In February 2026, a South Carolina lawmaker introduced a bill that would have handed condo buyers something they've never had in this state: a legal right to see a building's full financial history before signing a contract. House Bill 5204 would have required every homeowners association to assemble a standardized "HOA Seller Packet," including seven years of financial statements, the association's reserve study, the current reserve balance, and any known upcoming assessments, and to post it online where a buyer could pull it up for free before making an offer. The bill was referred to the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee on the day it was introduced and never advanced past it before the session closed. None of that became law.
If you're shopping for a condo on the Grand Strand right now, that failure is the most important fact you don't already know. It means the due diligence work H.5204 would have automated still falls entirely on you and your agent, document by document, phone call by phone call, with no state deadline forcing an association to hand anything over.
What the Bill Would Have Changed
H.5204 didn't stop at disclosure. It also would have required new associations formed after the bill's effective date to complete a reserve study every three years and reach a 100 percent funded reserve account, and it would have given existing associations until January 1, 2037 to get there. It created a new enforcement office inside the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs, funded by a $3-per-unit annual fee on every HOA in the state, with the power to fine boards and property managers who violated the rules. It even specified that association attorneys represent the full membership rather than just the board, and made them mandatory reporters if they saw a board breaking the law.
For a buyer, the practical upside would have been simple. Instead of chasing down a management company for records that may or may not exist, you'd have had a single packet, standardized by law, sitting online, free, before you ever wrote an offer.
Why It Didn't Pass
The bill's death wasn't a fluke of the calendar. The Community Associations Institute, the trade group that represents HOA boards and management companies across the Carolinas, formally opposed it, arguing the bill would have layered on a wide range of new regulations and oversight that associations weren't equipped to absorb. Association boards are largely run by volunteers, and a statewide packet system would have added new record-keeping and compliance work to their plates. Concerns about that workload are a reasonable part of any conversation about HOA reform, and they help explain why a bill this sweeping stalled.
South Carolina isn't alone in leaving this gap open. According to the Community Associations Institute's own June 2026 Condominium Safety Public Policy Report, both South Carolina and North Carolina remain outside the group of states that currently require a reserve study or reserve funding, a list that includes Florida, California, Colorado, and about a dozen others. Florida's shift came directly out of the 2021 Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, which forced that state to mandate milestone structural inspections at 30 years of building age (25 near the coast) and full reserve funding for the components that matter most to a building's structural safety. South Carolina looked at doing something similar in 2026 and stopped short.
The Regulator That Actually Shows Up
None of this means Myrtle Beach condo buildings operate with zero financial oversight. It means the oversight comes from an unexpected place: the secondary mortgage market rather than the state legislature.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac set their own reserve funding thresholds for any condo association that wants its units to qualify for conventional financing, and those thresholds have been trending upward. An association that can't show adequate reserves risks landing on a lender's ineligible list, which doesn't ban a sale outright but does shrink the buyer pool down to cash buyers and portfolio-loan borrowers, which in turn puts downward pressure on what units in that building can sell for. In a market where South Carolina law is silent, this is the mechanism actually enforcing reserve discipline on Grand Strand towers, not a state inspector and not a courtroom.
Out-of-state buyers sometimes assume a government agency is reviewing these numbers in the background. On the Grand Strand, the review most often comes from the lender's underwriting of the condo project, which looks at reserves as part of assessing the loan. That check is useful, and it still works best alongside a buyer's own review of the building's documents.
What This Actually Costs Right Now
Regime fees (the South Carolina term for HOA dues) on Grand Strand condos vary widely depending on building age, amenities, and how well an association has kept up with insurance and maintenance costs.
| Building type | Typical monthly regime fee |
|---|---|
| Oceanfront high-rise, elevator, pool, full amenities | $600 to $1,500+ |
| Standard oceanfront building | $400 to $800 |
| Second-row or inland condo, fewer amenities | $200 to $450 |
Those fees are not fixed. Associations vote on their own annual budgets, and over the past two years many Grand Strand buildings have posted single-year fee increases of 10 to 30 percent, driven almost entirely by rising insurance premiums rather than new amenities or higher-end finishes. Buildings that held fees artificially low for years are now catching up all at once.
Special assessments are where the gap becomes expensive in a hurry. Oceanfront towers on the Grand Strand facing deferred roof replacement, elevator modernization, or balcony structural repair have been executing those projects with special assessments commonly running from $20,000 to well over $150,000 per unit, depending on the scope of work and how underfunded the reserve account was going in. That range shows up consistently across market reporting on the area in 2026, and it lines up with what a reserve study would have flagged years earlier, if the building had one.
The friction isn't hypothetical. One recent oceanfront listing in North Myrtle Beach included a seller concession specifically covering the building's 2026 HOA insurance assessment, a detail that only shows up in the fine print of the listing itself. That's what this looks like in practice: not a headline, but a line item a buyer's agent has to notice.
The Document List the State Won't Hand You
Because H.5204 didn't pass, none of the following documents are guaranteed to exist in a standard format, and none are guaranteed to be handed to you automatically. You or your agent has to ask for them, ideally before you're locked into a due diligence clock.
- The current HOA master insurance policy declarations page, confirming coverage amount, carrier, and whether it meets conventional lending requirements
- The most recent reserve study, if one exists, and how recently it was updated
- The last 12 months of board meeting minutes, which is often the earliest place a brewing insurance renewal problem or assessment discussion surfaces in writing
- Financial statements covering as many recent years as the association will provide
- Any pending or discussed special assessments, even informal ones not yet voted on
- The percentage of units that are owner-occupied versus rented, which affects both lending eligibility and the building's day-to-day character
- Any disclosed litigation involving the association
None of this is exotic. It's exactly what H.5204's Seller Packet would have required by law. Right now it requires a request, a follow-up, and someone who knows which questions actually matter on a Grand Strand building.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does South Carolina require condo associations to conduct a reserve study? No. Neither the South Carolina Homeowners Association Act nor the South Carolina Horizontal Property Act mandates a reserve study or a minimum funding level. Some individual associations require one through their own governing documents, but there is no statewide law forcing it.
Is H.5204 completely dead, or could similar rules come back? The 2025-2026 legislative session closed with H.5204 still sitting in the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee, where it landed the day it was introduced. A future session could reintroduce similar provisions, and the fact that a bill this detailed drew serious opposition from the industry it targeted suggests the pressure for reform hasn't disappeared. Until something new passes, though, the current gap stands.
If a building doesn't have a reserve study, does that mean it's poorly managed? Not necessarily. Plenty of associations track capital planning informally or through their governing documents without commissioning a formal outside study. What it does mean is that a buyer can't assume that information exists or is easy to obtain, and should ask for it directly rather than assuming the closing process will surface it automatically.
If you're looking at a specific building on the Grand Strand and want a straight read on its regime fees, assessment history, and insurance standing before you write an offer, that's exactly the kind of document review Local to Coastal Realty walks buyers through as part of every coastal transaction. Reach out and we'll go through the paperwork together, building by building, before you're locked into a contract.
