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 [...]
To Disclose or Not to Disclose? The Importance of Disclosure in Prenuptial Agreements
What are the three most important things when it comes to real estate? That’s right: Location, location, location. Likewise, when it comes to prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, the three most important things are disclosure, disclosure, disclosure! In pre- and postnuptial [...]
Why You Don’t Want to Be a Trustee
I once saw a bumper sticker on a car that said “Smile. You Could Be a Trustee.” I thought it was great because it’s true. Being a trustee can be a challenging, and often litigious, job. In estate planning, the [...]
Can You Be Held Personally Liable for Your LLC’s Debts?
Entrepreneurs who create a limited liability company (LLC) are protected from putting their personal assets at risk for business debts. Right? After all, that’s the main purpose of the LLC. “Limited liability” is even in the name. Well, not always. [...]
Why Common Law Marriage was Just Abolished in South Carolina
Common law marriage will no longer be recognized in South Carolina. In making this determination, the Supreme Court of South Carolina joins the trend of several other states who have already put an end to the practice over the years. [...]
See How South Carolina’s Counties Are Growing and Shrinking
We know that of South Carolina’s 46 counties, some are growing and some are shrinking, but knowing that alone doesn’t tell the whole story. Today we’re going to look a little more in depth at the actual numbers. South Carolina [...]
