Homeowners association complaints have climbed sharply over the past several years, according to newly released state consumer protection data, with disputes over unenforced covenants and bylaws now topping the list of grievances homeowners file against their own communities.
South Carolina’s Department of Consumer Affairs, one of the only state agencies in the country that tracks HOA complaints in a public annual report, received 586 HOA-related complaints in 2025. That is down slightly from the year before, but the long-term trend is unmistakable: comparing 2019 to 2025, HOA-specific complaints filed with the department have jumped 176%.
A Multi-Year Climb
The increase did not happen all at once. The department’s 2024 report noted a 32% jump in complaints from 2022 to 2023, rising from roughly 276 to 365. The following year pushed the total to 617 complaints, according to the 2026 report, before the count eased back down to 586 in 2025 — still more than double where it stood just three years earlier.
HOA complaints now make up 8.5% of every consumer complaint the department receives across all industries, a notable share for a category that covers a relatively narrow slice of the state’s housing market.
Covenant Enforcement Tops the List
The single largest category of complaints in the 2026 report was failure to adhere to or enforce covenants and bylaws, accounting for 16.8% of all filings. Maintenance and repair concerns came in second at 11.7%, and homeowners who said their requests to access association records were ignored made up 9.5% of the total.
Geographically, the complaints are not evenly spread. Horry County alone accounted for 31% of all HOA complaints filed statewide in 2025, both the highest raw number and the highest rate per capita, despite complaints coming in from 23 of the state’s 46 counties.
What It Means for Homeowners
South Carolina requires HOA management companies to register with the state under a law that took effect in May 2018, and the annual complaint report is a direct product of that reporting requirement. Few other states publish anything comparable, which makes South Carolina’s numbers one of the clearest public windows available into how often homeowners feel their associations are failing to hold up their end of the bargain — or failing to apply their own rules evenly.
For residents living under an HOA, the data lines up with a familiar frustration: it is rarely the fee increase itself that triggers a formal complaint. It is the sense that the board enforces its own covenants selectively, or not at all, until a homeowner is the one being cited.
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