A Grievance From a Neighbor Ended Her 7-Yr House Swimming Faculty

The twin joys of swimming and instructing have all the time been central for Libby Souder. For years, the Columbia, SC, resident gave personal swim classes to native kids in her yard pool, which was extra accessible and comfy than public swimming pools, particularly for younger kids and people with disabilities.

Each 12 months, Souder had her enterprise license renewed by the town’s zoning administrator with out subject. She sometimes taught for a couple of months main as much as summer season swim season, a toddler or two at a time, two to a few hours a day. Everything was easy—till it wasn’t.

The arrival of a brand new neighbor threw a wrench into Souder’s enterprise, and now she is suing the town of Columbia, with the chance that the South Carolina Supreme Court must weigh in.

At stake is extra than simply her capability to run her enterprise; it is a query of whether or not the federal government can regulate on the expense of particular person property rights, and what which means for anybody searching for to run a enterprise out of their house. 

A house enterprise is born

In giving swimming classes out of her house, Souder was working towards a practice handed right down to her. “I learned to swim myself in a lady’s backyard in Columbia,” she says.

Souder received her enterprise license in 2018, and says yearly after that, the town renewed it with out subject. She taught two to a few hours a day, April by July, in a heated pool in her personal yard, with lush greenery and a fence she claims assist soak up sound. She invested within the enterprise accordingly—conserving her pool heated, fixing the heater when it broke, and constructing a second driveway so her shoppers would not park on the road.

As a trainer, Souder says she all the time tried to stability the wants of her college students with what was finest for the neighborhood. 

“The majority of my shoppers are in all probability ages 2 to five. I take advantage of a really optimistic method; children do higher when it is not irritating. They do not retain something in the event that they’re crying,” she says. “I try to be really respectful of the neighbors. Last year I had one child who just wasn’t getting with the program, and I moved him down the street to the neighborhood pool, because he was crying and screaming and I didn’t want that next door to my neighbors.”

Souder says she never heard complaints from the city or neighbors during those years. “When I look back, I probably would have gone a different route for those eight years had I known what would happen.”

A new neighbor has his say

Everything was going swimmingly, as far as Souder was concerned. Then in 2024, a new neighbor prepared to move in next door and contacted Columbia’s Zoning Department, arguing that Souder’s business caused excessive noise and traffic. The neighbor had not yet moved in when the complaints began.

What followed was a confusing series of communications. Souder received violation notices from the city, but when she reached out to address them, the city never responded. When she sought to renew her license in 2025, she was told over the phone that it would not be renewed—and then received an email saying it had been approved, with no license attached.

“Everything was wishy-washy,” Souder says. “They didn’t give me straight answers.”

The city eventually issued a formal written interpretation in July 2025, concluding that under the city’s Unified Development Ordinance, home businesses must be conducted within a “fully enclosed, lawfully approved structure which is accessory to the residential use”—and that a fenced-in outdoor pool does not qualify.

Souder took legal action to clarify her license status and keep teaching while the matter was sorted out. The legal maneuvering culminated in a Board of Zoning Appeals hearing in September 2025, where more than 30 neighbors submitted letters of support and three spoke on her behalf. 

“I’ve never seen one with this level of support,” says Robert Fellner, an lawyer with the Institute for Justice, which has joined Souder’s authorized motion as a part of its Zoning Justice Project. “It really reiterated that this harm isn’t just Libby’s. It’s the community who really, really want to be able to get these life-saving swim lessons for their children.”

Only one individual spoke in opposition to Souder. Despite this, the board voted 3-2 to uphold the town’s interpretation, successfully banning her enterprise.

Not everybody has been sympathetic to Souder’s scenario. At least one former shopper, quoted in local outlet FITSNews, referred to as her operation “an absolute nuisance” and disputed her characterization of the enterprise’s scale. The neighbor on the heart of the dispute, who spoke to Realtor.com® and requested to stay nameless, stated the identical.

“Mrs. Souder was operating a very active commercial business in a high-end residential neighborhood,” the neighbor says. “Every property owner in the City of Columbia is afforded the right to peaceful enjoyment of their property.” 

Souder, for her half, disputes the characterization. She acknowledges that the amount of her enterprise modified from 12 months to 12 months and that her sons helped educate every now and then, however says she by no means taught greater than two children at a time.

“We haven’t had a camp here in at least three years,” she says. “No one ever had an issue, no one spoke to me, no one said it was a problem.”

Pick your authorized argument

Now, with the assistance of the Institute for Justice, Souder has filed a lawsuit in opposition to the town of Columbia. And paradoxically, because the combat with the town has intensified, the unique battle along with her neighbor appeared to deflate.

“When he did witness swim lessons [in June of 2025], the neighbor sent a text and told us he had no problem with the lessons the way they were going on—with children who were quiet and that behaved. And then ultimately he changed his tune and decided it was his duty to help us get swim lessons back,” Souder says.

But at this level, the combat is past him. “Our fight is 100% with the city of Columbia,” she says.

Fellner, the IJ lawyer, helps make three distinct arguments for Souder. The first is that the town’s blanket ban on outside house companies is unconstitutional as utilized. 

“If the government is going to deprive someone of the right to use their private property or earn an honest living, they need a good reason,” he says. “Teaching private swim lessons in a backyard pool at normal hours, not causing noise problems, not causing traffic problems—there is no good reason to shut that down.”

The second argument is equal safety. Columbia not solely permits house daycares to function open air, it truly requires them to have an out of doors play space for as much as six kids.

“It really highlights the irrationality,” Fellner says. “Six kids running around outside is fine, but you can’t have one kid in a pool.” 

The third is “equitable estoppel”—the authorized precept that the town can not mislead somebody into fairly believing they’re working lawfully, then reverse course.

“The city told Libby what she was doing was fine. She had every reason to think she was operating lawfully,” Fellner says. “And now they’re pulling the rug out from under her. That’s both unjust and unlawful.”

Realtor.com reached out to the City of Columbia’s Zoning Division and its public relations, media & advertising division for touch upon the case. The metropolis didn’t reply to repeated requests.

What’s subsequent for the case

On April 2, the case cleared a key procedural hurdle, with a choose rejecting the town’s makes an attempt to dam it from transferring ahead. A ruling on the circuit courtroom stage might come inside roughly 4 months. From there, both aspect can attraction on to the South Carolina Supreme Court—and Fellner says in the event that they lose, they’ll attraction.

“The goal is for the South Carolina Supreme Court to declare this law unconstitutional,” he says. “So not only can Libby go back to work, but similar laws can’t be passed going forward.”

For Souder, the wait couldn’t come at a worse time. Spring swim season—the stretch from April by July when her heated pool made her enterprise uniquely invaluable to households—is arriving once more, and he or she will not be instructing.

“It’s been very upsetting,” she says. “I simply by no means anticipated for issues to return to this. If the town had come to me and stated, hey, this appears to be a difficulty, I’d have been like, what’s the issue? Let’s repair it. It actually was not insurmountable.”