Free tool · Greenville
What does a squatter cost you in South Carolina?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is South Carolina's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
South Carolina estimate
$32,392
Your numbers.
These are national starting points, not claims about your property. The one figure that drives the total — how long it drags on — is yours to set. Nobody can source it, so we do not pretend to.
How long before you get it back?
6 months
Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes. A contested removal runs in months, not weeks, almost everywhere; how it goes in South Carolina is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Greenville — $1,612/mo.
Mortgage / loan payment — per month
$
Only you know this one. The placeholder is roughly a $300k loan at current rates.
Lost rent or delayed sale — per month
$
HUD's Fair Market Rent for this metro, at the bedroom count you picked. It is the 40th percentile of recent-mover rents, so on a renovated or market-rate property it is a floor, not a valuation.
Attorney fees — one-off
$
No public data exists. Our estimate — nothing published backs it. No state bar and no court in any of these markets publishes fee data for an ejectment. Get a written quote and put it here.
Property taxes — per month
$
Your bill, divided by twelve. The placeholder is roughly a $250k property at Philadelphia's 1.3998% — Newark runs 1.845%, Los Angeles 1.187%.
Insurance — per month
$
No public data exists. Our estimate. Vacant cover genuinely does cost more, but the published figures for how much more disagree by a factor of five — anywhere from +25% to 5x. Use your own premium.
Utilities — per month
$
A national placeholder, unless your state overrides it below — Philadelphia's is the Water Department's own published bill. Whoever is inside, you are the ratepayer of record.
Damage and clean-out — one-off
$
No public data exists. Our estimate, and we want to be blunt: NO government body in the United States publishes squatter-damage data. Every figure you have seen quoted traces to one news story or to a lobby survey that counted houses, not dollars. We are not going to launder a number we cannot stand behind — put yours here.
If it happens in South Carolina
$32,392
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $3,982.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($3,982/mo × 6 mo)
$23,892
One-off costs (attorney, damage)
$8,500
What ruins you is the carry — the months. On top of this you will pay to file, for the sheriff to serve and remove, and for a lawyer. Those are set locally and we do not print a number we cannot cite — but next to the months, they are a sliver.
Can you get any of it back? NO — the court may order the occupant to pay your repair costs, service costs, and court costs, but attorney's fees are not on the statutory list.. Each item is a discretionary "may," available only after the post-order hearing, and attorney's fees are conspicuously absent from the list. A wrongful removal cuts the other way: § 27-37-300 gives the person removed without just cause restored possession, actual property damages, $1,000 in statutory damages, and court costs.
Why South Carolina costs what it does
South Carolina passed a fast removal law in June 2026 (H. 3387, Act No. 252). You file a sworn ("verified") petition with the clerk of court or chief magistrate, and the court can sign an order removing the occupant the same day, before the other side is heard — then a hearing follows within twenty-four hours. It is fast, but it is a judge who signs the order, not a sheriff acting on your affidavit alone: you still have to be, and appear to be, the real owner, and the court must dismiss the petition if you were not entitled to bring it. If your situation falls outside the new law — the home was previously leased, the occupant was once your tenant or is a relative, or a case is already pending — you are back on the older magistrate track (notice to quit, five days, then a warrant), which an occupant can stall by showing a "bona fide color of claim" and posting a bond.
How you must remove them
summary
“Upon the filing of a verified petition under this section, and for good cause shown in the petition, the court shall immediately issue an ex parte order to remove an unlawful occupant or occupants from property containing a residential dwelling.”
The statute
S.C. Code §§ 27-37-200 to 27-37-350 (Article 3, "Removal of Unlawful Occupants"), added by H. 3387 (Act No. 252, R 269); older trespass-ejectment route at §§ 15-67-610 to 15-67-640
Act No. 252, effective 2026-06-30
“Notwithstanding any provision of this chapter to the contrary, a property owner or representative of the property owner may seek relief for the removal of a person or persons unlawfully occupying property containing a residential dwelling under this article by filing a verified petition with the clerk of court or chief magistrate of the county in which the property is located.”
Two weeks old at time of review and quoted from the enrolled conference-report text on the Legislature's own server, because the codified Title 27 Chapter 37 sections had not yet been posted on scstatehouse.gov. Re-verify against the codified text once published.
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $1,221 · 2 bed $1,339 · 3 bed $1,612 · 4 bed $1,943
FY2026, effective 2025-10-01
HUD does not break Greenville out on its own — Greenville County sits in the undivided Greenville-Anderson, SC MSA and the same figures apply MSA-wide. All four values (1BR $1,221, 2BR $1,339, 3BR $1,612, 4BR $1,943; studio $1,166) confirmed against HUD's published FY2026 County-Town schedule for Greenville County; they differ correctly from the FY2025 figures (1BR $1,186, 2BR $1,318, 3BR $1,616, 4BR $1,934).
Do you get your legal fees back?
NO — the court may order the occupant to pay your repair costs, service costs, and court costs, but attorney's fees are not on the statutory list.
“(6) order the respondent to pay all costs of repair to the petitioner's premises or dwelling unit relating to damages caused by the respondent; (7) order the respondent to pay all costs associated with service of any ex parte order authorized against the respondent; or (8) order the respondent to pay court costs.”
Each item is a discretionary "may," available only after the post-order hearing, and attorney's fees are conspicuously absent from the list. A wrongful removal cuts the other way: § 27-37-300 gives the person removed without just cause restored possession, actual property damages, $1,000 in statutory damages, and court costs.
Is there a fast sheriff route?
NO — a judge signs first. The sworn petition goes to a court, not a sheriff, and the sheriff-on-affidavit bill (H. 5375 of 2024) died in House Judiciary.
“Once the court grants the order under this article, the authorized enforcement official shall enforce such order by removing the person or persons unlawfully occupying the property.”
South Carolina comes close to a bypass — the court can order removal ex parte, the same day, without the occupant heard — but a judicial officer signs the order and must dismiss the petition if the petitioner "is not authorized to seek relief or does not show good cause" (§ 27-37-230(B)). The bill that would have routed a verified complaint straight to the sheriff, H. 5375 of the 2023–2024 session, was introduced 2024-04-09, referred to House Judiciary, and never moved again. So the verification gap is still open: the statute asks the owner only to swear he is the owner and names no one whose job it is to check.
This is the bill for finding out too late.
Nothing on this page will get an occupant out, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. What DeedProof does is earlier and duller: it verifies you own the property, structures the statement you swear before a notary, and files it — so that if someone does break in, the officer at the door has something to work from instead of a lease they cannot check.
The decision still belongs to the officer. Our job is to make it an easy one.
This page is the money. The law behind it is on South Carolina’s guide — whether police can arrest, whether a sheriff can act on your affidavit alone, and how long occupation takes to become a claim. Every answer quoted from the statute.