How to Fill Out the SCR504: South Carolina Buyer’s Sale Contingency

The SCR504 South Carolina Buyer’s Sale Contingency is a one-page addendum your agent attaches to the main purchase contract to make your new home purchase conditional on selling your current one. Filling it out well comes down to four negotiable blanks: the Buyer’s Sales Period, two notification deadlines, and the number of business days you get to respond to a kick-out notice. Get those numbers right and the rest of the form takes care of itself.

Where to Get the Form

You don’t download the SCR504 yourself. It lives in the South Carolina Association of REALTORS form library, which requires a member login, and your agent or their broker-in-charge is the one who provides it. The South Carolina Real Estate Commission doesn’t maintain a public library of transaction forms. It places responsibility on each broker-in-charge to approve the forms used in the office and directs licensees to professional associations or real estate attorneys for the documents themselves.¹

If you aren’t working with an agent, a South Carolina real estate attorney can draft or provide a sale contingency addendum for you.

What the Form Attaches To

A checkbox at the top of the SCR504 identifies the primary residential contract the addendum is modifying, typically the SCR310 or SCR300.² Check the correct box so there’s no ambiguity about which contract the contingency governs.

The Property You’re Selling

List the full address of the home you need to sell, and indicate its current status: already listed on the MLS, under a pending contract, or not yet on the market. If it’s listed, include the MLS number and the listing firm’s name. A seller reading this is sizing up how realistic your timeline really is. A house already under contract is a different risk profile than one you haven’t listed yet, and giving the seller a clear picture here goes a long way toward getting the offer accepted.

The Buyer’s Sales Period

This is the most important blank on the form. The Buyer’s Sales Period is the window in which your existing home must close. You pick one of two options: a set number of calendar days before the closing date on the new home, or the closing date itself.²

If your home sale doesn’t close inside that window, either you or the seller can terminate the contract by written notice. There’s no automatic extension. Once the Buyer’s Sales Period expires without a closing, the deal is open to termination from either side.

The Two Notification Deadlines

Two additional blanks set how many business days you have to notify the seller and the agents of progress on your sale. The first governs how quickly you must report that your home has gone under contract. The second governs how quickly you must report that it has actually closed.²

Pick numbers you can realistically hit. If you miss either deadline, the seller gains the right to terminate outright. Too generous and the seller feels exposed and may push back during negotiation; too tight and you may trip the termination trigger over paperwork timing.

The Kick-Out Clause and Its Response Window

The kick-out clause is what makes the SCR504 acceptable to a seller. While your contingency is active, the seller can keep marketing the property and taking backup offers.² If a later offer arrives without its own sale contingency, the seller sends you written notice, and you have a negotiated number of business days to respond. The form doesn’t set that number for you. The parties agree on it when they sign.

Inside that window you have three choices:

Show your home is under contract. Provide documentation that your property has a signed sales agreement scheduled to close within the Buyer’s Sales Period, with no contingencies beyond financing and repairs.
Remove the contingency entirely. Waive the sale contingency and commit to buying the new home regardless of whether your current one sells. The form permits this only if removing the contingency doesn’t breach the good faith requirement of any financing contingency in the main contract.
Step aside. Agree to move to backup position behind the new offer, or let the contract terminate.

If you don’t respond inside the deadline, either party can terminate by notice. The seller isn’t freed automatically — written notice is still required — but you’ve lost your position.

Proving You Can Remove the Contingency

Removing the contingency is the highest-stakes move on the form. You’re telling the seller you’ll close on the new home whether or not your current one sells, and you need to show you can actually do it. Proof usually means recent bank statements with enough liquid cash to cover the purchase, or a firm mortgage commitment letter that doesn’t depend on proceeds from the other sale.

Retirement accounts and investments that take time to liquidate generally don’t qualify. The seller’s side is checking whether you can wire funds to closing on time, not whether your net worth looks healthy. Removing the contingency without the actual ability to follow through puts your earnest money at risk and exposes you to a breach-of-contract claim.

Your Obligations While the Contingency Is Active

The form requires you to make “timely good faith efforts” to sell your property and to avoid actions that work against that goal.² Pulling your listing off the MLS, refusing showings, or turning down reasonable offers can all be read as bad faith. You also authorize your listing agent to share relevant sales information with the seller’s side.

Expect the new property’s MLS status to change too. While the contingency is active, South Carolina MLS rules typically prevent the listing from being shown as “Active.” It will usually appear as “Active Contingent” or “Active Pending,” signaling to other buyers that the deal has a condition attached.² Some sellers resist this because it slows foot traffic.

If the Contract Terminates, What Happens to the Earnest Money

Earnest money disposition follows the terms of the primary contract. South Carolina law requires earnest money to be deposited in a designated trust or escrow account within 48 hours of written acceptance, and those funds stay in the account until the transaction closes or terminates.³

When both parties agree on who gets the money, the broker-in-charge disburses it accordingly. When they disagree, the funds sit in the trust account until the dispute is resolved by a written agreement signed by all parties, a court order, or another resolution method the statute permits.³ A properly handled termination under the SCR504, where you followed the notice rules and the Buyer’s Sales Period simply ran out, generally supports a refund to the buyer, but the actual outcome depends on the specific contract language and whether the due diligence period has passed.

How to Deliver the Form and Notices

The SCR310 and related contracts recognize three delivery methods for notices and addenda: physical delivery to the brokerage address, email to the designated agent’s email address, and fax to the brokerage fax number. Text messaging is excluded by design.⁴ The zipForms Digital Ink platform, available as an SC REALTORS member benefit, creates a timestamped record of delivery and execution that holds up if a dispute arises about whether notice was timely.

Once signed by all parties, the SCR504 becomes a binding part of the purchase contract. Send a copy to the escrow agent or closing attorney holding the earnest money so they can track the contingency status and handle the funds correctly if the deal terminates.

1
South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. Commission Approved Forms and Resources
2
South Carolina Association of REALTORS. SCR 504 – Buyer’s Sale Contingency For Sale Of Buyer’s Property
3
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 40-57 – Real Estate Brokers, Brokers-in-Charge, Associates, and Property Managers
4
South Carolina REALTORS. SCR310 Requires Signed + Initials + Dates + Deliver + Received + Awareness of Receiving