Louisiana HOA laws & resources.

Laws & regulations impacting Louisiana associations.

Louisiana’s homeowners-association law changed on 1 January 2025, and most of the advice in circulation describes the statute that was replaced. Acts 2024, No. 158 repealed the nine-section Louisiana Homeowners Association Act and put the Louisiana Planned Community Act in its place — fifty sections, with open board meetings, thirty days’ notice, a statutory quorum, proxies and ballots, an eleven-category records right and, in a community of more than twenty-five lots, a budget the owners ratify. The same Act did not touch the Condominium Act, so a unit owner received none of it. Add the corporation chapter that supplies the procedure, the fair-housing chapter that reaches past your declaration, and — because this is the civil-law state — the Civil Code, where the covenant itself lives. Together with the federal laws that apply nationwide, that is the whole of it. HOPB hosts the full text of every one, each with a plain-language guide.

Louisiana HOA law guideEvery Louisiana statute that governs community associations, indexed by the decision you are making — starting with the one that now decides the most, which is whether you own a lot or a unit.

Eight things are worth knowing about how Louisiana HOA law works:

• What you own decides which statute, and the gap between them opened in 2025. A lot in a community whose declaration obliges owners to pay assessments falls under the Planned Community Act, R.S. 9:1141.1 to 9:1141.50 — whose definition says a planned community “shall not include condominium property subject to the Louisiana Condominium Act” (§ 9:1141.2(26)). A unit falls under the Condominium Act, R.S. 9:1121.101 to 9:1124.117. Across all sixty-three sections of that Act the amendment years are 1979, 1988, 2003, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2019 and 2022 — there is no 2024. Two Louisiana owners with the same complaint about the same conduct now stand on materially different ground.
• The new Act reaches back, but it does not rewrite. Section 9:1141.3(A) applies it to “existing and future planned communities whose declarations have been duly executed and filed for registry” — and in the same subsection it “shall not be construed to affect the validity or superiority of any provision of a community document filed for registry prior to January 1, 2025.” Subsections (F), (G) and (H), with § 9:1141.6(F), protect a pre-2025 community’s ownership of common areas, its organisational structure, its method of amending documents and its method of calculating assessments.
• Three vote words, and one of them is far harder than it looks. A majority vote is more than fifty percent of the voting interest present at a duly called meeting; a two-thirds vote is two-thirds of those present; but a supermajority vote is more than eighty percent of the voting interest in the association — of everyone, not of those who turned up (§ 9:1141.2(21), (33), (34)). That is the threshold for prohibiting or materially restricting the use of a lot, and for establishing or increasing a minimum lease term, which § 9:1141.14(C)(5) expressly makes a “more burdensome restriction”. Design and aesthetic standards are the deliberate exception at two-thirds, and reach only new exterior work increasing the improvements’ value by more than forty percent.
• An association must be a nonprofit corporation — and a condominium association need not be. Section 9:1141.19: a lot owners association “shall be organized as a nonprofit corporation authorized to do business in Louisiana”, and must be formed before the declaration is filed. There is no choice of entity for an association formed from that date — though § 9:1141.3(G) does not require an association that existed before it to change its organisational structure. A condominium association may be “organized as a profit or nonprofit corporation, or as an unincorporated association” (§ 9:1123.101). Where the community documents are silent, the Planned Community Act sends you to the Nonprofit Corporation Law, R.S. 12:201 et seq. (§ 9:1141.20(H)) — not to the Business Corporation Act. If you have read that a Louisiana HOA may be a nonprofit corporation, an unincorporated association or any other legal entity the declaration creates, that claim traces to § 9:3198(A)(4), which, “[a]s used in this Subsection”, defines an association as “a nonprofit corporation, unincorporated association, or other legal entity which is created pursuant to a declaration whose members consist primarily of lot owners” — a definition written so a seller’s duty catches every community however organised, and never a statement of what an association may be.
• Neither privilege is a super-lien, and they work differently. A planned-community association’s privilege is effective against third persons from the moment it is filed and outranks only what becomes effective after that, yielding to the Private Works Act (§ 9:1148(B)); it must be preserved by suit and a notice of pendency within one year where the assessment was imposed for an alleged violation of the community documents, or five years where it was for periodic dues or for particular expenses or capital improvements (§ 9:1148(A)). A condominium privilege is superior except to anything recorded before the declaration, anything recorded before the privilege itself, property taxes and governmental assessments in which the unit is specifically described (§ 9:1123.115(C)) — so a purchase-money first mortgage outranks it — and lasts five years before peremption. Both start with a written demand, but not the same one, and Part III reaches condominium associations too — § 9:1145(A) names associations organised under § 9:1123.101 as well as § 9:1141.19, and raises a privilege “on a lot or unit”. Part III gives thirty days after written demand (§ 9:1146(B)(1)); the Condominium Act requires a sworn statement served seven days before filing (§ 9:1123.115(A)(3)). Check the paperwork you were served with against both. Ask for the payoff figure in a record and the association has ten business days — and the statement binds it (§ 9:1145(D)).
• Louisiana fair housing protects nine characteristics, not seven, and the attorney general runs it. The Equal Housing Opportunity Act covers race, colour, religion, sex, disability, familial status and national origin — plus natural, protective, or cultural hairstyle (Acts 2022, No. 529) and military status (Acts 2025, No. 100), the former defined to include afros, dreadlocks, twists, locs, braids, cornrow braids, Bantu knots and curls (§ 51:2603(11)). It reaches an association because § 51:2606(A)(6)(c)(ii) makes it discrimination to refuse “to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services”. “The authority and responsibility for administering this Chapter are with the Louisiana Department of Justice, office of the attorney general” (§ 51:2610(A)). Complaints go there within one year (§ 51:2611(B)); the private two-year action under § 51:2613(A) is brought in state court and is available “[i]f no complaint has been filed with the attorney general” — a complainant who went to the attorney general proceeds under (C). Electing federal court forecloses the same claim in state court (§ 51:2613(H)), though nothing forecloses the reverse. The federal Fair Housing Act applies independently, and complaints may go to HUD↗ or the Attorney General’s fair housing office↗.
• Solar panels: the protection is real, and it has a subsection most summaries drop. R.S. 9:1255(B): “No person or entity shall unreasonably restrict the right of a property owner to install or use a solar collector.” But subsection (C) says the Section “shall not supersede zoning restrictions, servitudes as provided by Civil Code Article 697 et seq., or building restrictions, as provided by Civil Code Article 775 et seq., which require approval prior to the installation or use of solar collectors” — so an architectural-approval requirement in your declaration survives; what does not survive is exercising it unreasonably. And subsection (D) switches the protection off entirely for “property or areas which have been identified as historic districts, historical preservations or landmarks” by a preservation, landmarks, planning or zoning commission. Information on renewables from the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources↗ and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory↗. The United States flag is the one covenant Louisiana strikes down — R.S. 9:1114, enacted by Acts 2025, No. 224, overrides any covenant, declaration, lease or rental agreement outlawing or restricting a removable, portable flag of the United States, and gives an owner injunctive relief with costs and attorney fees. It is not a licence to ignore the rulebook: subsection (B) leaves an association or lessor free to adopt and enforce reasonable provisions as to the size, time, place and manner of display.
• Around the edges — and in Louisiana the edges are the Civil Code. Your covenants are building restrictions under Civil Code articles 775 to 783: real rights likened to predial servitudes (art. 777), which may impose affirmative duties but not a fee on alienation, lease or encumbrance (art. 778), and which can be lost — under art. 781 no action may be brought more than two years from the commencement of a noticeable violation, after which “the immovable on which the violation occurred is freed of the restriction that has been violated.” Doubt is resolved “in favor of the unrestricted use of the immovable” (art. 783) — though the same article makes the Condominium, Timesharing and Planned Community Acts supersede that Title on conflict, and § 9:1141.3(E) requires a building restriction affecting association property to be liberally construed instead. That, the private transfer fee rules that expressly do not touch your assessments, the volunteer-director shield, and what a seller must disclose about your association are all collected on the related-laws page. Verified across all 6,998 sections we hold: Louisiana has no political-sign statute, and nothing protecting clotheslines, rain barrels, xeriscaping or EV charging from an association’s rules.

Find HOA contact information & documents.

• HOA Directory↗ — the Secretary of State’s commercial search. Enter the name of the community or subdivision to find the association’s registered agent and address, its officers and directors, and its filed documents including the articles of incorporation. A planned-community association formed since 1 January 2025 must be a nonprofit corporation (§ 9:1141.19), so it should be here — while one that predates that date need not have reorganised (§ 9:1141.3(G)); a condominium association may lawfully be an unincorporated association (§ 9:1123.101) and may not be. Every nonprofit corporation must file an annual report naming its registered office, agent, directors and officers (§ 12:205.1) — and three consecutive years of missed reports means the Secretary of State shall revoke the articles (§ 12:262.1(A)) — after thirty days' notice to the registered agent, and not at all if the corporation puts itself back in good standing.
• Louisiana Secretary of State↗ — elections, business filings, licensing and securities.
• HOA documents are parish records, in two different registers. Louisiana has no counties and no county recorder. The declaration, its amendments, plats and the community’s restrictive covenants are filed in the conveyance records of the parish — each parish in which any part of the community sits (§ 9:1141.4(A)); a statement of privilege for unpaid assessments is filed in the mortgage records (§ 9:1147(A)). Ask the Clerk of Court for the parish where the property is located.
• What recording does, precisely. The two Acts are worded differently and the difference matters. A planned-community declaration “shall be effective when filed for registry in the conveyance records of each parish in which any portion of the immovable property is situated” (§ 9:1141.4(A)). A condominium declaration “shall be effective against third parties when filed for registry in the conveyance records in the parish in which the immovable property is located” (§ 9:1122.101). Building restrictions themselves are established by juridical act of the owner or of all affected owners (Civil Code art. 776). So record them — but unrecorded, therefore unenforceable against anyone is not what either provision says.
• Ask the association directly, and note the deadlines. A lot owner may examine and copy eleven categories of association record, subject to seven grounds for withholding (§ 9:1141.36); a unit owner’s right is the single sentence in § 9:1123.108. A buyer gets more: a condominium resale certificate must be furnished by the association within ten days of the seller’s request, and the purchase contract is voidable until it has been provided and for five days afterwards, or until conveyance, whichever comes first (§ 9:1124.107(B), (C)). In a planned community of fewer than seventy-five lots no public offering statement is required, but on a resale the association must supply the same information within ten days of a request (§ 9:1141.43(E)).