Louisiana HOA Solar Rights

Key Findings

Louisiana sits in the middle of the national spectrum. It carries a statutory reasonableness limit on solar restrictions, unlike no-protection states, but that statute self-limits against building restrictions requiring architectural approval, so it runs weaker than strong-protection states such as California and Florida. The statute stays judicially untested in the association context: no Louisiana appellate court has interpreted § 9:1255 in a homeowners association or condominium rooftop dispute.

Details

Section 1: Overview — Solar rights for HOAs in Louisiana

Louisiana limits an association's ability to restrict solar, but only to a point. La. R.S. § 9:1255 provides that "No person or entity shall unreasonably restrict the right of a property owner to install or use a solar collector," while subsection C states the section "shall not supersede zoning restrictions, servitudes as provided by Civil Code Article 697 et seq., or building restrictions, as provided by Civil Code Article 775 et seq., which require approval prior to the installation or use of solar collectors."¹ Louisiana stands as the only civil-law jurisdiction in the United States, and the private restrictions in a community are building restrictions under Louisiana Civil Code articles 775 to 783, not common-law covenants.² Condominiums fall under the Louisiana Condominium Act (La. R.S. § 9:1121.101 et seq.);³ planned communities and homeowners associations fall under the Louisiana Planned Community Act (La. R.S. § 9:1141.1 et seq.), the renamed successor to the Homeowners Association Act.⁴ A voluntary solar servitude, the civil-law analog to a solar easement, is a predial servitude between estates and doesn't by itself override an association's building restrictions.⁵ Louisiana therefore belongs among the states with a statutory reasonableness limit, but its protection stays qualified because the statute preserves building restrictions requiring prior approval. The sections that follow set out the statutory framework, the operational rules, and recent activity.

Section 2: The statutory framework

2A. Solar-access provision

Louisiana has a solar-access provision, and it sits in Title 9 of the Revised Statutes rather than in the association statute. La. R.S. § 9:1255, enacted by Acts 2010, No. 274, defines a "solar collector" as "any device or combination of elements which relies on sunlight as an energy source" and provides in subsection B that "No person or entity shall unreasonably restrict the right of a property owner to install or use a solar collector."¹ That reasonableness standard reaches associations, because the phrase "person or entity" carries no limitation. The protection stays qualified in two ways. Subsection C provides that the section "shall not supersede zoning restrictions, servitudes as provided by Civil Code Article 697 et seq., or building restrictions, as provided by Civil Code Article 775 et seq., which require approval prior to the installation or use of solar collectors." Subsection D provides that the section "shall not apply to property or areas which have been identified as historic districts, historical preservations or landmarks."¹ The practical effect: an association may not unreasonably restrict solar, but where the community's building restrictions require architectural approval before installation, § 9:1255 doesn't displace that approval requirement. The Planned Community Act (La. R.S. § 9:1141.1 et seq.) contains no separate solar provision,⁶ so the operative limit on association authority is § 9:1255's reasonableness standard, read together with the community's building restrictions under the Civil Code.

2B. The civil-law framework and the governing statutes

Louisiana private law rests on the Louisiana Civil Code, not English common law, and the difference runs substantive. The instrument that common-law states call CC&Rs is, in Louisiana, building restrictions. Civil Code article 775 defines them as "charges imposed by the owner of an immovable in pursuance of a general plan governing building standards, specified uses, and improvements," and requires that "the plan must be feasible and capable of being preserved."² Article 777 provides that building restrictions "are incorporeal immovables and real rights likened to predial servitudes" and "are regulated by application of the rules governing predial servitudes to the extent that their application is compatible with the nature of building restrictions."⁷ They get created by juridical act, amended or terminated as provided in the act that establishes them under article 780, and interpreted under article 783, which provides that "doubt as to the existence, validity, or extent of building restrictions is resolved in favor of the unrestricted use of the immovable."^8,9 Common-law covenant doctrine doesn't apply.

Two statutes govern the association layer. Condominiums fall under the Louisiana Condominium Act (La. R.S. § 9:1121.101 et seq.), which addresses formation, apportionment, common expenses, association powers, and purchaser protection.³ Planned communities and homeowners associations fall under the Louisiana Planned Community Act (La. R.S. § 9:1141.1 et seq.). Acts 2024, No. 158 (SB 23), revised, restated, and expanded the former Louisiana Homeowners Association Act from nine sections (R.S. 9:1141.1 through 1141.9) into a fifty-section framework (R.S. 9:1141.1 through 1141.50) and renamed it the Planned Community Act.¹⁰ The Act was modeled on the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, a Louisiana Law Institute rewrite covering the creation, management, and termination of common-interest property, but Louisiana hasn't adopted UCIOA as such; the Act remains a Civil Code Ancillary operating against building restrictions.⁶ It applies prospectively: it governs planned communities whose declarations are filed on or after January 1, 2025, and applies in part to existing planned communities under the Act's special effective-date provisions, so associations formed earlier aren't required to amend their governing documents.¹⁰ Article 783 was amended by the same Act to provide that the Condominium Act, the Timesharing Act, and the Planned Community Act supersede the building-restriction articles in the event of a conflict.⁹

2C. Predial servitudes and the role of building restrictions

A predial servitude is defined by Civil Code article 646 as "a charge on a servient estate for the benefit of a dominant estate," where "the two estates must belong to different owners."⁵ A solar servitude, a voluntary arrangement securing access to sunlight across estates, is the civil-law analog to a solar easement. It's a private right between owners and doesn't by itself override an association's building restrictions or its architectural authority. The order of precedence runs as follows: § 9:1255's reasonableness limit applies to all persons and entities, but by its own terms it doesn't supersede building restrictions requiring prior approval; absent an applicable statutory override, the building restrictions control and get interpreted under the Civil Code, with doubt resolved in favor of unrestricted use.^1,9 Architectural review therefore retains a real role. Where the community's building restrictions require approval before an improvement, an association may apply that review to a solar installation, provided any resulting restriction isn't unreasonable within the meaning of § 9:1255.

Section 3: What a Louisiana HOA can and cannot do regarding solar

A. Approval and architectural review

A solar installation gets reviewed under the community's building restrictions and, for post-2025 planned communities, the Planned Community Act; where the building restrictions require approval before an improvement, § 9:1255(C) preserves that pre-installation approval requirement.^1,4 This rests on the building restrictions plus § 9:1255, and review stays mandatory only where the community documents impose it.

B. Permissible and impermissible restrictions

Under § 9:1255(B), an association may not "unreasonably restrict" the right to install or use a solar collector, so a reasonable placement or design condition applied through architectural review stays permissible, but a de facto ban or a condition that defeats the system would count as unreasonable.¹ Section 9:1255(D) removes the protection entirely for property in historic districts, historic-preservation areas, and landmarks, where the relevant commission may restrict or prohibit solar.¹

C. Building restrictions and disclosure considerations

Solar rules appear in the community's building restrictions and get amended or terminated as provided in the act that established them, under Civil Code article 780.⁸ For planned communities formed under the new Act, the Planned Community Act adds developer disclosure obligations, including public offering statements for larger communities, which reach community documents containing any solar-related restriction; applicability runs to planned communities within the Act's scope.¹⁰

D. Dispute resolution and remedies

Trial-level disputes proceed through the Louisiana District Courts, parish-based courts of general jurisdiction; appeals go to the appropriate circuit of the Louisiana Courts of Appeal, five circuits, with discretionary writ review by the Louisiana Supreme Court. Building restrictions "may be enforced by mandatory and prohibitory injunctions without regard to the limitations of Article 3601 of the Code of Civil Procedure" under Civil Code article 779,¹¹ and the Condominium Act provides for attorney fees in condominium disputes (La. R.S. § 9:1121.104);³ § 9:1255 itself contains no fee-shifting or damages provision.¹

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No bill in the 2024, 2025, or 2026 Regular Sessions created or amended a solar-specific provision affecting association authority. Utility-side and solar-farm legislation, including HB 459 (2025, Act No. 279), which established permitting for large-scale solar facilities with a footprint of seventy-five acres or greater, doesn't touch association authority over rooftop systems and sits outside this page.¹²

B. Recent appellate rulings

No published Louisiana appellate opinion in the past 36 months applies § 9:1255 or the building-restriction articles to a residential rooftop solar dispute inside a homeowners association or condominium. The statute remains judicially uninterpreted in the association context. The only recent Louisiana solar appellate decision, Cajun Crossroads Energy Center, LLC v. Calcasieu Parish Police Jury, No. 25-650 (La. App. 3 Cir. July 15, 2026), reversed and remanded, concerns a utility-scale solar farm and parish zoning, not association authority, and sits outside this page.¹³

C. Active legislative debates

No active proposal to enact or amend solar protection specific to Louisiana homeowners associations turned up as of the date of this page.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Solar-rights regimes fall into three broad groups: strong-protection states whose statutes void or sharply limit association solar restrictions — California Civ. Code § 714, Florida Fla. Stat. § 163.04, Arizona A.R.S. § 33-1816, Colorado C.R.S. § 38-30-168, Nevada, and Texas Prop. Code § 202.010; solar-easement-only states, which enable voluntary easements but don't override associations; and no-protection states, where the declaration fully controls. Louisiana belongs to the reasonable-restriction group because § 9:1255 bars unreasonable restriction, but its protection runs weaker than the strong-protection tier because § 9:1255(C) expressly preserves building restrictions requiring prior approval, and it stands as the only civil-law jurisdiction, using building restrictions rather than covenants. Multi-state operators must adapt their Louisiana playbook to civil-law concepts, reviewing solar requests against Civil Code building restrictions rather than common-law covenant doctrine. Legislative momentum on HOA-specific solar stays low; recent activity has centered on utility-side and solar-farm regulation.

HOA Weekly's Louisiana Solar Rights coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and the Louisiana courts act. No federal rule comparable to the FCC's OTARD rule extends to rooftop solar, so Louisiana's state law controls here.

Recommendations

• Boards. Treat § 9:1255 as a reasonableness ceiling, not a ban on review. Apply architectural approval only where the community's building restrictions actually require it, and document that any placement or design condition doesn't defeat the system's function, cost, or efficiency. A condition that amounts to a de facto ban is the threshold that would make a restriction "unreasonable."
• Managers. Confirm each community's declaration-filing date. Declarations filed on or after January 1, 2025 fall under the Planned Community Act; earlier communities operate under the pre-2025 Homeowners Association Act plus their existing building restrictions. Section 9:1255 applies to all of them.
• Attorneys. Watch for the first Louisiana appellate decision interpreting § 9:1255 in an association setting. Because the statute stays untested here, the reasonableness standard's scope, and the interaction between subsection B and subsection C, will get set by whichever circuit rules first. That ruling is the benchmark that would change board practice.
• Multi-state operators. Rewrite Louisiana templates in civil-law terms. Don't import covenant-enforcement theories — frame enforcement around building restrictions, injunctive relief under article 779, and the interpretive rule that doubt favors unrestricted use.

Caveats

• The former Louisiana state solar tax credit has been phased out and carries no bearing on association authority.
• Net metering and the Louisiana Public Service Commission stay utility-customer matters, not limits on association authority, and this page excludes them from the analysis.
• Louisiana requires no state license for community association managers and has no dedicated HOA regulator.
• Several articles — 777, 779, 780, 783 — link to the LSU official Louisiana Civil Code because the Legislature's per-article deep links weren't individually confirmed; the text matches the official Revised Statutes and Acts 2024, No. 158.

1. La. R.S. § 9:1255, Solar collectors; right of use (Acts 2010, No. 274), Louisiana State Legislature ↩
2. La. Civ. Code art. 775, Building restrictions, Louisiana State Legislature ↩
3. Louisiana Condominium Act, La. R.S. § 9:1121.101 et seq., Louisiana State Legislature ↩
4. Louisiana Planned Community Act, La. R.S. § 9:1141.1, Louisiana State Legislature ↩
5. La. Civ. Code art. 646, Predial servitude; definition, Louisiana State Legislature ↩
6. Résumé Digest, Act 158 (SB 23), 2024 Regular Session, Louisiana State Legislature ↩
7. La. Civ. Code art. 777, incorporeal immovables likened to predial servitudes, LSU Louisiana Civil Code ↩
8. La. Civ. Code art. 780, Amendment and termination of building restrictions, LSU Louisiana Civil Code ↩
9. La. Civ. Code art. 783, Matters of interpretation and application (as amended by Acts 2024, No. 158), LSU Louisiana Civil Code ↩
10. Acts 2024, No. 158 (SB 23), enacting the Louisiana Planned Community Act and amending Civil Code art. 783, Louisiana State Legislature ↩
11. La. Civ. Code art. 779, Enforcement of building restrictions, LSU Louisiana Civil Code ↩
12. HB 459 (2025 Regular Session), Act No. 279, renewable energy regulation and permitting ↩
13. Cajun Crossroads Energy Center, LLC v. Calcasieu Parish Police Jury, No. 25-650 (La. App. 3 Cir. July 15, 2026) ↩