Louisiana HOA members now have a statutory records right, with seven grounds to refuse
Louisiana HOA members now have a statutory records right, with seven grounds to refuse
2026-09-10 · Louisiana · Legislation
What happened. Louisiana homeowners associations now operate under a records statute. R.S. 9:1141.36, part of the Planned Community Act, sets out what an association must keep, who may look at it, and the only grounds on which it may say no. For associations whose declarations predate 2025 the section became effective on January 1, 2026.
Who may ask
“B. Upon receipt of a request for specific records, the association shall make the records available for examination and copying by a lot owner, the lot owner's agent, or persons with a valid contract of sale. An inspection shall occur during reasonable business hours or at a mutually convenient time and location.”
Note the third category. A buyer under a valid purchase agreement has the same access as an owner — a materially different position from the one a Louisiana buyer was in before.1
The seven grounds for withholding
“C. Records retained by an association may be withheld from inspection and copying to the extent that they concern any of the following: (1) Personnel and medical records relating to specific individuals. (2) Contracts and other commercial transactions to purchase or provide goods or services that are currently being negotiated. (3) Existing or potential litigation or mediation, arbitration, or administrative proceedings. (4) Communications with the association's attorney that are protected by the attorney-client privilege or the work-product rule. (5) Information the disclosure of which would violate law. (6) Records of an executive session of the board of directors. (7) Individual lot files other than those of the requesting lot owner.”
The list is closed on its face, and each ground is qualified by “to the extent that” — language that points at redaction rather than refusal of a whole document.
The retention list, and the two entries boards overlook
Subsection A obliges the association to retain eleven categories of records, “which may be maintained in an electronic format.” Two of them are new duties for most Louisiana boards:
“(10) Records of board of directors or committee actions to approve or deny any requests for design or architectural changes from lot owners. (11) Ballots, proxies, and other records related to voting by lot owners for one year after the election, action, or vote to which they relate.”
An architectural committee that has been deciding applications by email and keeping no decision file is now short of a statutory record. So is a board that discards ballots after a contested election.
Three limits that cut the other way
The section is not a public-records regime, and three subsections say so:
- Cost. “D. An association may charge a reasonable fee for providing copies of any records in accordance with this Section and for supervising the lot owner's inspection.” Supervision time is chargeable, not just copies.
- No analysis. “F. An association is not obligated to compile or synthesize information.” A request for a schedule that does not exist is a request the association may decline as framed.
- Purpose. “G. Information provided pursuant to this Section shall not be used for commercial or other improper purposes, and the association may deny access to information if the association has a good faith belief that the information is being requested for such purposes.”
A second, independent route that does not depend on this section
Louisiana associations are also nonprofit corporations, and the nonprofit corporation law carries its own inspection right at R.S. 12:223 with a penalty provision at R.S. 12:264. In Doucette v. Eastover Property Owners' Association, No. 2024-CA-0585 (La. App. 4 Cir. 5/22/2025), the Fourth Circuit worked through exactly that route — and its lesson is about pleading: the court found the petition “devoid of allegations indicating EPOA's refusal to allow the plaintiffs to examine the records,” while reversing the dismissal so the owners could amend.2
The two routes are not the same. R.S. 9:1141.36 is a duty owed by a planned-community association with an enumerated exception list; R.S. 12:223 is a corporate right with a bad-faith damages remedy. Which one is available depends on how the association is organised and when its declaration was recorded.
What this changes for a board
- Write the exception list into the response, not into the refusal. Because each ground is qualified by “to the extent that,” the defensible answer to a mixed document is a redacted copy with the ground stated, not a blanket no.
- Open an architectural decision file. Paragraph (A)(10) is a retention duty independent of whether anyone has asked.
- Set the fee before the first request. A supervision rate adopted in the abstract is easier to defend as reasonable than one invented for a particular owner.
- Diary ballots for one year. Paragraph (A)(11) fixes the destruction date; it does not authorise destruction before it.
What to watch next
A 2026 bill would have gone considerably further — a mandatory online owner portal, a dedicated website for associations of 100 or more parcels, a fourteen-business-day inspection deadline and a seven-year retention schedule. It died in committee. Louisiana's records regime is what R.S. 9:1141.36 says it is.
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