South Carolina · Code §§40-57-350, 40-57-370South Carolina brokerage relationships: the disclosure form, agency agreements and dual agency

South Carolina allows five brokerage relationships – seller agency, buyer agency, disclosed dual agency, designated agency and transaction brokerage – and a firm providing services under an agency agreement owes its client loyalty, obedience, disclosure, confidentiality, reasonable care, diligence and accounting; it and its subagents may not engage in or assist wholesaling, defined as marketing residential property to another buyer while holding only a contractual interest in buying it, before taking ownership (S.C. Code §§40-57-350(A), 40-57-30(44)). At the first practical opportunity, a licensee gives every potential buyer and seller it has substantive contact with a meaningful explanation of the firm's brokerage relationships and the Commission's Disclosure of Brokerage Relationships form; an Acknowledgement of Receipt of that form must be included in the agency agreement and in the sales contract, and each sales contract must have the buyer and seller acknowledge whether they received customer or client service (§40-57-370(A), (B)). Until a party signs an agency agreement, it's presumed to be a customer and the firm a transaction broker (§40-57-370(C)). No agency relationship exists unless the parties agree to it in writing – it can't be created orally or by implication – and who pays the firm doesn't decide whether there is one (§40-57-370(E), (F)). Disclosed dual agency requires the prior informed written consent of all parties on the Commission's dual agency agreement, signed by the buyer before writing an offer and by the seller before signing the sales contract (§40-57-350(I)). The disclosure rules don't apply to rentals or to solicitations of business (§40-57-370(G)).