South Carolina Landscaping Licensing Law

South Carolina Code · 3 sections

The following is the full text of South Carolina’s landscaping licensing law statutes as published in the South Carolina Code. For the official version, see the South Carolina Legislature.

S.C. Code Ann. § 40-11-510

As used in this article:

(1) "Action" means a civil action in any forum, including an arbitration proceeding, for damages or indemnity asserting a claim for damages, injury, or loss arising out of an alleged defect, act, or omission relating to the design, construction, or condition of the alteration, modification, renovation, or repair of a nonresidential building or structure upon real estate including, but not limited to, utility systems, the boring, and equipping of wells, the preparation of plans, specification, and design drawings, and the work of making the real estate suitable as a site for the building or structure, surveying and staking, the grading, bulldozing, leveling, excavating, and filling of land including the furnishing of fill soil, the grading and paving of curbs and sidewalks and all asphalt paving, the construction of ditches and other drainage facilities, the laying of pipes and conduits for water, gas, electric, sewage, and drainage purposes, and the disposal of any construction and demolition debris, as defined in Section 44-96-40(6) including final disposal by a construction and demolition landfill of nonresidential property.

(2) "Claimant" means a person or entity who asserts a claim against a contractor, subcontractor, supplier, or design professional concerning an alleged defect, act, or omission relating to the design, construction, or condition of the alteration, modification, renovation, or repair of a nonresidential building or structure upon real estate including, but not limited to, utility systems, the boring, and equipping of wells, the preparation of plans, specifications, and design drawings and the work of making real estate suitable as a site for building or structure, surveying and staking, the grading, bulldozing, leveling, excavation, and filling of land including the furnishing of fill soil, the grading and paving of curbs and sidewalks and all asphalt paving, the construction of ditches and other drainage facilities, the laying of pipes and conduits for water, gas, electric, sewage, and drainage purposes, and the disposal of any construction and demolition debris, as defined in Section 44-96-40(6), including final disposal by a construction and demolition landfill of nonresidential property.

(3) "Construction defect" means a deficiency in or a deficiency arising out of the design, specifications, surveying, planning, supervision, or construction of nonresidential improvements that results from any of the following:

(a) defective material, products, or components used in the construction of nonresidential improvements;

(b) failure to substantially comply with applicable building codes in effect at the time of construction of nonresidential improvements;

(c) failure of the design of nonresidential improvements to meet the applicable professional standards of care and applicable building codes at the time of governmental approval of the design of nonresidential improvements;

(d) failure to construct nonresidential improvements in accordance with accepted trade standards for good and workmanlike construction at the time of construction; or

(e) failure to comply with applicable building codes. Substantial compliance with the applicable building codes in effect at the time of construction conclusively establishes construction in accordance with accepted industry trade standards with respect to all matters specified in those codes.

(4) "Contractor" means a person licensed or registered pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 11, Title 40, who is engaged in the business of designing, developing, or constructing nonresidential properties.

(5) "Design professional" means a person licensed or registered pursuant to the provisions of Title 40 as an architect, landscape architect, engineer, or surveyor.

(6) "Nonresidential property" means any property, building, structure, or improvement to real property that is not a dwelling as defined in Section 40-59-820.

(7) "Serve" or "service" means personal service or delivery by certified mail to the last known address of the addressee.

(8) "Subcontractor" means a contractor who performs work on behalf of another contractor in the construction of a nonresidential property who is licensed or registered pursuant to the provisions of Title 40.

(9) "Supplier" means a person who provides materials, equipment, or other supplies for the construction of a nonresidential property.

S.C. Code Ann. § 40-22-20

As used in this chapter:

(1) "ABET" means the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. "EAC" means the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET. "TAC" or "ETAC" means the Engineering Technology Accreditation Commission of ABET.

(2) "Approved engineering curriculum" means an engineering program of four or more years determined by the board to be substantially equivalent to that of an EAC/ABET accredited curriculum or the NCEES Engineering Education Standard.

(3) "Board" means the South Carolina State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Surveyors created pursuant to this chapter.

(4) "Branch office" means a place of business separate from the principal place of business where engineering services or surveying services are provided. A specific project or construction site office is not a branch office. Nothing contained in this chapter prevents a professional engineer or professional surveyor from undertaking an engineering project or a surveying project anywhere in the State.

(5) "Current certificate of registration" means a license to practice which has not expired or has not been revoked and which has not been suspended or otherwise restricted by the board.

(6) "Department" means the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.

(7) "Design coordination" includes the review and coordination of those technical submissions prepared by others, including as appropriate and without limitation, consulting engineers, architects, landscape architects, surveyors, and other professionals working under the direction of the engineer.

(8) "Direct responsibility", "direct supervisory control", "direct supervision", and "responsible charge" means that there is a clear-cut personal connection to the project or employee supervised, marked by firsthand knowledge and direct control and assumption of professional responsibility for the work.

(9) "Emeritus engineer" or "emeritus surveyor" means a professional engineer or surveyor who has been registered for fifteen consecutive years or longer and who is sixty-five years of age or older and who has retired from active practice.

(10) "Engaged in practice" means holding one's self out to the public as being qualified and available to perform engineering or surveying services.

(11) "Engineer" means a professional engineer as defined in this section.

(12) "Engineering surveys" means all minor survey activities required to support the sound conception, planning, design, construction, maintenance, operation, and investigation of engineered projects but exclude the surveying of real property for the establishment of land boundaries, rights-of-way, and easements and the independent surveys or resurveys of general land masses.

(13) "Engineer-in-training" means a person who has qualified for and passed the NCEES Fundamentals of Engineering examination as provided in this chapter and is entitled to receive a certificate as an engineer-in-training.

(14) "Ethics" means conduct that conforms to professional standards of conduct.

(15) "Firm" means a business entity functioning as a sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability partnership, professional association, professional corporation, business corporation, limited liability company, joint venture, or other legally constituted organization which practices or offers to practice engineering or surveying, or both.

(16) "Fraud or deceit" means intentional deception to secure gain, through attempts deliberately to conceal, mislead, or misrepresent the truth in a manner that others might take some action in reliance or an act which provides incorrect, false, or misleading information on which others might rely.

(17) "GIS" means geographic information systems.

(18) "Good character" refers to a person of good moral character and one who has not been convicted of a violent crime, as defined in Section 16-1-60, or a crime of moral turpitude.

(19) "Gross negligence" means an act or course of action, or inaction, which denotes a lack of reasonable care and a conscious disregard or indifference to the rights, safety, or welfare of others and which does or could result in financial loss, injury, or damage to life or property.

(20) "Incompetence" means the practice of engineering or surveying by a licensee determined to be either incapable of exercising ordinary care and diligence or lacking the ability and skill necessary to properly perform the duties undertaken.

(21) "Licensed" means authorized by this board, pursuant to the statutory powers delegated by the State to this board, to engage in the practice of engineering, or surveying, or engineering and surveying, as evidenced by the board's certificate issued to the registered license holder.

(22) "Misconduct" means the violation of a provision of this chapter or of a regulation promulgated by the board pursuant to this chapter.

(23) "NCEES examination" means those written or electronic tests developed and administered by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying for the purpose of providing one indication of competency to practice engineering.

(24) "Person" means an individual human being, firm, partnership, or corporation.

(25) "Practice of engineering" means any service or creative work, the adequate performance of which requires engineering education, training, and experience in the application of special knowledge of the mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences to such services or creative work as commissioning, consultation, investigation, expert technical testimony, evaluation, design and design coordination of engineering works and systems, design for development and use of land and water, performing engineering surveys and studies, and the review of construction for the purpose of monitoring compliance with drawings and specifications, any of which embraces such services or work, either public or private, in connection with any utilities, structures, buildings, machines, equipment, processes, work systems projects, and industrial or consumer products or equipment of control systems, chemical, communications, mechanical, electrical, environmental, hydraulic, pneumatic, or thermal nature, insofar as they involve safeguarding life, health, or property, and including such other professional services as may be necessary to the planning, progress, and completion of any engineering services. The mere execution, as a contractor, of work designed by a professional engineer or supervision of the construction of such work as a foreman or superintendent is not considered the practice of engineering. A person must be construed to practice or offer to practice engineering, within the meaning and intent of this chapter who:

(a) practices any branch of the profession or discipline of engineering;

(b) by verbal claim, sign, advertisement, letterhead, card, or in any other way represents himself to be a professional engineer or through the use of some other title implies that he is a professional engineer or that he is licensed under this chapter; or

(c) holds himself out as able to perform or does perform any engineering service or work or any other professional service designated by the practitioner or which is recognized as engineering.

(26) "Practice of TIER A surveying" means providing professional services including, but not limited to, consultation investigation, testimony evaluation, expert technical testimony, planning, mapping, assembling, and interpreting reliable scientific measurements and information relative to the location, size, shape, or physical features of the earth, the space above the earth, or part of the earth, and utilization and development of these facts and interpretation into an orderly survey map, site plan, report, description, or project. The practice of TIER A surveying consists of three separate disciplines: land surveying, photogrammetry, and geographic information systems. A surveyor may be licensed in one or more of the disciplines and practice is restricted to only the discipline or disciplines for which the land surveyor is licensed. The practice of TIER A surveying does not include the use of geographic information systems to create maps pursuant to Section 40-22-290, analyze data, or create reports. The scope of the individual disciplines are identified as follows:

(a) Land surveyor:

(1) locates, relocates, establishes, reestablishes, lays out, or retraces any property line or boundary of any tract of land or any road, right-of-way, easement, alignment, or elevation of any fixed works embraced within the practice of land surveying, or makes any survey for the subdivision of land;

(2) determines, by the use of principles of land surveying, the position for any survey monument or reference point; or sets, resets, or replaces such monument or reference; determines the topographic configuration or contour of the earth's surface with terrestrial measurements; conducts hydrographic surveys;

(3) conducts geodetic surveying which includes surveying for determination of geographic position in an international three-dimensional coordinate system, where the curvature of the earth must be taken into account when determining directions and distances; geodetic surveying includes the use of terrestrial measurements of angles and distances, as well as measured ranges to artificial satellites.

(b) A photogrammetric surveyor determines the configuration or contour of the earth's surface or the position of fixed objects on the earth's surface by applying the principles of mathematics on remotely sensed data, such as photogrammetry.

(c) A geographic information systems surveyor creates, prepares, or modifies electronic or computerized data including land information systems and geographic information systems relative to the performance of the activities described in subitems (a) and (b).

(d) An individual licensed only as a geodetic surveyor before July 1, 2004, determines the geographic position in an international three-dimensional coordinate system, where the curvature of the earth must be taken into account when determining directions and distances; geodetic surveying includes the use of terrestrial measurements of angles and distances, as well as measured ranges to artificial satellites. A geodetic surveyor is not authorized to perform the other services a land boundary surveyor is authorized to perform.

(27) "Practice of TIER B land surveying" includes all rights and privileges of TIER A surveying discipline defined in item (26)(a); and in addition to these rights and privileges, TIER B land surveying includes, for subdivisions, preparing and furnishing subdivision plans for sedimentation and erosion control and storm drainage systems, if the systems do not require the structural design of system components and are restricted to the use, where relevant, of any standards prescribed by local, state, or federal authorities. Regulations defining the scope of the additional powers granted to TIER B land surveyors must be promulgated by the board.

(28) "Private practice firm" means a firm as defined herein through which the practice of engineering or surveying would require a certificate of authorization as described in this chapter.

(29) "Private practitioner" means a person who individually holds himself out to the general public as able to perform, or who individually does perform, the independent practice of engineering or surveying.

(30) "Professional engineer" means a license holder who, by reason of his special knowledge of the mathematical and physical sciences and the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design, acquired by professional education and practical experience, is qualified to practice engineering as defined in this section as attested by his license and registration as a professional engineer in this State.

(31) "Professional surveyor" means a licensee who is qualified to practice any discipline of TIER A or TIER B surveying in this State, as defined in this section and as attested by his license and registration as a TIER A or TIER B professional surveyor in this State.

(32) "Professions of architecture, landscape architecture, and geology" mean those specified professions as defined by the laws of this State and applicable regulations.

(33) "Registered" means the engineer or surveyor is licensed and registered in the State.

(34) "Resident professional engineer" or "resident professional surveyor", with respect to principal office and branch office requirements, means a licensed practitioner who spends a majority of each normal workday in the principal or branch office.

(35) "Retired from active practice" means not engaging or offering to engage in the practice of engineering or surveying as defined in this section.

(36) "Surveyor-in-training" means a person who has qualified for and passed the NCEES Fundamentals of Surveying examination as provided in this chapter and is entitled to receive a certificate as a surveyor-in-training.

S.C. Code Ann. § 40-22-250

(A) The practice of or offer to practice professional engineering or surveying through a firm is permitted only through entities holding a valid certificate of authorization issued by the board. For the purposes of this section a certificate of authorization is also required for a firm practicing in this State under a fictitious name. However, when an individual is practicing engineering or surveying in his name as individually licensed, that person is not required to obtain a certificate of authorization.

(B) The practice or offer to practice of engineering and surveying by individual professional engineers or professional surveyors licensed under this chapter through a firm offering engineering services or surveying services to the public is permitted, provided:

(1) one or more of the corporate officers, one or more of the principal owners, or a full-time licensed employee are designated as being responsible for the professional services regulated by this board and are licensed under this chapter;

(2) all personnel of the firm who act on behalf of the firm as professional engineers or surveyors in this State are licensed under this chapter; and

(3) the firm has been issued a certificate of authorization by the board as required by this section.

(C) Before the issuance of a certificate of authorization, the board must be in receipt of the firm's appropriate documentation issued by the Secretary of State.

(D) A firm desiring a certificate of authorization shall file with the board an application on forms provided by the board accompanied by the registration fee as provided in regulation. Each certificate of authorization must be renewed biennially beginning April 1, 2009. A renewal form provided by the board must be completed and submitted with the biennial registration fee, the fee being an amount as provided in regulation.

(E) Disciplinary action against a firm must be administered in the same manner and on the same grounds as disciplinary action against an individual. No firm is relieved of responsibility for conduct or acts of its agents, officers, or employees by reason of its compliance with this section, and an individual practicing engineering or surveying is not relieved of responsibility for professional services performed by reason of his employment or relationship with the firm.

(F) A professional engineer and a professional surveyor engaged in practice through firms may maintain branch offices in addition to a principal place of business. A principal place of business as well as each branch office providing services in this State must have a resident professional engineer in responsible charge of engineering work or a resident professional surveyor in responsible charge of the field and office surveying work provided. A professional engineer must supervise the engineering activities of each branch office and a professional surveyor must supervise the surveying activities of each branch office. The resident professional engineer or resident professional surveyor is considered in residence in only one place of business at a given time.

(G) Nothing in this section may be construed to prohibit firms from joining together to offer engineering or surveying services to the public, if each separate entity providing the services in this State otherwise meets the requirements of this section. For firms practicing as a professional corporation under the laws of this State, the joint practice of engineering or surveying or both with the professions of architecture, landscape architecture, and geology is specifically approved by the board.

(H) If the requirements of this section are met, the board shall issue a certificate of authorization to the firm, and the firm may contract for and collect fees for professional engineering and/or surveying services. The board, however, may refuse to issue a certificate or suspend or revoke an existing certificate for due cause. A person or firm aggrieved by an adverse determination of the board may file an appeal as provided for in this chapter.

(I) Nothing in this section may be construed to mean that a firm may practice or offer to practice engineering or surveying without meeting individual licensure.

The law belongs to the people. Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 590 U.S. (2020)