Selling a house in South Carolina: the deed recording fee, the disclosure form and a court-run foreclosure

Selling a house in South Carolina costs the seller a deed recording fee of $1.85 for every $500 of the property’s value, which is $1,110 on a $300,000 sale. State law also requires you to hand the buyer a written property condition disclosure statement before the contract is signed. And if the house is in foreclosure, South Carolina is different from its neighbors in a way that changes your whole calendar: there is no power of sale here. Every foreclosure goes through a court, and the bidding stays open until the thirtieth day after the sale.

The deed recording fee

South Carolina calls it a fee rather than a transfer tax, and § 12-24-10 sets it at one dollar eighty-five cents for each five hundred dollars, or fractional part of five hundred dollars, of the realty’s value. That figure is two fees stacked: a state fee of $1.30 per $500 and a county fee of $0.55 per $500. The fractional-part language matters on odd numbers, because a value of $300,100 is charged as 601 units of $500, not 600.

Section 12-24-20 puts the liability on the grantor, or jointly and severally on the grantors, with the grantee secondarily liable. The seller owes it, and if the seller does not pay, the buyer can be reached. The register of deeds or clerk of court collects it when the deed is recorded.

Deeds transferring property to the mortgagee in a foreclosure proceeding are exempt from the fee, which is one of the exemptions in § 12-24-40. Exemptions are specific and worth checking against the statute rather than assumed.

The property condition disclosure statement

The Residential Property Condition Disclosure Act sits in Title 27, Chapter 50. Section 27-50-40 requires the owner to furnish a written disclosure statement on the form promulgated by the South Carolina Real Estate Commission, which posts it for free download. The statement covers the water supply and sewage disposal systems, the structural components, the mechanical systems, wood-destroying insects, zoning and land-use restrictions, environmental hazards, existing lease contracts, meter conservation charges, and homeowners association governance.

For each item the statute gives the owner a choice: indicate actual knowledge of the condition, or state that the owner makes no representations. The Act also says the rights of the parties regarding conditions the owner has no actual or constructive knowledge of are not affected, so the form records what you know rather than promising a condition you have not inspected.

Section 27-50-50 sets the timing: the owner delivers the form before the real estate contract is signed by the purchaser and the owner, or as otherwise agreed in the contract. Handing it over with the contract, rather than after, is the version that does not create an argument.

Exempt transfers

Section 27-50-30 lists the transfers the Act does not reach, including transfers pursuant to court order, transfers to a mortgagee from a mortgagor where the debt is in default, transfers at public auction, first sales of a dwelling never inhabited, and transfers between family members. An exemption removes the form. It does not license a misstatement about the house.

Federal law runs alongside the state form. A house built before 1978 still carries the lead-based paint disclosure obligations, and no South Carolina exemption reaches those.

Foreclosure here goes through a court

This is the structural difference from Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina. South Carolina has no trustee’s sale under a power of sale. A lender files a foreclosure action, and under Rule 71 of the South Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure the case is ordinarily referred to a master in equity under Rule 53, or to a special referee. The judge or master computes the principal due on default, the interest rate, the interest from default to the hearing, the costs and the attorney fees, and the judgment directs that the mortgaged premises be sold by or under the direction of the master, or another court officer in counties with no master.

The judgment has to contain the legal description, the arrangements for advertisement, the time and place of sale, the required good faith deposit, and notice of senior liens or taxes. Going through a court takes longer than a 30-day notice and four weeks of advertising, which gives an owner more room to sell, refinance or work out the default than in a power of sale state. It does not give you unlimited room, and the clock starts when you are served.

The thirty days after the sale

Section 15-39-720 keeps the bidding open. In judicial sales of real estate for the foreclosure of mortgages and in sales in execution, the bidding does not close on the day of sale but remains open until the thirtieth day after the sale, excluding the day of sale. Anyone other than the highest bidder may enter a higher bid in that window on complying with the terms of sale. The mortgagee has to make its bid at the sale itself and cannot come back with another one later. Rule 71 carries the same thirty-day rule, unless a deficiency judgment is waived in writing.

Deficiency, and the appraisal that can cut it

Section 29-3-660 lets the court direct the mortgagor to pay any residue of the mortgage debt left unsatisfied after the sale. Section 29-3-680 gives a defendant against whom a personal judgment is taken or asked thirty days after the sale to apply by verified petition to the clerk of court for an order of appraisal. The appraised value approved by the court is substituted for the high bid, which can reduce the deficiency. Section 29-3-700 requires the appraisers to be state-certified and unconnected to the parties by business, blood or marriage within the sixth degree.

That petition has a thirty-day deadline running from the sale, and missing it forfeits the appraisal route. It is the kind of deadline worth taking to a South Carolina attorney the week of the sale rather than the month after.

Working out what a sale nets

Start with the price and subtract the loan payoff, the recording fee at $1.85 per $500, the attorney and closing charges, the property tax proration, any agreed repairs, and the commission if you list. Then add the months of taxes, insurance and utilities you carry while the house is on the market. Our cash offer vs listing page compares the routes with those months priced in, what an empty house costs breaks out the carrying line, and how we calculate an offer shows the subtraction behind a cash number.

We buy in South Carolina as well as Tennessee, for our own account, and we may assign the purchase contract to another buyer, disclosed in writing before you sign.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Talk to a South Carolina attorney or CPA about your situation.