Building without a permit in South Carolina

What South Carolina law says

South Carolina is unusual among local-adoption states because the penalty is in the state code, not left entirely to city and county ordinance. S.C. Code 6-9-80(B) says a person found in violation of a building code adopted under the Building Codes Council Act must be cited and fined by civil fine of not more than $200, and must be given seven calendar days to remedy the violation or submit a correction plan before being charged with a second violation. S.C. Code 6-9-80(C) then raises the exposure: a person who fails to correct or submit a plan within those seven days must be cited and fined by civil fine up to $2,000, and each day a violation continues is a separate offense. S.C. Code 6-9-80(A) separately lets the local building official, the municipal or county attorney, or a neighboring property owner who would be damaged by the violation sue for injunctive relief or mandamus, and a court may grant temporary injunctive relief on a verified complaint of imminent danger. Under the zoning enabling act, S.C. Code 6-29-950(A) adds that it is unlawful to construct, alter, demolish, change the use of, or occupy any structure without first obtaining the appropriate permit, that a violation of any ordinance adopted under that chapter is a misdemeanor, and that each day the unlawful construction continues is a separate offense. Any additional local ordinance penalty sits under a hard ceiling: a municipal governing body may fix fines not exceeding $500 or imprisonment not exceeding thirty days under S.C. Code 5-7-30, a municipal judge is held to the same $500 and thirty days by S.C. Code 14-25-65(A), and magistrates, who hear county ordinance charges, are limited to the same figures by S.C. Code 22-3-550(A).

Cited from S.C. Code Ann. 6-9-80(A), (B), (C); 6-29-950(A); 5-7-30; 14-25-65(A); 22-3-550(A): official text. Localities enforce these rules and may add their own fees and procedures on top.

Can you get a permit after the work is done?

Verified negative on the permit itself: no South Carolina statute creates an after-the-fact permit, a retroactive permit, an as-built permit, an investigation fee, or a fee multiplier for work already built without a permit. Title 6 Chapter 9, the Building Codes Council Act, was read in full and contains none of those mechanisms, and the chapter's old penalty section, 6-9-70, was omitted outright by 2003 Act No. 83. What the state code does supply is a correction path and a dating rule. The correction path is the seven calendar day cure window in 6-9-80(B), plus the stop order authority in 6-29-950(B) and the injunction, mandamus, and abatement remedies in 6-9-80(A) and 6-29-950(A). The dating rule is S.C. Code 6-9-130, which tells an inspector which edition of the code applies when there is no permit on file: the application date if the permit issuance date is missing, and if neither exists, a nearest possible date the county planning director reconstructs from transfer of property records, mortgage records, tax records, or rent records. Permit fees themselves are local, since 6-9-30(A) lets the building official or appointing authority prescribe fees for construction permits and inspections and 6-9-90 lets the governing body impose them by simple majority vote, so any investigation fee or double fee a South Carolina reader encounters is a local fee schedule item and not a state figure.

Cited from S.C. Code Ann. 6-9-130(A); 6-9-80(A), (B); 6-9-30(A); 6-9-90; 6-29-950(B); 6-9-70 (omitted by 2003 Act No. 83): official text.

The typical path, whatever your locality calls it: stop any ongoing work, contact the permit office before they contact you, apply for the permit describing what was actually built, and expect the office to require opening up or inspecting concealed work. Voluntarily coming forward generally goes better than waiting for a complaint or a sale to surface it.

What South Carolina permit offices charge when work starts first

The statute above sets the ceiling; the bill comes from the local office. 2 South Carolina jurisdictions we cover publish a specific surcharge for work started before the permit, quoted here from the fee schedule or permit page we verified, each linked to the page that carries the citation.

• Starting without a permit doubles the money: the schedule's Penalties clause says "Where work for which a permit is required by this code is started or proceeded prior to obtaining said permit, the fees herein specified shall be doubled, but the payment of such double fee shall neither relieve any persons from fully complying with the requirements of this code in the execution of the work nor from any other penalties prescribed herein."

  Charleston · from the fence permit page · last checked 16 Aug 2026

• Sec. 5-204(c) adds a penalty of 100 percent of the usual permit fee where work is started before the permit is obtained.

  Columbia · from the deck permit page · last checked 16 Aug 2026

Jurisdictions not listed either publish no surcharge clause or publish one we could not quote from an official schedule; their permit pages state what we could verify.

Who can pull the permit

South Carolina licenses residential builders and residential specialty contractors under S.C. Code Title 40 Chapter 59, and 40-59-260 exempts the owner of record who builds for himself. The exemption applies only if the owner does the work himself, with his own employees, or with licensed contractors or registered entities, if the structure is intended for the owner's sole occupancy or occupancy by the owner's family and is not intended for sale or rent, and if the general public does not have access to it. The owner must personally appear and sign the building permit application, and the local permitting agency must hand over a disclosure statement whose statutory text reads in part: You must supervise the construction yourself. You may build or improve a one-family or two-family residence. The building must be for your own use and occupancy. It may not be built for sale or rent. The sale restriction is two years and is a presumption rather than a flat bar: 40-59-260(B) makes proof of sale or rent, or of offering for sale or rent, within two years after completion or issuance of a certificate of occupancy prima facie evidence that the project was undertaken for sale or rent, which forfeits the exemption and exposes the owner to the chapter's penalties. South Carolina then adds a step no other state in this wave has: 40-59-260(E) requires the owner to promptly record a notice with the register of deeds, indexed under the owner's name in the grantor index, stating that the building was constructed by the owner as an unlicensed builder, and failure to record revokes the statutory exemption. The exemption is from the licensing chapter, not from the permit, and 40-59-280 requires the building official to refuse a permit unless the applicant furnishes evidence of licensure, registration, or exemption.

Cited from S.C. Code Ann. 40-59-260(A), (B), (C), (E), (F); 40-59-265; 40-59-280; 40-59-20(6), (7); 40-59-30(A): official text.

Selling or buying in South Carolina?

• Selling a house with unpermitted work
• Buying a house with unpermitted work

How South Carolina compares: building without a permit, state by state.

Your local permit office

Enforcement, after-the-fact fees, and the exact fix-it process are local. We cover these South Carolina permit offices:

• Charleston
• Columbia

Official sources

• https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t06c009.php
• https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t40c059.php