What Does It Take to Prove Undue Influence when Contesting a Will?
Undue influence is one of the most common reasons a last will may be found invalid in South Carolina, along with procedural errors and lack of testamentary capacity. (Read more about all three on our blog here.) When someone pressures [...]
What Happens If You Sell the Same Land to Two Separate Parties? Specific Performance as a Remedy
When seeking justice through the courts, a person or party who has been wronged may receive compensation to help right that wrong. That compensation may be a “legal remedy,” which means it can take the form of monetary damages, or [...]
Doing Good While Making Money: Benefit Corporations in South Carolina
You’ve heard of C-corps and S-corps, but what about B Corps? B Corp is short for benefit corporation, a type of for-profit business entity that is regulated by state law. Currently, 35 states and DC have enacted legislation to create [...]
Can Your HOA Foreclose on Your Home for Non-Payment of Dues?
Losing your home in a foreclosure because you missed a $250 HOA payment – can that actually happen? Is it even legal? Yes and yes. This exact situation happened to Tina and Devery Hale. Our past two blogs went into [...]
What Makes a “Grossly Inadequate” Sales Price: The Debt Method vs. the Equity Method
In South Carolina, a judicial sale of a property can be set aside if the sales price is “inadequate.” Either the sales price must be “inadequate” and also involve fraud, or the price must be “so grossly inadequate so as [...]
How A South Carolina Couple Missed an HOA Payment and Lost Their Home
Imagine this situation: You miss an HOA payment. Then you receive some legal documents in the mail, put them in a drawer, and forget about them. When the HOA sends a bill for the outstanding amount, you pay it and [...]
What Is HEMS and What Does it Mean for Trustees?
HEMS is an acronym that stands for Health, Education, Maintenance, and Support. It’s commonly used in trusts as a way to guide and restrict the kinds of distributions that a trustee can make to a beneficiary. Purpose and Benefits of [...]
Sharing the Cost of Liability: What is Contribution?
Let’s say there’s an accident that leaves a person injured. The injured party sues the party at fault – the tortfeasor – who ends up paying damages. The injured party has received compensation for their injury, and the tortfeasor has [...]
Protecting Land for the Common Good: The Public Trust Doctrine in South Carolina
“The underlying premise of the Public Trust Doctrine is that some things are considered too important to society to be owned by one person.” This is what the South Carolina Supreme Court said in its decision Sierra Club v Kiawah [...]
Knowing Your Property Rights: Easements and Trespassing
We’ve talked about easements before, when a party has limited legal rights to land owned by someone else. Examples of common easements include an individual’s right to enter someone’s property in order to gain access to a public area like [...]
Is Your Company’s Website ADA Compliant? And Does It Need to Be?
If you own a brick-and-mortar business that serves the public and has an associated website or app, read this blog, as it pertains to you directly. Most people are familiar with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), a landmark piece [...]
What is a Title Search and Why is It Important?
If you’ve ever bought a piece of real estate in South Carolina, then you probably remember that one of the items on the to-do list before closing was a title search. Since the sale went through, the title was likely [...]
Timing Is Everything: When Powers of Attorney Aren’t Bulletproof
In the previous blog, we looked at the basics of financial and medical powers of attorney. Today, we’re going to look at how these documents are not as straightforward as you think, courtesy of a case heard by the South [...]
Do You Know the Limits of Your Powers of Attorney?
The power of attorney for finance and the power of attorney for health care are two essential documents of estate planning. These documents give a person (the agent) the power to make, respectively, financial or health-related decisions on behalf of [...]
Why Charleston Is the Way it Is: How South Carolina’s Annexation Rules Shaped the City
What does the City of Charleston look like from above? That is, what are its boundaries? You might think that the City of Charleston comprises the peninsula, West Ashley to the west, and Daniel Island to the northeast. That would [...]
