Question 1

When do you have to tell an open house visitor who you represent?

Accepted Answer

South Carolina makes this a first contact duty, not a closing table one. Section 40-57-370 requires a licensee to give the Disclosure of Brokerage Relationships form prescribed by the Real Estate Commission at the first practical opportunity to anyone the licensee has substantive contact with, and the chapter defines substantive contact as the point where talk moves past casual introductory conversation into a meaningful discussion of the person's buying or selling motives and objectives. Alongside the form you owe a meaningful explanation of the brokerage relationships your firm offers, including the difference between customer and client services. Keep the form at the sign in table so it goes across with the pen. If first substantive contact happened over the telephone or another electronic route including email, the statute lets the acknowledgement of receipt form be sent electronically.

Question 2

Can you call or text a visitor after the open house?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but South Carolina has its own telemarketing law on top of the federal rules, and it reaches texts. Section 37-21-20 defines a telephone solicitation to include a text or media message sent to a wireless telephone with a South Carolina area code for the purpose of offering property for sale, so a follow up text about the listing counts. Scrub your sign in list against the National Do Not Call Registry before you dial or text, using a version of the registry obtained no more than thirty-one days earlier, which is what the affirmative defense in Section 37-21-70 is built around. If a visitor asks you to stop contacting them, that request has to be honored for at least five years. Do not count on an established business relationship or a signed consent line to carry you past the registry, because Section 37-21-70 states no such exception and the chapter's exceptions for those are expressly written not to apply for the purposes of that section.

Question 3

Do you need a signed buyer agreement before showing someone through?

Accepted Answer

Not under South Carolina law. Section 40-57-370 presumes an unrepresented visitor is a customer of your firm and that the firm is acting as a transaction broker until that person signs an agency representation agreement, and Section 40-57-350 lists identifying and showing property for sale among the services a licensee may offer a customer, so walking a visitor through the house and answering questions is customer service rather than representation. The flip side is that representation never starts by accident: Section 40-57-370(E) provides that no agency relationship exists unless the party and the brokerage firm agree in writing, and that no type of agency may be created orally or by implication. If the visitor wants you to represent them, get the written agency agreement signed before you start acting like their agent. Your MLS or REALTOR association may separately require a written buyer agreement before touring, which sits on top of state law rather than replacing it.

Question 4

What do you owe a visitor whose contact details you keep?

Accepted Answer

A sign in sheet is a business record holding personal identifying information of a customer, which puts it under Section 37-20-190. When you get rid of it you have to shred, erase or otherwise modify the information so it cannot be read, rather than dropping the sheet in the trash, leaving it in the car, or handing the stack to whoever helped host. The same duty follows the data when it is digital, so deleting a spreadsheet off a shared laptop is not the end of the job. Collect only the fields you will actually use to follow up. If the list is breached and the information was not rendered unusable by encryption or redaction, Section 39-1-90 separately requires you to notify affected South Carolina residents in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay.

Open house rules for South Carolina agents

When do you have to tell an open house visitor who you represent?

Can you call or text a visitor after the open house?

Do you need a signed buyer agreement before showing someone through?

What do you owe a visitor whose contact details you keep?

How this page is put together

Open house rules where you also work

Your disclosure text, on the screen, at every open house