# ESA Letter in Conway, SC: When the Landlord Says Nothing

> Conway carries the lowest median rent of South Carolina's twenty largest cities. No statute makes a landlord answer an ESA request — so date the ask yourself.

- Source: https://supportanimal.com/blog/south-carolina-emotional-support-animal/conway/
- Publisher: Support Animal (supportanimal.com)
- Updated: 2026-08-20
- License note: informational content; not legal or medical advice.

## Key facts

- Population: 29,656
- Households renting: 34.6%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): No statutory cap
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): Varies by building
- Breed/weight limits common: yes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## The lowest rent on the list

Conway ranks twentieth among South Carolina municipalities and last on that
list: the Census Bureau's 2024 estimate puts it at 29,656. It holds 8,762
occupied homes, fewer than any other city in the top twenty, and renters
occupy 3,036 of them. That is a 34.6 percent share on 2020–2024 American
Community Survey five-year data, where South Carolina overall reads 28.1
percent.

The rent is what sets the town apart. Median gross rent here is $866; nowhere
else in that top twenty is cheaper, and it runs $314 a month under the $1,180
state median. Anderson, the next cheapest, sits at $975; Florence at $992;
Myrtle Beach, twenty minutes down 501, at $1,261.

Rent at that level is rarely collected by a leasing office with a compliance
officer in it. More often by somebody who owns a few houses and answers his
own phone. That changes little about the law and much about
how an accommodation request travels. It reaches a person rather than a
portal, and a person can simply not get back to you.

## No section of the code tells your landlord when to answer

South Carolina's Fair Housing Law is clear about the thing a landlord may not
do. Under § 31-21-70(G)(2), discrimination takes in "a refusal to make
reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services when such
accommodations may be necessary to afford the person equal opportunity to use
and enjoy a dwelling." A no-pets rule is a rule, and that sentence reaches it.

What the chapter never supplies is a date. No subsection gives a landlord
fourteen days, or thirty, or any number at all, in which to respond. Section
31-21-70(N) runs the other way. It provides that a
landlord "may ask" two questions and may request documentation. Permission for
the landlord, with nothing attached about how quickly he must use it or
conclude.

That silence is conspicuous in a code that writes deadlines elsewhere without
hesitation. Over in the tenancy act, § 27-40-410 gives a landlord exactly
thirty days to itemise deposit deductions "in a written notice to the tenant
together with the amount due, if any," and prices the miss at "three times the
amount wrongfully withheld and reasonable attorney's fees." Back inside the
housing chapter, § 31-21-120(E) allows the commission a hundred days to finish
an investigation. The General Assembly plainly knows how to put a clock on
somebody. It did not put one on the answer to your request.

## The two clocks that do exist both belong to you

Section 31-21-120(B) requires a complaint lodged with the state commission
that § 31-21-90(A) puts in charge of this chapter, the South Carolina Human
Affairs Commission, to be filed "within one hundred eighty days after the
alleged discriminatory housing practice occurred." Section 31-21-140(A) allows
longer in court: an action "must be commenced within one year after the
alleged discriminatory housing practice has occurred," and may be brought
"whether or not a complaint has been filed with the commission."

Read the trigger in each. Both run from the moment the practice *occurred*,
not from the day the landlord replied, and not from the day you
stopped waiting. Nothing in either section pauses while a request sits
unanswered. Four months of being told the owner is still thinking it over
spends four months of a hundred and eighty day allowance.

The asymmetry is worth stating plainly. He is under no deadline. You are under
two.

## What belongs in the first message

Since nothing obliges a reply, send the message that leaves the fewest reasons
not to give one.

The two questions a landlord may put are set out inside § 31-21-70(N)(1)
itself, in quotation marks: "Does the person seeking to use and live with the
animal have a disability that is a physical or mental impairment that
substantially limits one or more major life activities?" and "Does the person
seeking to use and live with the animal have a disability-related need for the
animal?" Answer both in the request itself rather than waiting to be asked,
and send the documentation in the same message.

Subsection (N)(2) sets what that documentation must reach: it "shall be deemed
sufficient if it establishes that an individual has a disability and that the
animal in question will provide some type of disability-related assistance or
emotional support." Leading with it collapses three rounds of correspondence
into one: a request, and then either a yes or a silence you can point at. A
certificate bought online is not that document, answers neither question, and
adds a round instead of removing one.

Date it, and send it by a route that keeps its own record: email, the tenant
portal, or a posted letter you photograph first. Not a conversation at the
counter.

## A verbal "we'll see" leaves the request open

What usually happens next in a small market is not a refusal. It is "let me
ask the owner," or "we don't normally do that, but I'll check," or nothing
for three weeks.

None of that is a decision, and none of it is evidence of one. Treat each as
an unresolved request rather than a soft no, and follow up in writing the same
day: on this date I asked for this, today you told me this, please confirm
your decision in writing.

Asking for a date back is not a demand the statute supports. You cannot
impose one on him. What the follow-up does is produce a record with dates in
it, and that matters because of § 31-21-120(G): before the commission, "the
burden of proof is on the complainant." An undated non-answer is the hardest
thing to complain about. A landlord who said nothing across a sequence of
dated messages you still hold is a different proposition.

Be careful with the claim in the other direction. The statute prohibits a
refusal, and no South Carolina authority holds that delay is itself one. Do
not plan on silence converting into a refusal on its own schedule. Plan on
your own two clocks, which run regardless.

## If the quiet goes on

Set a follow-up interval and keep to it. Keep every copy, unanswered ones
included, and write down who you spoke to and when.

Two provisions sit behind you while you do it. Under § 31-21-80 it is unlawful
"to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any person in the exercise
of" a right the chapter grants, and asking for an accommodation is exercising
one. Section 27-40-910 separately prohibits retaliatory conduct under the
tenancy act. Both are real, and both are proved the same way everything else
in this chapter is proved, with the paper you kept.

## Where a Conway tenant can get help

**United Way of Horry County** works locally on housing access, behavioural
health and basic needs, and points residents to services through a 211
resource line and a team of community resource coordinators. **SC 211** is the
statewide side of that same door, free and confidential and staffed at every
hour of the year: dial 2-1-1, ring 866-892-9211 if your line will not take
three digits, or send a ZIP code as a text message to 211-211. **Able SC**: a
cross-disability, consumer-controlled nonprofit running since 1994, and by its
own account the oldest and largest federally recognised disability-led
organisation in the state: works on advocacy and independent living
statewide. The **South Carolina Bar** keeps a Get Legal Help area aimed at
non-lawyers, landlord-and-tenant among its topics, next to a directory you can
search for a member.

No organisation on that list issues ESA letters. Each is a place to take a
dispute, not a place to obtain documentation.

## Get the document written before you send anything

Everything above assumes the documentation exists on the day you make the
request, because sending it late reopens the exchange you are trying to close.
Section 31-21-70(N)(2) fixes what it must establish: a disability, and "some
type of disability-related assistance or emotional support" the animal
provides. Reaching that judgement is clinical work, and it takes somebody
qualified who has sat down with you.

Already seeing a clinician? Ask them first: the cheapest route, so long as
you can absorb the wait for a slot and the work of explaining a request they
may never have handled. Public behavioural-health services are the next
option, slower still, and organised around treating people over time rather
than assessing one person once.

If neither route fits, the gap closes with an evaluation you book solely for
it: a few screening questions, a clinician holding a licence in this state,
and a document released only if the answers will carry it. Since it is drafted
against the same standard § 31-21-70(N)(2) already names, it can travel with
your first message: dated, complete, and leaving a Conway landlord nothing
to go quiet about.

## What Conway landlords can and cannot do

**Cannot:**
- Cannot refuse a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services where it may be necessary to give a person with a handicap an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling: S.C. Code Ann. § 31-21-70(G)(2), and 24 C.F.R. § 100.204(a) federally.
- Cannot treat a no-pets policy as the end of the conversation. A no-pets policy is a rule, and rules are what § 31-21-70(G)(2) requires be adjusted where an accommodation may be necessary.
- Cannot dismiss documentation that establishes a disability and a disability-related need. Under § 31-21-70(N)(2) such documentation "shall be deemed sufficient", the statute settles the question rather than leaving it to the landlord's taste.
- Cannot demand that the animal be registered, certified, or wearing a vest. South Carolina's own 2019 Act recorded in its preamble that no vest, marking or documentation is required for an animal to qualify, and that such things are not "a reliable indication" of anything.
- Cannot charge pet rent, a pet deposit or a pet fee for an approved assistance animal, because the accommodation is a change to a rule rather than permission to keep a pet.
- Cannot threaten a tenant with § 47-3-980 for making a housing request. That section penalises misrepresenting an animal as a service animal, expressly "does not constitute a criminal offense," and does not describe an emotional-support accommodation request under Title 31.
- Cannot coerce, intimidate, threaten or interfere with a tenant for exercising a right under the Fair Housing Law. § 31-21-80, with the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act's own § 27-40-910 alongside it.

**Can:**
- May ask the two questions § 31-21-70(N)(1) sets out: whether the person seeking to live with the animal has a disability that substantially limits a major life activity, and whether they have a disability-related need for the animal.
- May request documentation verifying the answers to those two questions, § 31-21-70(N)(2). What it may not do is keep asking after documentation that meets the statutory standard has arrived.
- May decline where the specific animal would be a direct threat to the health or safety of others or would cause substantial physical damage to the property of others. 24 C.F.R. § 100.202(d), assessed on that animal's actual conduct and history rather than its breed or weight. Note the authority: South Carolina's own threat clause at § 31-21-70(E) is written only against § 31-21-40(1) and (2), the two subdivisions that omit handicap, so it does not by its terms answer an assistance-animal request.
- May set the security deposit at any amount, because South Carolina caps none, but must itemise every deduction in writing within thirty days under § 27-40-410, on pain of treble damages.
- May fall outside §§ 31-21-40 and 31-21-60 entirely if the building holds no more than four families and the owner actually lives in one of them, § 31-21-70(A). The federal Fair Housing Act still applies on its own terms.

## How to get an ESA letter in Conway

1. **Check that you qualify**, Answer a short screening about how your condition affects daily life in Conway. No diagnosis paperwork needed up front. (About 5 minutes: free)
2. **Connect with a licensed professional**, You are matched with a provider licensed for South Carolina clients who reviews your situation in a telehealth evaluation. (Telehealth evaluation)
3. **Complete your evaluation**, The professional evaluates whether an emotional support animal alleviates symptoms of a condition recognized in the DSM-5. Honest evaluations, not everyone qualifies. (Most of Our Applicants Qualify)
4. **Receive your signed letter**, Your letter arrives on the professional's letterhead with their license number: the documentation South Carolina landlords may lawfully request. (Typically within days of approval)
5. **Send it to your landlord**, Submit the letter with a short reasonable-accommodation request. Pet fees, pet deposits, and breed limits no longer apply to your animal in Conway. (Protection under FHA + state law)

## Conditions that can qualify for an ESA

No fixed government list exists. A licensed professional evaluates whether an animal alleviates symptoms of a DSM-5-recognized condition, commonly:

- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Major depressive disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Panic disorder
- Social anxiety disorder
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Bipolar disorder
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Phobias with housing impact
- Chronic stress affecting daily function

## Housing help in Conway

- [United Way of Horry County](https://www.unitedwayhorry.org/) (community services)
- [SC 211](https://www.sc211.org/) (community services)
- [Able SC](https://www.able-sc.org/) (advocacy)
- [South Carolina Bar](https://www.scbar.org/) (legal information)

## Frequently asked questions

### How long does a Conway landlord have to answer my ESA request?

No period at all, which surprises most people who ask. Nothing in Title 31, Chapter 21 sets a response time for a reasonable accommodation request. What § 31-21-70(G)(2) prohibits is "a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services when such accommodations may be necessary to afford the person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling": a prohibition on the outcome, not a schedule for reaching it. Section 31-21-70(N) is drafted as permission rather than duty: a landlord "may ask" the two questions and "may request documentation." Nothing tells him when to use that permission or when to stop. That is not because South Carolina dislikes deadlines. Section 27-40-410 gives a landlord thirty days to itemise deposit deductions, and § 31-21-120(E) gives the commission a hundred days to investigate. The legislature writes clocks when it means to. It did not write one here, so the practical answer is to make the request in a form that dates itself.

### Does waiting for a reply pause my own deadlines in South Carolina?

It does not, and this is the single most expensive misunderstanding available to a tenant in this position. Under § 31-21-120(B), a complaint lodged with the state commission that § 31-21-90(A) puts in charge of this chapter, the South Carolina Human Affairs Commission, "must be filed within one hundred eighty days after the alleged discriminatory housing practice occurred." Section 31-21-140(A) requires that a civil action "must be commenced within one year after the alleged discriminatory housing practice has occurred," and adds that it may be brought "whether or not a complaint has been filed with the commission." Both triggers are the same: the practice occurring. Neither runs from the day a landlord finally answers, and no subsection suspends either while a request sits open. Four months of being told the owner is thinking about it is four months of a one-hundred-and-eighty-day allowance, spent without deciding to spend it.

### My Conway landlord never replied. Is that a refusal?

Do not assume so. South Carolina's statute prohibits a refusal, § 31-21-70(G)(2), and no South Carolina authority was found holding that a delay is itself one. Planning around silence ripening into a refusal on some schedule is planning around something the code does not say. What silence reliably does is make your position harder to prove, and that is a statutory point rather than an atmospheric one: § 31-21-120(G) provides that "the burden of proof is on the complainant." An undated non-answer, given verbally, to a request nobody wrote down, is close to unprovable. The same silence answered by a dated written request, a dated follow-up and no reply to either is a record. So the response to being ignored is not to conclude anything about what the ignoring means legally. It is to keep producing dated documents while your own two clocks run.

### What should I put in the first message to my landlord?

Everything he is entitled to ask for, so that asking becomes unnecessary. The two permitted questions are set out inside § 31-21-70(N)(1) itself, in quotation marks: "Does the person seeking to use and live with the animal have a disability that is a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities?" and "Does the person seeking to use and live with the animal have a disability-related need for the animal?" Answer both in the request rather than waiting to be asked. Then attach documentation meeting the standard in § 31-21-70(N)(2), which "shall be deemed sufficient if it establishes that an individual has a disability and that the animal in question will provide some type of disability-related assistance or emotional support." Sending it all at once turns three exchanges into one and removes the most common reason a request stalls. That it is waiting on something. Date the message and send it by a route that keeps its own copy.

### The leasing office said "we'll see" on the phone. What do I do now?

Treat the request as open, not declined, and write the same day. One paragraph does it: on this date I asked for an accommodation for my emotional support animal, today you told me this, please confirm your decision in writing. You cannot impose a date on him (the chapter gives you no mechanism to), but that is not what the follow-up is for. It exists to convert a verbal non-answer into a document with two dates in it, which is what § 31-21-120(G) will eventually require of you if the matter goes anywhere. Keep the reply if one comes and keep the silence if none does. A tenant who can produce a dated request, a dated follow-up and no answer to either is in a materially different position from one who remembers a conversation at the counter in roughly March.

### Are there any deadlines in South Carolina law that actually bind a landlord?

Yes, and the contrast is instructive. One sits at § 27-40-410 of the tenancy act: money kept back from a deposit "must be itemized by the landlord in a written notice to the tenant together with the amount due, if any, within thirty days after termination of the tenancy and delivery of possession and demand by the tenant, whichever is later", and the price of failing is "three times the amount wrongfully withheld and reasonable attorney's fees." That remedy is conditioned on the tenant giving a forwarding address in writing; put yours in the move-out email. On the enforcement side, § 31-21-120(E) requires an investigation to "be completed in no more than one hundred days," and § 31-21-120(F) sets a year for final administrative disposition unless impractical. Deadlines exist throughout this code. The one governing the answer to your accommodation request is simply not among them.

### Who in Conway can help if my accommodation request stalls?

Four doors, and they do different jobs. For the accommodation itself, nothing local decides it: the request goes to your landlord and, if refused, to the commission § 31-21-90(A) charges with administering the chapter, or to court. For getting pointed at a service, United Way of Horry County runs a 211 line with community resource coordinators; the statewide SC 211 is the same door, free and confidential, staffed every hour of the year, reachable by dialling 2-1-1, ringing 866-892-9211 where a line will not take three digits, or texting a ZIP code to 211-211. For disability advocacy and independent living, Able SC has operated since 1994. For a lawyer, the South Carolina Bar's public pages carry a landlord-and-tenant topic and a member directory. None of them writes ESA letters.

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Get evaluated by a licensed provider: https://my.supportanimal.com/qualify?sa_source=blog&sa_medium=blog&sa_campaign=esa-guides&sa_content=markdown&ref=blog&sa_term=south-carolina-emotional-support-animal%2Fconway