Is Wholesaling Real Estate Legal In South Carolina?

Written by

Alex Martinez, Founder & CEO, Real Estate Skills. Has wholesaled and flipped houses for over 14 years, been part of 1,000+ real estate transactions, and personally acquired 55+ residential investment properties. Has trained 6,000+ investors nationwide.

RZ

Reviewed by

Ryan Zomorodi, Co-Founder & COO, Real Estate Skills, and host of our 2024 interview with South Carolina real estate attorney Bryan De Bruin.

✓ Updated October 2026 ✓ Fact-Checked 📄 SC Forms Packet Inside Watch on YouTube

Publication history: Originally published February 16, 2021. Updated October 2026 to cover S.C. Code §40-57-30(44), the Real Estate Commission’s November 14, 2024 advisory opinion and Commission activity through November 2025, and to correct the law’s effective date to May 21, 2024. Reviewed by Ryan Zomorodi.

South Carolina's 2024 rewrite of its real estate licensing law left assignment contracts alone and went after the step that usually follows them: sending the property out to buyers. If you learned wholesaling from a national course or a YouTube video, that step is probably the center of your plan. That's why this question needs a careful answer, not a yes or no.

What follows is built on the statute itself and on the advisory opinion the Real Estate Commission published in November 2024 to explain how it reads the new definition. I'll also share what Bryan De Bruin, a Greenville real estate attorney, told Ryan Zomorodi, our COO, when the two of them recorded a long conversation about the law in August 2024. That conversation came three months before the Commission weighed in, so I'll point out where the guidance has moved since.

I've bought and sold houses for over 14 years, but I'm an investor, not a lawyer, and nothing here is legal advice. Where the Commission or a court hasn't settled a question, I'll say so and tell you what to ask your own South Carolina attorney.

What You Can And Can't Do Under South Carolina's Wholesaling Law

The new law splits the classic wholesale deal into two pieces and treats them differently. Signing a contract and then assigning a purchase contract to someone else is still allowed. The statute says so in plain words: wholesaling "does not refer to the assigning or offering to assign a contractual right to purchase residential real estate." What it restricts is everything most wholesalers do between signing and assigning, which is taking the property to market.

That second piece is the business model most people are taught. Lock up a house, send it to a buyers list, collect a fee at closing. In South Carolina, the marketing step now falls under the definition of brokerage. You'd need a broker's license to do it, and the same law bars licensees from wholesaling. So there's no license that makes the old version legal again.

The definition is narrower than it looks in one respect. It applies to "residential real estate," which the chapter defines at §40-57-30(35) as property used primarily for personal, family or household purposes and improved by one to four dwelling units. Land, commercial buildings and apartment buildings with five or more units sit outside that definition, though not necessarily outside the license requirement. I'll come back to that in the deal structures section, because it's the most common place people overread the law.

The Commission went further in 2025. At its November 19, 2025 meeting, according to the Real Estate Commission's meeting minutes, a commissioner said that under the law "wholesaling is illegal," and the Commission had its executive file a complaint against a company it believed was trying a "work around" of the 2024 changes. The minutes also record plans to send the Commission's wholesaling guidance to South Carolina title insurance companies. Assume the closing attorneys and title underwriters you work with know these rules.

What South Carolina's 2024 Wholesaling Law Says

House Bill 4754 rewrote large parts of South Carolina's real estate licensing law, Title 40, Chapter 57 of the South Carolina Code. Its wholesaling provisions took effect when the governor signed it on May 21, 2024. The legislature's bill history lists May 29, 2024, and an earlier version of this page used that date, but the Act itself says it takes effect upon the governor's approval, which came on May 21. The Commission's summary of the 2024 Practice Act changes is the place to confirm it.

Here is the full definition at §40-57-30(44):

Each of those three sentences does a different job.

• The first sentence describes the conduct. You hold a contract to buy a home from its owner, and before you close, you market the home to someone else. Both parts have to be present. A contract you never market isn't wholesaling under this sentence.
• The second sentence attaches the license requirement. Marketing property that someone else owns, expecting to get paid, is brokerage. Under §40-57-20, acting as a broker without a license is unlawful. Notice that this sentence says "real estate," not "residential real estate." That detail matters for anyone hoping land or commercial deals are a clean exit.
• The third sentence protects assignment itself. Assigning a purchase contract, or offering to assign one, isn't wholesaling. This is the sentence wholesalers point to, and it's real, but it doesn't reach the marketing that usually comes before the assignment.

The same act added language to §40-57-350, the section on agency duties. Subsection (A) and subsection (L)(5) each state that "a real estate brokerage firm and its subagents are prohibited from engaging in, representing others in, or assisting others in the practice of wholesaling." One covers duties to clients and the other covers duties to customers, so the prohibition applies whichever relationship an agent has with you.

How The South Carolina Real Estate Commission Reads It

The statute gave the South Carolina Real Estate Commission a definition. The Commission's November 14, 2024 advisory opinion on wholesaling tells you how the people who enforce it read that definition. An advisory opinion isn't a statute or a court ruling, and a judge could someday read the law differently. Until that happens, it's the clearest statement of what the Commission will treat as a violation.

• It breaks wholesaling into four elements. The opinion reads the definition as requiring a contractual interest in buying residential real estate, marketing or advertising the property before taking ownership, an expectation of compensation, and a legal instrument, such as an assignment, used to transfer the interest for that compensation. Take away one of those and the conduct may fall outside the definition. Every legitimate structure later on this page works by removing one of them.
• It says assignment alone isn't wholesaling. The opinion's examples are a spouse assigning a contract to the other spouse and a person assigning a contract to their own company, where nobody marketed anything or expected to be paid. It says the same is true of an assignment to another person, as long as nobody marketed the property or expected to be paid.
• It reads "marketing" broadly. The Commission lists the MLS, social media, print media, Facebook groups, private email groups and verbal communication. Any effort to let other people know a property is available can count. A text message to five buyers you know is still marketing.
• It lists details that likely cross the line. The opinion names a photo of the property, a plat or survey, a description such as room count or square footage, the year the home was built or renovated, its condition, its address, tax map number or legal description, its rental history, and its neighborhood or subdivision. The list ends with "other details," so it's an example list, not a safe harbor for anything left off it.
• It says marketing a contract without the property is "practically impossible." A buyer won't pay for a contract without knowing what it covers, and the moment you tell them, you're describing the property. That's why ads that say "selling my contract, not the house" don't work here.
• It says disclaimers don't fix it. The Commission's reasoning is simple: if a disclaimer were enough, the definition would accomplish nothing.
• It leaves a narrow opening. The opinion calls compliance "very limited" and gives one example that may comply: another person approaches you and asks whether you hold any contracts in an area, without you having marketed anything. That's a thin opening, and I'll explain later why I wouldn't build a business on it.

Can You Wholesale In South Carolina With A Real Estate License?

For years the standard advice to wholesalers in strict states was to get licensed. Before 2024 that may have been reasonable in South Carolina too. Now the license carries its own prohibition. Under §40-57-350(A) and (L)(5), a brokerage firm and its agents can't wholesale, can't represent someone who wholesales, and can't help them do it.

Two other rules tighten it further.

Section 40-57-135(E)(1) says a licensee can't advertise property owned by someone else without a written listing agreement with the owner. A second paragraph of that subsection allows a licensee to advertise a contractual position when the ad doesn't imply or purport to sell the underlying property. Read that next to the Commission's opinion, and you can see how little room it leaves. If marketing a contract without revealing the property is "practically impossible," an ad that meets this standard is just as hard to write.

Section 40-57-135(F)(1)(c) covers licensees buying or selling for their own account. A licensee in a personal transaction has to disclose their license status at the first substantive contact, in any advertising, and on the first page of the contract in bold, underlined, capital letters. That rule applies when an agent buys a house as an investor, which is the buy-first route described below.

There's also a practical effect for unlicensed investors. Because agents are barred from "assisting others" in wholesaling, a listing agent who suspects you plan to market their seller's house before you own it may decline to work with you. Tell agents which route you're using. If you're buying with a partner or buying to hold title first, say so, because that's a deal they can take.

For more on how licensed agents approach investing in other states, see our guide to wholesaling while licensed. South Carolina's rule is stricter than most of what it describes.

Deal Structures That Still Work In South Carolina

Every structure below works by removing one of the Commission's four elements. If you can say which element your deal removes, you understand why it works. If you can't, talk to an attorney before you sign anything with a seller.

• The joint venture route is the one I'd build around. You find a buyer first, usually a landlord or flipper with a clear buy box, and you agree on the terms of a partnership before you look for a single property. When you find a house that fits, you sign in the venture's name or assign the contract to the venture entity. Your partner never sees an ad because there isn't one. Nobody marketed the property, so that element of the Commission's test is missing. The open question is pay. A share of profit inside a written joint venture is a cleaner fit with the Commission's reasoning than a flat fee paid to you at assignment, because the fee looks more like compensation for transferring the contract. Have your attorney structure it before your first deal.

If you want to see the documents this route uses, the packet below includes a joint venture agreement.

The Joint Venture Agreement For South Carolina Deals

This packet includes the joint venture agreement that fits the partner-first route: up to four parties, how expenses and profit are split, whose name goes on title, and escrow instructions for the sale. It also includes a land installment contract and an LLC membership interest transfer agreement drafted in 2024, before the Commission's November 2024 opinion. The installment contract gives the buyer a right to market the property during the term, which is the step the law now restricts, so read the workarounds section below before using either one on a residential deal. Have a South Carolina attorney review any form before you sign it.

Download the South Carolina forms packet

• The buy-then-sell route removes the timing problem. Once your deed is recorded, you're the owner, and an owner selling their own property doesn't need a license. You can list it, post it, photograph it and advertise it like any seller. You can resell the same day through a second closing, which some investors call closing on both sides separately, but only after the first deed is recorded. The cost is that you need money for the first closing, either your own or short-term transactional funding. In his conversation with Ryan, Bryan said that a closing attorney's escrow account can't use the end buyer's money to fund your purchase unless there's a loan agreement between you and that buyer. Some national guides describe that as a normal funding method. Don't assume it's available in South Carolina.
• Being approached is the opening the Commission described, and it's real, but it's thin. The moment you call that investor back with details about the house, you're describing the property, and you're back to the problem the Commission called "practically impossible" to avoid. I mention it so you recognize it, not so you plan around it.
• Land, commercial property and larger apartment buildings are where people most often overread the law. The first sentence of the definition is limited to residential property with one to four units, and in Ryan's conversation Bryan described those deals as outside the wholesaling definition. The second sentence, the one that requires a license for marketing property owned by someone else, isn't limited to residential property. Until the Commission or a court says otherwise, I'd treat a non-residential deal as something to clear with counsel first.

To see how these structures work in practice, from finding sellers through closing, read the step-by-step South Carolina process.

Is Wholesaling Real Estate Legal in South Carolina?

Ryan Zomorodi and Greenville real estate attorney Bryan De Bruin recorded this conversation in August 2024, three months before the Commission's advisory opinion. Where Bryan's views and the Commission's later guidance differ, this page follows the Commission.

 

Why "I'm A Principal, Not A Broker" Doesn't Hold Up Here

A common argument in national wholesaling material says you aren't acting as a broker because you're a principal selling your own interest: the contract. South Carolina's statute closes it off.

First, the definition targets the exact situation the argument describes: someone with a contract to buy, marketing before they own. The legislature put that conduct in the brokerage column on purpose.

Second, the owner exemption doesn't help. Section 40-57-240(1) exempts an unlicensed owner selling an interest in real estate, but only "if the interest being sold, leased, or rented is identical to the owner's legal interest." A buyer under contract doesn't hold the same interest the seller holds, so the exemption doesn't fit.

Third, wording the ad differently doesn't help either. The Commission said that marketing a contract without implying a sale of the property is practically impossible, that a disclaimer doesn't cure the problem, and that private channels count. Calling it "my contract" in a private Facebook group still describes the property to people who might buy it.

Workarounds The Commission's Reading Rules Out

These are the methods I hear most often from investors looking for a way around the law. Here's how each one holds up under the statute and the Commission's opinion.

• Sending the deal to your buyers list or a private group. This is marketing under the Commission's reading. Private email lists, Facebook groups and word of mouth all count.
• Using a land installment contract or bond for title, then marketing. These contracts let you take possession or control while the seller keeps legal title. The definition turns on legal ownership, so marketing while the seller still holds the deed is the same problem with more paperwork. The installment contract in our forms packet includes a right to market during the term, and I wouldn't use that clause on a residential deal.
• Selling the LLC that holds the contract. The idea is that you sell a company, not real estate. Neither the statute nor the November 2024 opinion addresses it directly, and the Commission's November 2025 complaint against a company it saw as using a "work around" shows it's watching for creative structures. The LLC still has to find a buyer, which means telling people about the property. Don't use this structure without an attorney's opinion written after November 2024.
• Charging a consulting or finder's fee instead of an assignment fee. The chapter's definition of a broker, at §40-57-30(6), includes someone who, for a fee, offers services as a real estate consultant or counselor. Renaming the fee doesn't change what you did to earn it.
• Getting licensed. As covered above, §40-57-350 bars licensees from wholesaling.

Why Every Deal Closes Through A South Carolina Attorney

Separate from the wholesaling law, South Carolina treats much of the closing process as the practice of law. In State v. Buyers Service Co., 292 S.C. 426, 357 S.E.2d 15 (1987), the South Carolina Supreme Court held that title examinations must be done by attorneys or under their supervision, that preparing deeds, mortgages and similar instruments for others is the practice of law, that an attorney reviewing the work afterward doesn't cure it, and that closings should be conducted under attorney supervision.

For investors, that means two things. Your closing attorney isn't optional, and in practice they're the person who will look at how your deal is structured. Have them prepare or review your assignment, joint venture agreement or deed before you sign. With the Commission planning to send its guidance to title insurers, a structure that wouldn't survive their review is unlikely to make it to the closing table. If you don't have an attorney yet, the South Carolina Bar's lawyer referral service can connect you with one who handles real estate.

What Happens If You Wholesale Without A License In South Carolina

Wholesaling a residential deal without a license is acting as a broker without a license, which §40-57-20 makes unlawful. The real estate chapter sends unlicensed practice to the Commission's disciplinary sections.

Title 40, Chapter 1, the general law that covers South Carolina's regulated professions, adds two more layers:

• Criminal: Under §40-1-200, practicing or offering to practice a regulated occupation in violation of that article is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison or a fine of up to $50,000.
• Civil: Under §40-1-210, the state can bring a civil action in the Administrative Law Court for an injunction, and the judge may impose a fine of up to $10,000 for each violation.

I haven't found a published South Carolina court decision applying these penalties to a wholesaler since the 2024 law took effect, and I won't guess at how often the Commission pursues them. What the November 2025 minutes show is a Commission that refers suspected workarounds for investigation. Ask your attorney how these provisions apply to your situation.

For a broader look at how other states treat wholesaling, see how other states regulate wholesaling.

Read The Law Yourself

These are the primary sources this page is built on. Read them, and bring them to your attorney:

• South Carolina Real Estate Practice Act (S.C. Code Title 40, Chapter 57), including the wholesaling definition at §40-57-30(44)
• Act No. 204 of 2024 (House Bill 4754) and its bill history
• Real Estate Commission wholesaling and assignment of contracts guidance (November 14, 2024)
• Real Estate Commission regulations (Chapter 105), which cover licensee advertising
• Penalties for unlicensed practice (S.C. Code Title 40, Chapter 1)
• State v. Buyers Service Co., 292 S.C. 426, 357 S.E.2d 15 (1987), the South Carolina Supreme Court case on attorney-supervised closings

Comparing South Carolina With Other States?

If you invest in more than one state, our state-by-state guide covers wholesaling licensing and assignment rules across the country. Its South Carolina section reflects the 2024 law and the Commission's November 2024 opinion, so you can see how far South Carolina's rules sit from what most national courses teach.

Download the state-by-state wholesaling guide

South Carolina Wholesaling Law FAQs

Final Thoughts On South Carolina's Wholesaling Rules

Buying houses at a discount and assigning contracts are both still legal in South Carolina. Marketing a home you don't own yet is what the 2024 law took away, and it made sure a license couldn't be used to get around that. For most new investors, that rules out the business model they were sold.

What's left still works. A buyer you partner with before you find the house, or a house you own before you sell it, avoids the problem completely. Both take more upfront work than sending a contract to a list. Both also hold up when the closing attorney looks at the file, which in South Carolina is the test that matters.

If you're starting here, pick one of those two routes before you talk to a single seller, and get your attorney involved before your first offer, not after.

About The Author

Alex Martinez

Founder & CEO, Real Estate Skills

Alex Martinez is the Founder & CEO of Real Estate Skills. He has wholesaled and flipped houses for over 14 years, been part of 1,000+ real estate transactions, and personally acquired 55+ residential investment properties. Through Real Estate Skills, he has trained 6,000+ investors nationwide in finding, analyzing and closing deals.

Full Bio LinkedIn YouTube Instagram

Real Estate Skills is not a law firm. This article is for educational purposes only and isn't legal, tax or financial advice. South Carolina's real estate laws and the Real Estate Commission's guidance can change, and how they apply depends on your facts. Consult a licensed South Carolina attorney before structuring or closing any real estate transaction.