2026-09-10 · Louisiana · Compliance · Pending — not yet law

What happened. Louisiana has no milestone inspection, no structural recertification and no reserve-study mandate for condominium buildings. What it now has is an elevator regime — and in a condominium the owner of the building containing a common-element elevator is, in practice, the association.

The statutory duty

R.S. 40:1646, as amended by Act 297 of the 2025 Regular Session, puts the obligation on the owner rather than on a contractor:

“B.(1) Except as provided in Paragraph (2) of this Subsection, the owner of any building containing a life safety system and equipment, or the owner's designated representative, shall cause at a minimum an annual inspection and certification to be made of the life safety system and equipment in that building to assure compliance with applicable safety standards and to determine whether structural changes in the building or in the contents of the building mandate alteration of a system.”

“(3) The owner of any building containing a conveyance device shall cause at a minimum an annual inspection and certification, as outlined in Paragraph (1) of this Subsection, to be physically witnessed by an inspector appointed by the fire marshal.”

Conveyance devices are inside the definition: “C. Life safety systems and equipment includes but is not limited to fire sprinkler, fire alarm, fire suppression, special locking systems and equipment, portable fire extinguishers, and conveyance devices.”¹

The 2028 date, which the statute flags as prospective

The Legislature's own text carries a note: “NOTE: Subparagraph (B)(2)(b) eff. July 1, 2028. See Acts 2025, No. 297.” That subparagraph reads:

“(b) The owner of a building described in this Paragraph shall cause, at a minimum, a full-load safety test of the conveyance device in five-year intervals to assure compliance with applicable safety standards and to determine whether structural changes in the building or in the contents of the building mandate alteration of the conveyance device.”

A five-year full-load test, phasing in from July 1, 2028, is a datable and budgetable expense — which puts it among the very few Louisiana compliance costs an association can actually schedule.

1. La. R.S. 40:1646 — State fire marshal; owners; life safety systems and equipment inspections; penalties; exceptions ↩
2. Louisiana Register Vol. 51, No. 12 (December 20, 2025) — OSFM Declaration of Emergency at p. 2013, Notice of Intent at p. 2147 ↩
3. Louisiana Register Vol. 52, No. 6 (June 20, 2026) — substantive changes and public hearing notice at p. 1084 ↩
4. Louisiana Administrative Code Title 55 (Public Safety), last amended August 2026 ↩