What a word search of the enrolled Act returns

We searched the 48-page enrolled text. The word “covenant” appears zero times. “Servitude” appears zero times. “Building restriction” appears zero times. “Association” appears four times, and every occurrence is either a generic entity definition — “any individual, firm, partnership, corporation, association, company, or legal entity” — or a reference to a trade body whose president certifies nominees to a state board, namely the Louisiana Homebuilders Association and the Louisiana Manufactured Housing Association.

Independent trade coverage reads the Act the same way we do. A Kean Miller alert of June 24, 2026 on factory-built housing in Louisiana summarises the change as “State standards now expressly preempt all local construction and installation standards for manufactured and modular housing” and does not mention associations or restrictive covenants at all.³

Why “local” is the whole argument

In Louisiana usage, a “local standard” is ordinarily a standard imposed by a local governmental authority — a parish or municipal code provision, an ordinance, a locally adopted amendment to the construction code. Preemption doctrine is about the relationship between levels of government.

A building restriction in a recorded Louisiana declaration is not that. It is a private real right, characterised by the Civil Code as sui generis and governed by articles 775 through 783 and by the Planned Community Act. The Legislature knows how to reach those documents when it means to: R.S. 9:1114, enacted the year before, opens with “Notwithstanding any covenant, declaration, contractual provision, lease, or rental agreement.” Act 765 opens with “Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary.”

That is a real textual difference, and it is the reason we grade the covenant question as unresolved rather than answered. What is certain is that Louisiana's construction and installation standards for manufactured and modular homes will be exclusively state standards from January 1, 2027, and that a parish cannot add to them. What is uncertain is whether a subdivision's recorded design and installation requirements are “local standards” within the meaning of §§2176.19 and 2177.26.

The one place the Act does draw a line an association will notice

The installer-licensing provision distinguishes an owner from a community operator:

“B. It is unlawful for any person, other than the homeowner or a licensed installer, to perform an installation of a manufactured or modular home, whether or not that person receives compensation for that action. For the purposes of this Subsection, community owners or park operators of manufactured or modular homes shall not be considered homeowners if the home in question is or will be leased at any time.”

A manufactured-home community operator that installs homes it intends to lease needs a licensed installer; it cannot rely on the homeowner exemption.

What an architectural committee should actually do about this

Not much before January 2027, and then carefully.

• Separate whether from how. Act 765 speaks to construction and installation standards. A covenant that prohibits manufactured or modular homes on a lot altogether, or that sets a minimum square footage or a roof-pitch or exterior-materials requirement applicable to all dwellings, is not obviously a construction-and-installation standard for manufactured housing.
• Do not repeal anything on the strength of a trade summary. Repeal is hard to reverse and, under R.S. 9:1141.14(C), reinstating a use restriction takes more than eighty percent of the whole association.
• Expect to state the conflict rather than resolve it. An applicant who cites Act 765 against an installation standard is raising a genuinely open question, and the honest answer from a board is that the question is open.
• Remember the code layer is separate again. Clearing the architectural committee has never cleared the construction code, and clearing the code has never cleared the covenants.

What to watch next

January 1, 2027, and the rulemaking that follows: the Act routes standards through a “residential subcommittee,” and its fiscal note — dated March 20, 2026, showing “OR +$40,000 SG RV” against the Louisiana Manufactured Housing Commission — anticipates administrative activity. Watch the Louisiana Register for it. No Louisiana court has construed either preemption section.