tenant's permission or allowed access; cure before the date specified in the tenant's notice, or the commence-and-pursue extension for breaches not affecting health and safety; a valid delegation agreement; and the tenant's own bad faith, which carries its own penalties.
Can the duty be waived or shifted Repairs may be delegated only within uniform-act-style limits
Waiver and delegation rules A rental agreement may not provide that the tenant waives or forgoes rights or remedies under the chapter, authorizes a confession of judgment, or agrees to exculpate or limit the landlord's liability or to indemnify the landlord for it; such a provision is unenforceable, and a landlord who deliberately uses one and tries to enforce it owes actual damages plus an amount not exceeding the security deposit and reasonable attorney's fees — raised to an amount not exceeding three months' periodic rent where the landlord acted maliciously. A separate section bars any rental agreement, assignment, conveyance, trust deed, mortgage or security instrument from permitting the receipt of rent absent the obligation to comply with § 27-40-440(a). Delegation follows the uniform-act pattern. For a single-family residence the parties may agree in writing that the tenant performs the landlord's duty to maintain the facilities and appliances, plus specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations and remodeling, but only if the transaction is entered into in good faith and not to evade the landlord's obligations. For any other dwelling unit the parties may agree that the tenant performs specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations or remodeling only if the agreement is in good faith and not for evasion, the work is not necessary to cure noncompliance with the building-and-housing-code duty, and the agreement does not diminish or affect the landlord's obligations to other tenants.
Leading court decisions Young v. Morrisey, 285 S.C. 236, 329 S.E.2d 426 (1985) — Held, under a heading the court gave to the question, that as a general rule there is no implied warranty of fitness or habitability in leases, and that a lessee takes leased premises in the condition and quality in which they are, absent an express warranty, fraud or misrepresentation — a rule the court applied to a personal-injury claim. It expressly declined to extend a decision recognizing a warranty in the sale of a new house to create an implied warranty in leases, distinguishing a lease from a sale. The opinion also restates the traditional South Carolina rule that a landlord owes no duty to maintain leased premises in a safe condition absent an express warranty or fraudulent concealment. It was decided a year before the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act and contains no reference to it. • Byerly v. Connor, 307 S.C. 441, 415 S.E.2d 796 (1992) — A commercial-lease case, decided by the author of Young, that restates Young for the proposition that a landlord owes no duty to maintain leased premises in a safe condition. Its first footnote records the residential position: unlike Young this case involves a commercial lease, and the common law has been abrogated as to residential property by the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. That sentence is why Young does not simply survive as the residential rule — the statute replaced the field. • Watson v. Sellers, 299 S.C. 426, 385 S.E.2d 369 (Ct. App. 1989) — Held that the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act is in derogation of the common law and is therefore strictly construed, and that the Act itself creates a cause of action in tort in favor of a residential tenant against a landlord who fails, after notice, to make necessary repairs and to do what is reasonably necessary to keep the premises habitable. The tenant is a member of the class for whose special benefit the Act was passed, and the General Assembly intended to abrogate the landlord's common-law immunity from tort liability for injuries on rented residential premises. • Durkin v. Hansen, 313 S.C. 343, 437 S.E.2d 550 (Ct. App. 1993) — Held that although the performance of the duties assumed by a rental agreement and imposed by the Act may be delegated to others, liability for injury or damage resulting from their performance may not be avoided merely by employing an independent contractor — a landlord cannot insulate itself from a statutory duty that way. Its third footnote corroborates that the Act was enacted after Young and has abrogated the common law for leases involving residential property. • Fair v. United States, 334 S.C. 321, 513 S.E.2d 616 (1999) — Answering a certified question, construed the fit-and-habitable duty together with the tenant's own maintenance duty and held that under the Act a landlord may be held liable only for defects relating to the inherent physical state of the leased premises. The fit-and-habitable provision therefore does not alter the common-law rule that a landlord is not liable to a tenant's invitee for injury caused by a tenant's dog. Anyone quoting the final sentence should note that the printed opinion misnumbers the section there, giving it correctly three sentences earlier.
Local rules Local codes enter through the first of the landlord's statutory duties: compliance with the requirements of applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety, and where that duty is greater than any of the other four, the landlord's duty is measured by it. So the city or county code where the property sits can raise the standard, and it is the reason a code-based complaint is one of the two protected acts under the retaliation section. The chapter says nothing else about city or county regulation of residential landlords, and it supersedes the older Title 27 landlord-tenant chapters to the extent they are inconsistent with it.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, South Carolina Habitability & Repair Laws (verified August 30, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/habitability/south-carolina/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

Common questions: South Carolina habitability & repairs

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

Does South Carolina have an implied warranty of habitability?
Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it. The duty is S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-440, part of the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act of 1986, and the statute is the whole of it. South Carolina's common law ran the other way: in Young v. Morrisey (1985) the Supreme Court held that as a general rule there is no implied warranty of fitness or habitability in leases, and refused to extend the new-home-sale warranty to a lease.
How long does a landlord have to make repairs in South Carolina?
14 days. Fourteen days is a notice-and-terminate clock, not a general repair deadline. Where there is a material noncompliance with the rental agreement, or a noncompliance with § 27-40-440 materially affecting health and safety or the physical condition of the property, the tenant may deliver written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt if the breach is not remedied within fourteen days.
Can a tenant repair and deduct in South Carolina?
No — expressly barred — Section 27-40-630(c) forbids it in terms: under no circumstances should that section be interpreted to authorize the tenant to make repairs on the rental property and deduct the cost of the repairs from rent, and where the tenant unlawfully acts without the landlord's consent and authorizes repairs, any mechanic's lien arising from the work is unenforceable. So a tenant who hires the repair has no deduction right and the contractor's usual security is stripped away as well.
Can a tenant withhold rent for repair problems in South Carolina?
No — no statute or decision provides a path — There is no rent-withholding right and no escrow anywhere in the chapter — no self-help abatement, no court or agency escrow, and no municipal certification route. What a tenant has is a defense: in an action for possession based on nonpayment, or in an action for rent covering a period when the tenant is in possession, the tenant may rely on the rental agreement or the chapter to assert defenses and to counterclaim for any amount recoverable.
Can a landlord retaliate against a tenant who complains about repairs in South Carolina?
Protected by a general retaliation statute — The seventy-five days is not a lookback presumption window — it is a forward bar on the landlord. Where the landlord retaliates by refusing to renew the lease and the tenant is not in default on rent, the landlord may not recover possession of the dwelling unit for seventy-five days and may not increase rent above fair-market value or decrease essential services pending recovery, provided the tenant proves the landlord's violation of the chapter, that the landlord had notice of the violation, and that the landlord had notice of the tenant's complaint before the lease expired.
Can a lease make the tenant responsible for repairs in South Carolina?
Repairs may be delegated only within uniform-act-style limits. A rental agreement may not provide that the tenant waives or forgoes rights or remedies under the chapter, authorizes a confession of judgment, or agrees to exculpate or limit the landlord's liability or to indemnify the landlord for it; such a provision is unenforceable, and a landlord who deliberately uses one and tries to enforce it owes actual damages plus an amount not exceeding the security deposit and reasonable attorney's fees — raised to an amount not exceeding three months' periodic rent where the landlord acted maliciously. A separate section bars any rental agreement, assignment, conveyance, trust deed, mortgage or security instrument from permitting the receipt of rent absent the obligation to comply with § 27-40-440(a).

Citations

How this record was verified: Direct reading of the whole of S.C. Code Ann. tit. 27, ch. 40 (the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act) — all 46 sections with their history lines — on the General Assembly's official code site, read against the Legislative Council's own currency disclaimer for that site (current through the 2025 Session); the General Assembly's official act lists for the 2025 and 2026 sessions, with the enacted text of Act No. 184 of 2026 (H. 3569) read in full from the General Assembly's bill document, including its effective-date section; and the official reporter texts of Young v. Morrisey, Byerly v. Connor, Watson v. Sellers, Durkin v. Hansen and Fair v. United States, each read in full, located through the South Carolina Reports and the South Carolina Judicial Branch's own published-opinion index.