Louisiana's building-restriction prescription bill died on the calendar — and the question went to the Law Institute

Louisiana · Legislation

Louisiana's building-restriction prescription bill died on the calendar — and the question went to the Law Institute

2026-09-10 · Louisiana · Legislation · Did not pass

What happened, and it did not. A 2026 bill would have changed when the clock starts on enforcing a Louisiana subdivision regulation. It never came to a vote. The House instead adopted a resolution sending the question to the Louisiana State Law Institute.

One thing to be clear about before anything else. This is about parish and municipal enforcement, not about a homeowners association enforcing its own declaration. The statute involved, R.S. 9:5625, applies by its own terms to actions “to require enforcement of and compliance with any zoning restriction, building restriction, or subdivision regulation, imposed by any parish, municipality, or an instrumentality thereof.” An association's building restrictions are Civil Code articles 775 through 783. The phrase “building restrictions” is the same term of art in both settings, which is exactly why Louisiana owners conflate them — and why neither instrument below changed a covenant-enforcement deadline.

What the bill would have done

HB 1255, by Representative Nicholas Muscarello, was reported by substitute for HB 793 on a 14–0 committee vote on May 6, 2026. Its operative paragraph:

“(4) If no map, plat, survey, or other instrument evidencing a violation of a subdivision regulation imposed on a certain parcel of immovable property has been filed or recorded in the conveyance or mortgage records of the parish in which the immovable property is located prior to August 1, 2026, then the filing or recordation of a map, plat, survey, or other instrument evidencing noncompliance with applicable subdivision regulations shall not be the first act constituting the commission of the violation for the purposes of the prescriptive period established in Subsection A of this Section.”

It was engrossed May 7, then called from the calendar and returned to it on May 11, May 13 and May 18, 2026. The last action reads: “Read by title, returned to the calendar.” Final Disposition: CALENDAR/HOUSE — died on the House calendar.¹

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Louisiana's building-restriction prescription bill died on the calendar — and the question went to the Law Institute

What the bill would have done

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