There is still no cap on the amount

It is worth being blunt, because it is the question every owner asks. Louisiana sets no dollar limit and no percentage limit on how much a planned-community association may assess. What the Planned Community Act supplies instead is procedure: the budget goes to the owners for ratification under R.S. 9:1141.34(A), ordinary special assessments follow the same route, and only an emergency special assessment can be imposed by the board alone — on a two-thirds vote of the directors present.

The one numeric constraint in the neighbourhood is on late-payment interest, not on the assessment: subsection (B) caps the rate at “the rate established in Part III,” and Part III's R.S. 9:1146(C) sets that as the declaration's rate or, absent one, the legal interest rate.

Two allocation rules that change who pays what

Subsection (D) permits differential allocation where the declaration requires it, and one clause matters more than the rest in a Louisiana coastal community:

“(3) The costs of insurance may be assessed in proportion to risk, and the costs of utilities may be assessed in proportion to usage.”

An association whose master policy is priced by exposure now has express statutory footing to pass that pricing through by risk rather than by equal share — but only “[t]o the extent required by the declaration.” The subsection is an authorisation conditioned on the recorded documents, not a licence to reallocate at will.

Subsection (E) handles the other direction:

“E. If damage to a lot or other part of the planned community or any other common expense is caused by the willful misconduct of any lot owner or occupant, or a guest or invitee of a lot owner, the association may assess that damage or common expense exclusively against that owner's lot, even if the association maintains insurance with respect to that damage or common expense.”

The standard is willful misconduct, not negligence, and the closing clause is the useful part: the existence of insurance is not a defence to the chargeback.

The condominium parallel

Louisiana condominiums are not under the Planned Community Act — R.S. 9:1141.3(B)(1) excludes condominium property — but the Condominium Act's own privilege provision at R.S. 9:1123.115 carries a near-identical acceleration structure. Boards that manage both regimes in one portfolio should not assume the two texts are word-for-word the same, and should read the one that applies.

What the trigger means for a board

• Send the delinquency notice early and date it. The eight-month window runs from notice; without a notice on file there is nothing to count from.
• Track by month, not by balance. The statute counts missed months, not dollars owed.
• Accelerate the common-area assessment only. Subsection (C) is limited to “the assessments for common areas.”
• Keep the accelerated sum separate on the statement of privilege. R.S. 9:1147(A) requires the periodic dues amount “including any accelerated amount” to be stated, and Part III's five-year notice-of-pendency deadline applies to dues-based assessments.

What to watch next

The only Louisiana proposal for a numeric assessment cap in either recent session was HB 817 of 2026, which would have provided that “[r]egular assessments shall not increase more than twenty percent annually without member approval.” It died in committee. Meanwhile the pressure on Louisiana assessments is coming from insurance rather than legislation, and the Act's answer to that is subsection (D)(3) and the emergency-assessment route.