Horry County leads state in number of HOA complaints filed, report shows

HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WMBF) – Horry County received the top spot when it comes to residents complaining about homeowner’s associations.

The South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs released its 2023 report on complaints filed against HOAs.

In 2022, the department received 276 complaints from across the state against 208 HOAs or management companies. It’s a 7% increase from the year before.

MORE INFORMATION | Department of Consumer Affairs HOA reports

Twenty-five percent of the complaints came out of Horry County. Richland County was second with 12.3% of the complaints and Greenville County with nearly 11% of the complaints.

Brian Pinkham, the vice president for FirstService Residential, which is a property management company, explained why Horry County is seeing bigger numbers than any other place in the Palmetto State.

“I guess it would come down to a few different pieces, one being there are a lot of HOAs and lot of communities and a lot of companies that are providing those services,” said Pinkham.

The complaints raised 651 concerns with the top three issues being failure to adhere to and/or enforce covenants and bylaws, concerns regarding maintenance and repairs and failure to notify residents of board actions.

But some residents said that they want their HOA boards to be transparent and for action to be taken.

“Creating ways to communicate with the residents, to take feedback and use feedback in some of their planning sessions, along with letting them know what’s going in the community,” explained Pinkham.

Out of all the complaints, 66% were closed, indicating that an adequate business response was received.

Back in 2018, a change to state law required the Department of Consumer Affairs to collect certain data from complaints involving HOAs. The information collected is to be reported to the governor, General Assembly and the public by Jan. 31 of each year.

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