Louisiana related & miscellaneous statutes

Acts 2025, No. 224 added a section that overrides your declaration. It is not in the Planned Community Act, not in the Condominium Act, and not on any summary of Louisiana HOA law written before this year.

“Notwithstanding any covenant, declaration, contractual provision, lease, or rental agreement, no planned community, condominium association, or lessor shall adopt or enforce any provision outlawing or restricting an individual from displaying a removable, portable flag of the United States” (§ 9:1114(A)). Note the reach: planned communities, condominium associations and landlords, all three.

What survives is regulation, not prohibition. Nothing stops an association or lessor “from adopting or enforcing reasonable provisions as to the size, time, place, and manner of displaying the flag” (§ 9:1114(B)). So a rule about bracket height or flag dimensions can stand; a rule that says no flags cannot.

And it is enforceable by an owner, not just defensible. “Injunctive relief shall be available when a violation of this Section occurs. In the event that injunctive relief is granted, court costs and reasonable attorney fees shall also be made available” (§ 9:1114(C)).

One rule sits next to it and points the other way. On the Planned Community Act side, § 9:1141.37(D) requires that any rule regulating display of the United States flag be consistent with federal law. Section 9:1114 is the state-law floor underneath that.

This is the card that has no equivalent in any other state on this site. Louisiana is a civil-law jurisdiction: the restrictions in your declaration are building restrictions, an institution of the Civil Code, and the Revised Statutes are ancillary to them.

What they are. “Building restrictions are charges imposed by the owner of an immovable in pursuance of a general plan governing building standards, specified uses, and improvements. The plan must be feasible and capable of being preserved” (art. 775). They are “incorporeal immovables and real rights likened to predial servitudes”, regulated by the rules for predial servitudes so far as those are compatible (art. 777). They may be established only by juridical act of the owner, or of all the owners of the affected immovables (art. 776).

They can require you to do things, but not to pay on a sale. Building restrictions may impose “affirmative duties that are reasonable and necessary for the maintenance of the general plan” — and may “not impose upon the owner of an immovable or his successors the obligation to pay a fee or other charge on the occasion of an alienation, lease or encumbrance of the immovable” (art. 778, second sentence added in 2010).

Enforcement is by injunction, on easier terms than usual. They may be enforced “by mandatory and prohibitory injunctions without regard to the limitations of Article 3601 of the Code of Civil Procedure” (art. 779).

THE TWO-YEAR CLOCK — the most important sentence on this page. “No action for injunction or for damages on account of the violation of a building restriction may be brought after two years from the commencement of a noticeable violation.” And then: “After the lapse of this period, the immovable on which the violation occurred is freed of the restriction that has been violated.” (art. 781, amended by Acts 2024, No. 184). A violation is noticeable “when an apparent activity has occurred on the immovable in violation of the building restriction”, and recording an instrument that provides for a violation is not itself a noticeable violation. Two things follow: an association that sleeps on an apparent violation for two years loses more than its remedy — that property is freed of that restriction; and a violation nobody could notice does not start the clock.

Amendment, if your documents are silent. Building restrictions may be amended or terminated as the establishing act provides. Failing that: by owners representing more than one-half of the land area affected, if the restrictions have been in effect at least fifteen years; or by owners representing two-thirds of the land area and two-thirds of the owners, if in effect more than ten years — both measured excluding streets and street rights-of-way (art. 780).

Abandonment ends them too. A general abandonment of the whole plan frees the area of all restrictions; abandonment of one particular restriction frees it of that one only (art. 782).

And doubt cuts against the restriction. “Doubt as to the existence, validity, or extent of building restrictions is resolved in favor of the unrestricted use of the immovable” (art. 783). A publication note: art. 783 currently appears in two versions, the older naming the “Louisiana Homeowners Association Act” and the version effective 1 January 2025 naming the Louisiana Planned Community Act — both saying that the Condominium Act, the Timesharing Act and that Act supersede this Title in the event of a conflict. And inside a planned community the presumption is reversed for association property: § 9:1141.3(E) requires that the existence, validity and extent of a building restriction affecting it be “liberally construed to give effect to its purpose and intent.”

Part III of Chapter 1 serves both kinds of association. § 9:1145(A) authorises associations “including associations organized in accordance with R.S. 9:1123.101 or 1141.19” — condominium and planned-community alike — to enforce assessments, and gives a privilege on the lot or unit for any assessment attributable to it or any fines imposed against the owner. And note what that means for a condominium owner: the Condominium Act carries its own privilege at § 9:1123.115, with a different notice period, a different rank and a different deadline — but Part III reaches condominium associations too, and § 9:1145(B) defines an association to include one whose members own “units in a condominium regime”. These are not alternatives sorted by which kind of association you belong to; both address a condominium association on their face. Which procedure you are actually facing is a question about the filing you were served with, so check its dates against both sections.

Ask for the number, and it binds them. Within ten business days of a request made in a record, the association must furnish a statement of unpaid assessments against your lot or unit, and “[t]he statement shall be binding on the association” (§ 9:1145(D)). That is the provision to use before a closing.

Written demand first, then thirty days. The association shall make written demand, by mail or commercial courier to the address the owner designated, by email to a designated address, by hand delivery to the lot or unit if the owner designated neither, or by any method reasonably calculated to give notice; the owner then has thirty days to pay (§ 9:1146(A), (B)(1)).

Your payment is applied in a fixed order — and it is not the order you would choose. Unpaid assessments first, then late charges, then reasonable attorney fees, costs and other collection charges, and only then all other unpaid fees, charges, fines, penalties and interest (§ 9:1146(B)(2)). A partial payment cannot be earmarked past that sequence.

Then the filing. After the thirty days the association may file a sworn detailed statement of privilege, signed and verified by an officer or agent, in the mortgage records of the parish — describing the property, naming the record owner, and giving the delinquency date, the amounts and the date of demand — and must deliver a copy to the owner (§§ 9:1146(B)(3), 9:1147).

Rank. The privilege is effective against third persons from the moment it is filed, and outranks mortgages, privileges and other rights that become effective after that — except as provided in the Private Works Act (§ 9:1148(B)). Where two associations both have privileges, then in the absence of a contrary provision in the declaration authorizing two or more associations they rank equally regardless of filing date, unless there is an intervening encumbrance (§ 9:1148(C)).

Two deadlines, and which one applies depends on what the money was for. Measured from the date the statement of privilege was filed: unless a notice of pendency of action is recorded within one year, where the assessment was imposed for an alleged violation of the community documents; or within five years, where it was for monthly or periodic dues or fees, or assessments for particular expenses or capital improvements — the recordation ceases to have effect and the privilege is extinguished as to third persons (§ 9:1148(A)). If the deadline passes, the recorder cancels the recordation on written application. Note what that does not do: “This Part does not affect the personal liability of an owner for the payment of past due sums” (§ 9:1145(C)). The security lapses; the debt does not.

Interest runs at the rate in the declaration, or the legal interest rate if the declaration is silent, and the court may award the prevailing party costs, reasonable attorney fees and other related costs (§ 9:1146(C), (D)).

Louisiana's solar section is four subsections long and the third one decides most real disputes. Summaries — including the one this page set replaces — quote (B) and (D) and stop.

(A) The definition is wide. “Solar collector” means any device or combination of elements which relies on sunlight as an energy source”.

(B) The protection. “No person or entity shall unreasonably restrict the right of a property owner to install or use a solar collector.” The operative word is unreasonably: this is not a ban on restrictions, it is a ban on unreasonable ones.

(C) — the one that gets dropped. 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.” If your declaration requires architectural approval before installation, § 9:1255 does not sweep that away. Read (C) carefully: the carve-out is written against “this Section” — the whole of it, subsection (B) included. So where a building restriction requires prior approval, the text does not leave the unreasonableness ban operating on top of it. Whether the approval power must nonetheless be exercised reasonably is an argument to be made from the declaration and from Civil Code art. 783, not from this Section.

(D) The exclusion, quoted in full. The Section “shall not apply to property or areas which have been identified as historic districts, historical preservations or landmarks by any historic preservation district commission, landmarks commission, or the planning or zoning commission of a governing authority.” In those areas the protection does not operate at all.

Verified absence. A search of all 6,998 held sections of the Civil Code and Titles 9, 12 and 51 finds no Louisiana statute protecting clotheslines, rain barrels, xeriscaping, drought-tolerant landscaping or electric-vehicle charging equipment from an association's rules, and no political-sign statute of any kind. Solar and the United States flag are the two protections Louisiana has enacted.

Louisiana attacked transfer fees from two directions in 2010. The Civil Code route: a building restriction “may not impose upon the owner of an immovable or his successors the obligation to pay a fee or other charge on the occasion of an alienation, lease or encumbrance of the immovable” (art. 778). The statutory route is Chapter 4-A of Title 9.

The mechanism is unusually clean. Rather than declaring such fees void, the legislature declared that they never become real rights: “A private transfer fee obligation does not constitute a real right and is not effective or enforceable against third persons, whether or not the declaration or agreement under which it arises is recorded” (§ 9:3133). The intent section says the same thing at length, finding that such obligations impair marketability and are an unreasonable restraint on alienation “regardless of the duration of the obligation to pay a private transfer fee, the amount of a private transfer fee, or the method by which any private transfer fee is created or imposed” (§ 9:3131).

Now the carve-out that matters to an association, and it is explicit. “Private transfer fee” does not include “[a]ny fee, charge, assessment, fine, or other amount authorized by the Louisiana Condominium Act, R.S. 9:1121.101 et seq.; the Louisiana Timesharing Act, R.S. 9:1131.1 et seq.; or the Louisiana Planned Community Act, R.S. 9:1141.1 et seq.” (§ 9:3132(1)(g), updated by Acts 2024, No. 158 to name the Planned Community Act). Ordinary assessments and fines are outside the ban. So are the seller's own consideration, a broker's commission, lender charges including estoppel-letter fees, lease charges, option consideration and governmental charges (§ 9:3132(1)(a)–(f)).

Liability for imposing one. Anyone who records or enters into an agreement imposing a private transfer fee obligation in their own favour after 2 July 2010 is liable for all resulting damages including the fee itself, and for all attorney fees, expenses and costs incurred by a party to the transfer or a mortgagee in recovering it or quieting title — and where an agent acted for a principal, both are solidarily liable (§ 9:3134).

Older obligations had to be flagged, or they died. A fee imposed before 2 July 2010 had to be recorded before 31 December 2010, in the conveyance records of the parish, as a separate document titled “Notice of Private Transfer Fee Obligation” in at least fourteen-point boldface, with the amount, the expiry, the purpose, the payee and contact details, and the property description. “In the absence of timely compliance with Subsection A of this Section, any effect that private transfer fee obligations might otherwise have had against third persons shall cease and shall not be susceptible of revival by a later filing” (§ 9:3136(A), (C)). And if the payee does not answer a written request for the payoff within thirty days, the seller may record an affidavit and convey free and clear of the fee (§ 9:3136(D)–(F)).

Sellers must disclose. A seller must give any purchaser a written statement disclosing the existence of a private transfer fee obligation, describing it, and stating that such obligations are subject to prohibitions under the Chapter (§ 9:3135).

This is the section the Planned Community Act carves out of its own liability rule. § 9:1141.21(B) says no director or officer shall be liable to the association or its members for money damages for any action taken or any failure to act “except as provided in R.S. 9:2792.7 or as otherwise provided by law”. It is not a shield against a third party's claim. So this is where the real test lives.

Who is covered. A person who serves as a director, officer or trustee of a homeowners association “and who is not compensated for such services on a salary basis” (§ 9:2792.7(A)). A salaried officer is outside it.

What is covered. Any act or omission causing damage or injury “arising out of the exercise of his judgment in the formation and implementation of policy while acting as a director, officer, or trustee of that association, or arising out of the management of the affairs of that association”, provided he acted in good faith and within the scope of his official functions and duties.

Where it stops. The shield fails if the damage or injury “was caused by his willful or wanton misconduct.” Ordinary negligence is inside the shield; willful or wanton conduct is not.

And “homeowners association” here is defined widely (§ 9:2792.7(B)): a condominium association under the Condominium Act; a timeshare association under the Timesharing Act; a lot owners association under the Planned Community Act — the reference updated by Acts 2024, No. 158 — and any association defined by Section 528(c) of the Internal Revenue Code. That last limb catches associations that fit none of the three Louisiana statutes.

And it can be adjusted by your own documents. § 9:1141.21(C): the protection against liability for the conduct described in § 9:1141.21(B) “may be modified in the community documents”.

It is not the only protection in play. For an incorporated association, the Nonprofit Corporation Law adds the good-faith-reliance defence (§ 12:226(E)), the recorded-dissent defence (§ 12:226(G)) and permissive indemnification with mandatory indemnity for a director who wins (§ 12:227(A), (B)).

Louisiana's Residential Property Disclosure Act covers one to four residential dwelling units (§ 9:3196(5)) and reaches transfers by sale, exchange, bond for deed, or lease with an option to purchase, whether or not a real estate licensee is involved (§ 9:3197(A)). Fourteen categories are exempt, including court-ordered transfers, foreclosure, succession transfers, newly constructed property never occupied, transfers between co-owners, and transfers to a spouse or a relative in the line of consanguinity (§ 9:3197(B)).

The HOA duty. Included with the disclosure document must be “statements of notification to the purchaser as to whether he is obligated to be a member of a homeowners' association as a homeowner in the community in which he is purchasing property and whether the residential property he is purchasing is subject to a common regime of restrictive covenants or building restrictions, or both” (§ 9:3198(A)(2)(a)).

And a warning that the summary is only a summary. The statement must tell the buyer that the association information “is summary in nature and that restrictive covenants and building restrictions are a matter of public record”, and must tell him that the governing documents may be requested from the seller and how to obtain the covenants and restrictions themselves (§ 9:3198(A)(3)).

Seventy-two hours to walk away. The document must be delivered no later than when the purchaser makes his offer. If it arrives afterwards, the purchaser may terminate the contract or withdraw the offer within seventy-two hours, excluding weekends and holidays, without penalty and with a prompt return of any deposit — but the right is waived if not exercised before transfer of title or occupancy, whichever is earlier (§ 9:3198(B)(3)).

What it is not. The disclosure document “shall not be considered as a warranty by the seller”, is not part of the contract, and is no substitute for an inspection (§ 9:3198(D)). A seller is not liable for an error that was not a willful misrepresentation according to his own information, knowledge and belief, or that came from a public body or a licensed professional he reasonably believed (§ 9:3198(E)).

Now the part worth knowing if you have read about Louisiana HOAs elsewhere. Subsection A carries its own definition, and its first four words are the ones that matter: “As used in this Subsection”, an association means “a nonprofit corporation, unincorporated association, or other legal entity which is created pursuant to a declaration whose members consist primarily of lot owners, and which is created to manage, maintain, or otherwise affect the association property or which otherwise governs the use of association property” (§ 9:3198(A)(4)). That wording is where you will have met the claim that a Louisiana HOA may be a nonprofit corporation, an unincorporated association or any other legal entity created by the declaration. It is a definition for this subsection, and nothing else — written wide so a seller's disclosure duty catches every community however organised. Since 1 January 2025, § 9:1141.19 requires a planned-community association to be a nonprofit corporation — though § 9:1141.3(G) does not require an association that existed before that date to change its organisational structure.

Acts 2022, No. 481 put it beyond argument. Any promise, covenant or restriction “in a contract, mortgage, lease, deed, or conveyance or in any other agreement affecting immovable property” that limits, restrains, prohibits or otherwise provides against the sale, grant, gift, transfer, assignment, conveyance, ownership, lease, rental, use or occupancy of immovable property to or by any person because of race or religion is “void, against public policy, and wholly unenforceable and shall not constitute a defense in any action, suit, or proceeding” (§ 9:2730).

The same Act wrote it into the Condominium Act as well. § 9:1122.103(C): notwithstanding any law or agreement to the contrary, provisions in the declaration and bylaws restricting conveyance based on race or religion shall be void as provided by R.S. 9:2730.

Note what this does and does not do. It strikes the clause; it does not clean the record. And it operates on race or religion only. Discrimination on the other seven characteristics Louisiana protects — colour, sex, disability, familial status, national origin, military status, and natural, protective or cultural hairstyle — is dealt with by the Equal Housing Opportunity Act, which reaches conduct rather than clauses.