Louisiana HOA Assessment Limits

Section 1: Overview — How assessment authority and limits work in Louisiana

Louisiana sets no flat percentage cap on assessment increases. The limits come from the recorded declaration — with one significant procedural overlay added for larger communities: planned communities of more than twenty-five lots must put their budgets to an affirmative owner vote. Undergirding all of this is a civil-law framework, one where the association's security right for unpaid assessments is a "privilege" on the immovable, not the common-law lien familiar to most states.¹

Condominiums operate under the Louisiana Condominium Act (La. R.S. 9:1121.101 through 9:1124.115). The association levies assessments through a board-adopted budget and secures unpaid amounts with a privilege on the unit under La. R.S. 9:1123.115.² Planned communities follow the Louisiana Homeowners Association Planned Community Act (La. R.S. 9:1141.1 through 9:1148), which Act 158 of 2024 rewrote effective January 1, 2025. That rewrite added an affirmative budget ratification requirement for communities of more than twenty-five lots under La. R.S. 9:1141.34.³ Special assessments draw their authority — and their limits — from the declaration; the statute sets procedure, not a numeric ceiling.⁴

On the national spectrum, Louisiana sits apart from statutory-cap states like California and more closely resembles the ratification-mechanism and declaration-driven states — but its civil-law character keeps it in a category of its own.¹ The sections below detail the authority to levy, the limits on increases, the privilege, and recent legislative and judicial activity.

Section 2: The assessment framework

2A. Authority to levy and allocate assessments

In condominiums, the unit owners' association holds the power to adopt and amend budgets for revenues, expenditures, and reserves, and to collect assessments for common expenses from unit owners under La. R.S. 9:1123.102.⁵ The declaration sets the formula for allocating common expenses among units, and the association secures unpaid sums through the privilege on the immovable under La. R.S. 9:1123.115.² The board sets the assessment through the budget; the declaration controls how the burden divides among the units.

In planned communities, the lot owners' association derives its assessment authority from the declaration and from the Planned Community Act. The declaration must assign to each lot a fraction or percentage of the common expense liabilities and state the formulas used to establish those allocations, under La. R.S. 9:1141.6.⁶ The board sets the assessment through the budget; the declaration governs the allocation formula. Act 158 preserved this division: nothing in the Act requires a planned community in existence before January 1, 2025, to amend its method of calculating or allocating assessments.⁶

The framework rests on a civil-law foundation. Louisiana Civil Code article 783 provides that the Louisiana Condominium Act, the Louisiana Timesharing Act, and the Louisiana Homeowners Association Planned Community Act supersede the building-restriction articles of the Civil Code in the event of a conflict.⁷ Louisiana courts apply jurisprudence constante rather than binding common-law precedent, and there is no dedicated state HOA regulator — so the declaration, the two statutes, and the Nonprofit Corporation Law carry the operational weight.¹

2B. Limits on regular assessment increases

For planned communities of more than twenty-five lots, La. R.S. 9:1141.34 supplies the central procedural control. The association submits a proposed budget at least annually for consideration by lot owners at a duly called meeting.³ No later than thirty days after adopting a proposed budget, the board provides all lot owners a summary of the budget — including any reserves and a statement of the basis on which those reserves are calculated and funded. At the same time, the board sets a ratification meeting, no fewer than ten days nor more than sixty days after providing the summary.³ A majority vote — or any greater vote specified in the declaration — is required to ratify the budget.³

This is an affirmative-ratification requirement. The statute states that a majority vote "is required to ratify the budget," which is stricter than the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act model, where the budget is ratified unless owners reject it. Compare West Virginia, which provides: "Unless at that meeting a majority of all unit owners or any larger vote specified in the declaration reject the budget, the budget is ratified, whether or not a quorum is present."³ If a proposed budget is not ratified, the last ratified budget continues until a subsequent budget is ratified.³

For smaller planned communities — twenty-five lots or fewer — and for condominiums, the increase limit comes from the declaration. The annual ratification mechanism in La. R.S. 9:1141.34 applies only to planned communities of more than twenty-five lots, and the Condominium Act contains no parallel statutory ratification meeting; the condominium board adopts the budget under La. R.S. 9:1123.102.⁵ Neither statute imposes a flat percentage cap on regular assessment increases. The practical consequence is significant: where ratification is required and the board fails to obtain it — or runs a defective summary-and-meeting process — the prior ratified budget remains in force. A larger community can find itself operating on stale numbers, unable to fund increased costs, until the process is repeated correctly.³

2C. Special assessments, the privilege, and emergency assessments

In planned communities of more than twenty-five lots, the board may propose a special assessment at any time — but it only takes effect if the board follows the same ratification procedure used for the budget and lot owners ratify it at a meeting, under La. R.S. 9:1141.34(B).³ The statute carves out an emergency exception: if the board votes two-thirds of directors present and voting to declare an emergency, the emergency special assessment becomes effective immediately, notice goes promptly to all lot owners, and the funds may be spent only for the purposes described in the vote, under La. R.S. 9:1141.34(C).³ Outside that statutory frame, the declaration controls the authority for and limits on special assessments.

The privilege is the enforcement backstop. For condominiums, La. R.S. 9:1123.115 gives the association a privilege on the condominium parcel for all unpaid or accelerated sums, fines or late fees above two hundred fifty dollars, interest, and reasonable attorney fees.² If a unit owner fails to timely pay assessments for a period of three months or more during any eight-month period, and the association provides notice to the delinquent owner, the association may accelerate the assessment for a twelve-month period and file a privilege for the accelerated sums.² For planned communities, La. R.S. 9:1141.35 provides that a privilege arises in favor of the association on a lot for any assessment attributable to that lot or any fines imposed against the lot owner; time period, rank, and enforcement method are governed by Part III of the chapter (La. R.S. 9:1145 through 9:1148).^8,9 Operationally: larger planned communities must ratify the budget and any non-emergency special assessment; the declaration controls the substantive limit; and the privilege secures collection.

Section 3: Assessment limits and procedures in practice

A. Regular assessment increase procedure

For planned communities of more than twenty-five lots, the board adopts a proposed budget, provides a summary including reserves to all lot owners within thirty days, sets a ratification meeting ten to sixty days after the summary, and obtains a majority vote — or any greater vote specified in the declaration — to ratify (La. R.S. 9:1141.34).³ For condominiums and for smaller planned communities, the board adopts the budget under the declaration and, for condominiums, under the association's statutory power to adopt and amend budgets, with no statutory ratification meeting (La. R.S. 9:1123.102 for condominiums; declaration-defined for smaller planned communities).⁵

B. Special assessment procedure

For planned communities of more than twenty-five lots, a non-emergency special assessment must clear the same summary-meeting-ratification process as the budget (La. R.S. 9:1141.34(B)).³ For condominiums and smaller planned communities, special assessment authority, notice, and limits are declaration-defined, with no statutory percentage rule. The privilege under La. R.S. 9:1123.115 (condominiums) or La. R.S. 9:1141.35 (planned communities) secures unpaid amounts.^2,8

C. Caps, ceilings, and override mechanisms

Louisiana supplies no flat percentage cap on regular or special assessments for either condominiums or planned communities. The only statutory override-style control is the more-than-twenty-five-lot ratification requirement — and emergency special assessments in those communities may bypass owner ratification on a two-thirds board vote (La. R.S. 9:1141.34(A) and (C)); otherwise, limits are declaration-defined.³

D. Notice, documentation, and disclosure tied to assessments

The budget summary — including the reserve basis — and the ratification-meeting notice are required for planned communities of more than twenty-five lots (La. R.S. 9:1141.34).³ Before filing a condominium privilege, the association must serve the delinquent unit owner a sworn detailed statement of its claim at least seven days before filing in the parish mortgage records (La. R.S. 9:1123.115(A)).² For planned communities, the association must make written demand for past-due charges before the privilege process and, on request, furnish a binding statement of unpaid assessments within ten business days (La. R.S. 9:1146 and 9:1145(D)).⁹

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

Recent Legislation

Act 158 of 2024 represents the most significant rework of Louisiana's planned-community framework in years. It models the state's rules on the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act and adds the budget ratification requirement for larger communities that now sits at the center of how those associations operate.

No other 2024 to 2026 session law was identified that amends the assessment, budget, or privilege provisions of the Condominium Act or the Planned Community Act; the 2025 Regular Session produced no condominium or planned-community assessment, budget, or privilege bill in the materials reviewed.

Recent Court Rulings

Louisiana's appellate courts have been doing practical work in the assessment space — holding associations to their own procedures and to a sense of proportion. Two recent rulings illustrate the pattern: one on whether a premature special assessment can be enjoined before collection, and one on whether a settlement in an assessment-collection case is actually enforceable.

Active Legislative Debates

No active Louisiana proposal was identified in the 2025 or 2026 sessions that would change the more-than-twenty-five-lot ratification requirement, the assessment privilege, or assessment disclosure rules. Community-association reserve-study and disclosure topics were active in several other states in 2025, but no equivalent Louisiana assessment measure surfaced in the materials reviewed.

Section 5: National positioning

Louisiana occupies the declaration-driven end of the assessment-limit spectrum, tempered by a ratification device for larger planned communities. In statutory-cap states, California leads the way: Cal. Civ. Code § 5605(b) (added by AB 805, Stats. 2012, Ch. 180, operative January 1, 2014) provides that "the board may not impose a regular assessment that is more than 20 percent greater than the regular assessment for the association's preceding fiscal year or impose special assessments which in the aggregate exceed 5 percent of the budgeted gross expenses of the association for that fiscal year" without member approval. In ratification-mechanism states in the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act family — Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, and Washington among them — increases are controlled through an owner vote on the adopted budget, a device Louisiana applies to larger planned communities through its more-than-twenty-five-lot requirement. In declaration-driven states like Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia, limits are set almost entirely by the recorded declaration. For multi-state operators entering Louisiana, the central adjustments are that the civil-law privilege replaces the common-law lien and that larger planned communities must ratify the budget. Louisiana's distinct civil-law framework, and the January 1, 2025 rework of the Planned Community Act, set it apart from every other state.

Footnotes

1. La. R.S. 9:1141.34, Adoption of budgets; special assessments (Louisiana State Legislature) ↩
2. La. R.S. 9:1123.115, Privilege on immovables (Louisiana State Legislature) ↩
3. La. R.S. 9:1141.34, Adoption of budgets; special assessments (Louisiana State Legislature) ↩
4. Acts 2024, No. 158 (Senate Bill 23), Louisiana Planned Community Act, enrolled (Louisiana State Legislature) ↩
5. La. R.S. 9:1123.102, Powers of unit owners' association ↩
6. La. R.S. 9:1141.6, Allocation of common expense liabilities, common surpluses, and voting interest ↩
7. La. Civ. Code art. 783, as amended by Acts 2024, No. 158 (Louisiana State Legislature) ↩
8. La. R.S. 9:1141.35, Privileges for sums due to the association; enforcement (Louisiana State Legislature) ↩
9. La. R.S. 9:1145, Privileges; enforcement, and La. R.S. 9:1146, Demand; privilege; notice (Louisiana State Legislature) ↩
10. La. R.S. 9:1141.3, Applicability, as enacted by Acts 2024, No. 158 (Louisiana State Legislature) ↩
11. Person v. 2434 St. Charles Avenue Condominium Homeowners Association, Inc., No. 2024-CA-0395 (La. App. 4 Cir. Dec. 26, 2024) ↩
12. Louisiana-Annunciation Condominium Association, Inc. v. Kennedy, No. 2023-CA-0327 (La. App. 4 Cir. Nov. 16, 2023) ↩