Louisiana HOA budgets now go to the owners for ratification
Louisiana HOA budgets now go to the owners for ratification
2026-09-10 · Louisiana · Legislation
What happened. Louisiana's Planned Community Act put the annual budget of a planned-community association in front of its members. R.S. 9:1141.34 sets a calendar, a vote and a consequence for losing it. For communities whose declarations predate 2025 the section has been in force since the first of January.
The mechanics, and the twenty-five-lot threshold
“A.(1) For planned communities consisting of more than twenty-five lots, the association shall submit, at least annually, a proposed budget for the planned community for consideration by the lot owners at a duly called meeting of the association. Not later than thirty days after adoption of a proposed budget, the board of directors shall provide to all lot owners a summary of the budget, including any reserves, and a statement of the basis on which any reserves are calculated and funded. Simultaneously, the board shall set a date, which shall be no fewer than ten days nor more than sixty days after the summary is provided, for a meeting of the association to consider ratification of the budget. A majority vote, or any greater vote specified in the declaration, is required to ratify the budget. If a proposed budget is not ratified, the budget last ratified at a meeting of the association continues until a subsequent budget is ratified.”
Four dates and one default, in a single paragraph: the board adopts; a summary goes out within thirty days; the ratification meeting falls between ten and sixty days after the summary; and a failed vote rolls the prior year's budget forward rather than leaving the association without one.1
Special assessments follow the same route — unless it is an emergency
“B. The board of directors may propose a special assessment at any time. Except as otherwise provided in Subsection C of this Section, the assessment is effective only if the board of directors follows the procedures for ratification of a budget provided in Subsection A of this Section and the lot owners ratify the proposed assessment at a meeting of the association as provided in Subsection A of this Section.”
The emergency route, and its three conditions
“C. If the board of directors, by a vote of two-thirds of directors present and voting, determines that a special assessment is necessary to respond to an emergency: (1) The emergency special assessment becomes effective immediately in accordance with the terms of the vote. (2) Notice of the emergency special assessment shall be provided promptly to all lot owners. (3) The board of directors shall spend the emergency special assessment funds only for the purposes described in the vote.”
Three points that matter for a Louisiana board. The threshold is two-thirds of directors present and voting, not of the full board. The assessment binds immediately, before any owner has been told. And paragraph (3) ties the money to the recitals of the motion — which makes the wording of the emergency resolution the document that later defines what the funds could lawfully be spent on.
In a state where a master-policy nonrenewal or a named-storm deductible can land without warning, subsection (C) is the provision that will be used, and the resolution is the record that will be examined.
The closest thing Louisiana has to a reserve rule
There is no reserve-study mandate in Louisiana law — not in the Planned Community Act, not in the Condominium Act, and nothing was proposed in either the 2025 or the 2026 session. What exists is a disclosure duty and an option.
The disclosure sits inside the budget summary requirement quoted above: the summary must include “any reserves, and a statement of the basis on which any reserves are calculated and funded.” An association with no reserves discloses that; an association with reserves has to say how it arrived at the number.
The option is in subsection (D):
“D. If the association has accumulated a surplus from prior years, the budget may propose any of the following: (1) The refund to the lot owners contributing to the surplus if created by a special assessment. (2) A reduction of assessments prospectively in the amount of the surplus. (3) The establishment of a reserve for future repairs, replacements, or operating expenses.”
“[M]ay propose” is permissive throughout. Nothing here obliges an association to fund a reserve, and nothing forbids it.
Where the calendars collide
Two other Louisiana timelines interact with this one, and both are new.
First, R.S. 9:1141.26 requires thirty days' notice of a board meeting unless it is on a previously circulated schedule. A board that adopts a budget at an unscheduled meeting has to add that lead time in front of the thirty-day summary deadline.
Second, from July 1, 2026 an insurer must give sixty days' written notice of cancellation or nonrenewal of a property or casualty policy rather than thirty, under Acts 2025 No. 182. That doubles the warning a board gets before a master-policy renewal problem becomes an assessment problem — which is, in practice, enough time to run the subsection (B) ratification route instead of reaching for subsection (C).
What a board can do before the next budget cycle
- Count the lots. Twenty-five or fewer, and subsection (A) does not apply at all.
- Check the declaration for a higher vote. The statute's majority is a floor; “any greater vote specified in the declaration” controls.
- Write the reserve basis down. The summary has to state how reserves are calculated and funded, which means someone has to have decided.
- Draft the emergency resolution template now. Subsection (C)(3) limits spending to “the purposes described in the vote,” and nobody drafts well in a hurricane week.
What to watch next
A 2026 bill, HB 817, would have layered a good deal more on top: quarterly budget updates, forty-eight hours' notice for any increase, surplus mandatorily returned to members, budgets filed with the Attorney General, and a twenty percent annual cap on regular assessment increases without member approval. It was voluntarily deferred nine to nothing in House Civil Law and Procedure on April 7, 2026 and died at sine die. Its sponsor has said he intends to bring concepts from it back.
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