South Carolina Eviction Record Sealing 2027: Filings Removed From the Public Index After 7 Years

A case that took months to resolve, through a hearing, an appeal, or a payment arrangement, has its 7-year clock measured from when that process actually ended, not from the day the eviction notice was first filed in court.

5. What "no additional filing" actually requires

The removal applies only if no additional filing is recorded against that tenant in the 7 years following the final disposition.

[Cite: S.C. Code 30-2-60, as enacted by Act No. 214 of 2026]

A tenant with one eviction case that concluded 7 years ago, but who faced a second eviction filing 3 years into that window, doesn't get the original case removed on its original timeline; a new filing against the same tenant disrupts the clean 7-year run this provision requires.

6. Why removal from the public index isn't the same as the record disappearing entirely

The article reporting on this law's enactment specifically noted the court may continue to retain the record internally, even after it's removed from the public index.

[Cite: South Carolina Public Radio, "Governor signs bill that seals eviction records in SC," May 20, 2026]

A tenant shouldn't assume a removed filing is gone from every system; what the law guarantees is that the general public, including a landlord running a routine background search, can no longer find it through the standard public index.

7. Why this doesn't mean landlords lose all visibility into rental history

One of the bill's sponsors specifically said the law isn't intended to hide rental history from a landlord conducting a legitimate screening process.

[Cite: South Carolina Public Radio, "Governor signs bill that seals eviction records in SC," May 20, 2026]

That legislative framing suggests the law's target is the broad, permanent public visibility of old filings, not a landlord's ability to screen a current applicant through whatever channels remain available; the exact scope of what access survives wasn't fully detailed in the sources reviewed for this article.

8. Why the effective date gives screening systems a runway

This law doesn't take effect until January 1, 2027, roughly 8 months after the governor's signature.

[Cite: H.4270, Act No. 214 of 2026]

That gap gives the court system and any screening companies that pull from public indexes time to adjust their processes before the automatic removal requirement actually starts operating on qualifying cases.

9. Why property managers should treat this as a data-practices issue, not just a legal one

Since this law governs what the public court index itself displays, a property manager's own internal tenant files and any third-party screening reports pulled before a record's removal aren't automatically updated by this law.

[Cite: H.4270, Act No. 214 of 2026]

A property manager relying on an old screening report that was pulled before a qualifying record's removal date should understand that report may reflect information the public index no longer shows going forward; screening practices built around current index data will naturally track the law's effect over time.

10. Why this interacts with, but doesn't replace, fair housing and screening law generally

This law specifically addresses the public visibility window for eviction filings; it doesn't change the broader legal framework governing how a landlord can use eviction history in a screening decision.

[Cite: H.4270, Act No. 214 of 2026]

A landlord's screening criteria and any fair housing obligations tied to how eviction history factors into a rental decision continue to apply independent of this law; what changes is simply how long a given filing remains visible through the standard public channel.

11. What property managers should do now

The practical starting point is understanding that public eviction-record searches conducted after January 1, 2027, may no longer surface qualifying filings older than 7 years with no further activity, and building that expectation into screening timelines and vendor conversations.

For any screening vendor or background-check service a property manager relies on, confirming how that vendor's own data refresh cycle accounts for this law's automatic removal mechanism helps avoid relying on stale index data that no longer matches what the public court system actually shows.