Security Deposit Return Deadlines & Deductions in South Carolina

At a glance

Requirements one by one

Return and itemization

S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-410(a) runs the 30-day period from the latest of three events: tenancy termination, delivery of possession, and the tenant's demand. The landlord must itemize any deduction in a written notice and send any balance due. The tenant must give a forwarding or new address in writing; without one, the subsection's protection against damages applies only if the landlord had no notice of the tenant's whereabouts and mailed the notice and payment to the last known address.

Deductions

The landlord may retain accrued rent and damage suffered because the tenant failed to meet § 27-40-510 duties. That section requires reasonable cleanliness and bars deliberate or negligent destruction, defacement, damage or impairment of the premises. Section 27-40-410 does not name ordinary wear and tear as a separate deduction category.

Deposit amount and holding

No statewide amount cap or interest duty appears in § 27-40-410. Under § 27-40-40(18), the deposit is described as money held in trust to secure lease performance; the chapter gives no separate-account or bond procedure.

Remedy

Under § 27-40-410(b), a tenant may recover three times the amount wrongfully withheld plus reasonable attorney's fees when the landlord fails to return prepaid rent or the deposit with the required notice. The subsection does not impose an additional bad-faith test.

What trips people up

Under § 27-40-410(c), a landlord with more than four adjoining units who uses differing deposit-calculation standards must disclose those standards before the rental agreement. If the landlord fails to do so, the excess over the lowest comparable deposit cannot be deducted for tenant-duty damage. This is a disclosure and deduction rule, not an amount cap.

Common questions

Must I demand the deposit for the 30-day clock to run? Yes. The demand is one of the three events named in § 27-40-410(a); keep a record of when it reached the landlord.

Does the statute require a separate deposit bank account? Section 27-40-40(18) calls the money held in trust, but neither it nor § 27-40-410 specifies a separate account or bond.

Statutes and sources

• S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-410 — refund, accounting, deductions, disclosure and remedy. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t27c040.php (accessed 2026-10-07)
• S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-510 — tenant duties incorporated into deductible damage. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t27c040.php (accessed 2026-10-07)
• S.C. Code Ann. § 27-40-40(18) — security-deposit definition. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t27c040.php (accessed 2026-10-07)