Terms Used In South Carolina Code > Title 31 > Chapter 13 - Moderate to Low Income Housing

• Admitted assets: means assets of an insurer considered admitted on the most recent statutory financial statement of the insurer filed with the department pursuant to § 38-13-80. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Admitted insurer: means an insurer licensed to do business in this State. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Advice and consent: Under the Constitution, presidential nominations for executive and judicial posts take effect only when confirmed by the Senate, and international treaties become effective only when the Senate approves them by a two-thirds vote.
• Affordable housing: means residential housing that, so long as the same is occupied by lower or very low income households, requires payment of monthly housing costs of no more than thirty percent of one-twelfth adjusted annual income. See South Carolina Code 31-13-410
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Annual income: means the anticipated total income from all sources received by the family head and spouse and by each additional member of the household, including all net income derived from assets. See South Carolina Code 31-13-410
• Annual percentage rate: The cost of credit at a yearly rate. It is calculated in a standard way, taking the average compound interest rate over the term of the loan so borrowers can compare loans. Lenders are required by law to disclose a card account's APR. ^{Source: FDIC}
• Answer: The formal written statement by a defendant responding to a civil complaint and setting forth the grounds for defense.
• Appointment: means an individual designated by an official or authorized representative of an authorized insurer to act on its behalf as a producer. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Authority: means the South Carolina State Housing, Finance, and Development Authority created by Act 500 of 1971. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Authority: means the South Carolina State Housing Finance and Development Authority. See South Carolina Code 31-13-410
• Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. ^{Source: OCC}
• beneficiary classes: means the class consisting of persons and families of low income and the class consisting of persons and families of moderate to low income. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Board: means the Board of Commissioners of the South Carolina State Housing Finance and Development Authority. See South Carolina Code 31-13-410
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• County: means any county in the State. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Credit report: A detailed report of an individual's credit history prepared by a credit bureau and used by a lender in determining a loan applicant's creditworthiness. ^{Source: OCC}
• Credit Score: A number, roughly between 300 and 800, that measures an individual's credit worthiness. The most well-known type of credit score is the FICO score. This score represents the answer from a mathematical formula that assigns numerical values to various pieces of information in your credit report. ^{Source: OCC}
• Crop insurance: includes insurance providing protection against damage to crops from unfavorable weather conditions, fire, lightning, flood, hail, insect infestation, disease, or other yield-reducing conditions or perils provided by the private insurance market, or that is subsidized by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, including Multi-Peril Crop Insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Department: means the Department of Insurance of South Carolina. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Designee or deputy director: means the person or persons appointed by the director, serving at the will and pleasure of the director as his designee, to supervise and carry out the functions and duties of the department as provided by law. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Director: means the person who is appointed by the Governor upon the advice and consent of the Senate and who is responsible for the operation and management of the department. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Eligible surplus lines insurer: means a nonadmitted insurer with which a licensed broker, or a licensed producer as provided in § 38-45-10(8)(b)(ii), may place surplus lines insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Entitlement: A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans' compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Escrow: Money given to a third party to be held for payment until certain conditions are met.
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Ex officio: Literally, by virtue of one's office.
• Executive director: means the executive director of the authority. See South Carolina Code 31-13-410
• Exempt commercial policies: means policies for commercial insureds as may be provided for in regulation issued by the director. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Federal mortgage: means a mortgage loan made by the federal government or for which there is a commitment by the federal government to make such a mortgage loan. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Foreclosure: A legal process in which property that is collateral or security for a loan may be sold to help repay the loan when the loan is in default. ^{Source: OCC}
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• fund: means the South Carolina Housing Trust Fund. See South Carolina Code 31-13-410
• Housing development costs: means the sum total of all costs incurred in the development of a residential land or housing development or project which are approved by the Authority as reasonable and necessary. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• housing project: means any work or undertaking which is designed and financed pursuant to the provisions of this chapter for the primary purpose of providing sanitary, decent and safe dwelling accommodations for persons and families of low income and persons and families of moderate to low income in need of housing. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Housing sponsor: means individuals, corporations, public housing authorities or other legal entities or any combination thereof appointed by the Authority to act and who shall have agreed either to own, construct, acquire, rehabilitate, operate, manage or maintain a housing development upon terms and conditions that insure the occupancy of such housing development by persons and families of low income and persons and families of moderate to low income upon terms compatible with the income capabilities of such persons and families. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
• insurance: includes annuities. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Insurance broker: means an individual licensed by the department to represent citizens of this State in placing their insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Insurance company: means an "insurer". See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Insurance premium service company: means a person engaged in the business of entering into insurance premium service agreements. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Insurer: includes a corporation, fraternal organization, burial association, other association, partnership, society, order, individual, or aggregation of individuals engaging or proposing or attempting to engage as principals in any kind of insurance or surety business, including the exchanging of reciprocal or interinsurance contracts between individuals, partnerships, and corporations. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• International major medical insurance: means a temporary health insurance policy that covers the expenses associated with illnesses or accidents that occur while traveling or when temporarily residing outside of a person's home country. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• License: means a document issued by the state's director or his designee authorizing a person to act as an insurance producer for the lines of authority specified in the document. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Life insurance: means a contract of insurance upon the lives of human beings. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Limited line credit insurance: includes credit life, credit disability, credit property, credit unemployment, involuntary unemployment, mortgage life, mortgage guaranty, mortgage disability, guaranteed automobile protection insurance, and another form of insurance offered in connection with an extension of credit that is limited to partially or wholly extinguishing that credit obligation that the director or his designee determines should be designated a form of limited line credit insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Limited line insurance: includes crop, travel surety, Federal Crop Insurance Program, and any other form of insurance that the director considers necessary in order to ensure compliance with the reciprocal provisions of this chapter. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Lower income household: means a single person, family, or unrelated persons living together whose annual income adjusted for household size is more than fifty percent, but less than eighty percent, of the median income of the area of residence as determined by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. See South Carolina Code 31-13-410
• Marine insurance: means each insurance against loss or destruction of or damage to aircraft, vessels, or watercraft and their cargoes; insurance covering the risks or perils of navigation, transit, or transportation of all forms of property, including the liability of a carrier for hire for the loss of property of shippers delivered for transporting; marine builder's risks; bridges, tunnels, piers, wharves, docks and slips, dry docks, marine railways, and other aids to navigation and transportation, precious stones, precious metals, and jewelry, whether in the course of transportation or otherwise; coverage of personal property by all risk forms known as the "Personal Property Floater"; and coverage of mobile machinery and equipment. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• Mortgage: means a mortgage or other instrument which constitutes a lien on improvements and real property or on a leasehold estate of duration satisfactory to the Authority or which can be insured to the satisfaction of the Authority. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Mortgage lender: means any bank or trust company, savings bank, national banking association, savings and loan association or building and loan association, life insurance company, mortgage banker or other financial institutions authorized to transact business in the State. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Mortgage loan: A loan made by a lender to a borrower for the financing of real property. ^{Source: OCC}
• Mortgage loan: means an interest bearing obligation incurred for the construction, rehabilitation or financing of residential housing or for land development and secured by a mortgage, except that such definition shall not preclude a mortgage loan made for the sole purpose of refinancing an existing mortgage loan. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Mortgagor: The person who pledges property to a creditor as collateral for a loan and who receives the money.
• Municipality: means any incorporated municipality or other political subdivision of the State. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Negotiate: means the act of conferring directly with or offering advice directly to a purchaser or prospective purchaser of a particular contract of insurance concerning substantive benefits, terms, or conditions of the contract, provided that the person engaged in that act either sells insurance or obtains insurance from insurers for purchasers. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Nolo contendere: No contest-has the same effect as a plea of guilty, as far as the criminal sentence is concerned, but may not be considered as an admission of guilt for any other purpose.
• Nonadmitted insurer: means an insurer not licensed to do an insurance business in this State. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Person: means a corporation, agency, partnership, association, voluntary organization, individual, or another entity, organization, or aggregation of individuals. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Persons and families of low income: means those individuals who are members of households whose gross income is less than the income of those within the definition of the class "Persons and families of moderate to low income". See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Persons and families of moderate to low income: means those individuals who are members of households whose gross income falls between seventy-five percent and one hundred fifty percent of the "median gross income" of all households in South Carolina as determined on the basis of the latest available statistics furnished to the Authority by the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Policy: means a contract of insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Premium: means payment given in consideration of a contract of insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Premium service agreement: means an agreement by which an insured or prospective insured promises to pay to an insurance premium service company the amount advanced or to be advanced under the agreement to an insurer or to an insurance producer or insurance broker in payment of premiums on an insurance contract together with a service charge as authorized by Chapter 39 of this title. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Presiding officer: A majority-party Senator who presides over the Senate and is charged with maintaining order and decorum, recognizing Members to speak, and interpreting the Senate's rules, practices and precedents.
• Probation: A sentencing alternative to imprisonment in which the court releases convicted defendants under supervision as long as certain conditions are observed.
• Probation: means allowing a licensed person the director has found to have violated South Carolina, any United States territory, or another state's laws to continue selling, soliciting, or negotiating insurance on behalf of an insurer. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• producer: means a person who represents an insurance company and is required to be licensed pursuant to § 38-43-10. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Professional bondsman: means as defined in § 38-53-10. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Property insurance: means each insurance against direct or indirect loss of or damage to a property resulting from fire, smoke, weather disturbances, climatic conditions, earthquake, volcanic eruption, rising waters, insects, blight, animals, war damage, riot, civil commotion, destruction by order of civil authority to prevent spread of conflagration or for other reason, water damage, vandalism, glass breakage, explosion of a water system, collision, theft of automobiles, and personal effects in them (but no other forms of theft insurance), loss of or damage to domestic or wild animals, and any other perils to property which in the discretion of the director or his designee form proper subjects of property insurance, if not specified in items (1), (7), (11), (35), (40), (54), or (59) of this section. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Real property: means all lands within the State, including improvements and fixtures thereon, and property of any nature appurtenant thereto or used in connection therewith and every estate, interest and right, legal or equitable, thereon, including leasehold estates. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Residential housing: means a specific work or improvement within the State which provides dwelling accommodations for persons and families of low income and persons and families of moderate to low income and such other recreational, community, educational and commercial facilities as may be incidental or appurtenant thereto as shall be approved by the Authority as necessary or desirable for the particular undertaking. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Runner: means as defined in § 38-53-10. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Sell: means to exchange a contract of insurance by any means, for money or its equivalent, on behalf of an insurance company. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• Solicit: means attempting to sell insurance or asking or urging a person to apply for a particular kind of insurance from a particular company. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Special appointment: means an individual designated by an insurer to supervise and assist other producers in the proper discharge of their duties under an insurer's policy contract. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• State: means the State of South Carolina. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• State Fiscal Accountability Authority: means the State Fiscal Accountability Authority. See South Carolina Code 31-13-170
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Surety: includes insurance or a bond that covers obligations to pay the debts, or answer for the default, of another, including faithlessness in a position of public or private trust. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Surety bondsman: means as defined in § 38-53-10. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Surplus lines insurance: means insurance in this State of risks located or to be performed in this State, permitted to be placed through a licensed broker, or a licensed broker as provided in § 38-45-10(8)(b)(ii), with a nonadmitted insurer eligible to accept the insurance, other than reinsurance, wet marine and transportation insurance, insurance independently procured, and life and health insurance and annuities. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Terminate: means the cancellation of the relationship between an insurance producer and the insurer or the termination of a producer's authority to transact insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Title insurance: means insurance of the owners of real property and other persons lawfully interested in the title insurance against loss by reason of defective titles and undisclosed liens and encumbrances affecting the property. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Tort: A civil wrong or breach of a duty to another person, as outlined by law. A very common tort is negligent operation of a motor vehicle that results in property damage and personal injury in an automobile accident.
• Transcript: A written, word-for-word record of what was said, either in a proceeding such as a trial or during some other conversation, as in a transcript of a hearing or oral deposition.
• Trust account: A general term that covers all types of accounts in a trust department, such as estates, guardianships, and agencies. ^{Source: OCC}
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• Truth in Lending Act: The Truth in Lending Act is a federal law that requires lenders to provide standardized information so that borrowers can compare loan terms. In general, lenders must provide information on ^{Source: OCC}
• Uniform agency application: means the current version of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners Uniform Business Entity Application for resident and nonresident business entities. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Uniform application: means the current version of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners Uniform Application for resident and nonresident producer licensing. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Uniform Commercial Code: A set of statutes enacted by the various states to provide consistency among the states' commercial laws. It includes negotiable instruments, sales, stock transfers, trust and warehouse receipts, and bills of lading. ^{Source: OCC}
• Usury: Charging an illegally high interest rate on a loan. ^{Source: OCC}
• Very low income household: means a household that has an annual income adjusted for household size of less than fifty percent of the median income of the area of residence as determined by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. See South Carolina Code 31-13-410