Louisiana property disclosure

Who has to fill out the Louisiana property disclosure?

The Residential Property Disclosure Act, La. R.S. 9:3196 through 9:3200, covers residential real property, which it defines as one to four dwelling units, each occupied or intended for occupancy as a single-family residence. It reaches a transfer by sale, exchange, bond for deed, lease with an option to purchase, or any other option to purchase, and it applies whether or not a real estate licensee is involved.

What the document reports is known defects. A known defect is a condition the seller actually knew of that has a substantial adverse effect on value, significantly impairs the health or safety of future occupants, or, if not repaired, removed, or replaced, significantly shortens the expected normal life of the property. You complete it in good faith on what you know when you sign, and where you lack the information, each question gives you a No Knowledge box to say so.

Act 708 of 2026 takes effect January 1, 2027 and extends the requirement to vacant residential property. The commission's current form, dated 01/2026, already asks whether a methamphetamine lab ever operated on the property, whether a salt-stock cavity created by dissolution lies underneath it, and whether a solution mining injection well sits within 2,640 feet.

Which Louisiana home sales are exempt from the disclosure?

Section 9:3197 lists 14 exemptions, and the commission form reprints them on an exemption page you check off. The ones sellers ask about most are court-ordered transfers, including foreclosure sales and transfers in the court administration of an estate; transfers by a lender that took the house at a foreclosure sale or by a deed in lieu; transfers by a fiduciary administering a decedent's estate, a guardianship, a conservatorship, or a trust; transfers by a succession executor or administrator; and new construction that has never been occupied.

The rest cover a sale from co-owners to the remaining co-owners, a transfer to a spouse or a relative in the line of consanguinity, a transfer between spouses under a divorce or separate maintenance judgment, a transfer to or from a government body, a transfer into an inter vivos trust, a sale to a buyer who will convert the house to a non-residential use, a relocation company resale that passes along the prior owner's disclosure and inspection reports, and a corrective act that changes no ownership.

Being exempt does not mean handing over nothing. The exemption page asks every seller to check one of three boxes: exempt and aware of no known defects, not exempt and completing the full document, or exempt but disclosing known defects anyway. Each seller signs it, and the buyer signs to acknowledge receiving it.

When does the buyer have to receive it, and what if it is late?

Section 9:3198 requires the completed and signed document to reach the buyer no later than the time the buyer makes an offer to purchase, exchange, or option the property. Have it signed and in the listing file before the first showing, so it can go out to anyone who asks for it.

If it arrives after the offer, the buyer may terminate the resulting contract or withdraw the offer within 72 hours of receiving it, not counting weekends and federal and state holidays. That exit carries no penalty, and any deposit has to be returned promptly despite anything the purchase agreement says. The right is waived if the buyer has not used it before title transfers or the buyer occupies the house, whichever comes first.

The statute says the document is not a warranty by the seller, is not part of the contract, and does not replace the buyer's inspections. A seller is not liable for an error that was not a willful misrepresentation, or for one that came from a public body or a licensed professional's report the seller reasonably believed and passed along. Information that becomes inaccurate because of later events is not, on that ground alone, a violation, and the form itself tells you to notify every party in writing as soon as something changes.

What does the Louisiana form ask about flooding and mold?

Flood has its own section, Section 6, on flood, flood assistance, and flood insurance. It starts with the land and the structures separately: whether the land has had flooding, water intrusion, accumulation, or a drainage problem, and whether any structure has ever taken water from rising water or otherwise, each answered for your ownership and for the years before it. From there it asks for the flood zone along with where that answer came from and when.

The same section asks whether flood insurance is in force, and if it is, the declarations page is attached and becomes part of the document. It then asks about NFIP and private flood claims, yours and a prior owner's, whether each was approved and what it paid, about federal flood disaster assistance, and about Road Home grants that carry a covenant to keep flood insurance on the house.

Elsewhere the form asks for termite history and any current termite contract, the year each roof went on, foundation repairs and any transferable warranty, and every known insurance claim on the property. Mold sits on the environmental line in Section 7, which lists mold or mildew and toxic mold beside asbestos, radon gas, formaldehyde, contaminated drywall, and contaminated soil or water. If you had remediation done, attach the contractor's scope of work and the clearance report rather than summarizing them.

What is redhibition, and can you sell a house as is in Louisiana?

Separate from the disclosure act, Civil Code article 2520 makes every seller warrant the buyer against redhibitory defects. A defect is redhibitory when it makes the thing useless, or its use so inconvenient that the buyer would not have bought it had the buyer known; a lesser defect that only diminishes its usefulness or value supports a reduction of the price. Article 2521 leaves out defects the buyer knew of at the time of the sale and those a reasonably prudent buyer should have discovered.

Article 2548 lets the parties exclude or limit that warranty, which is what an as-is clause in a Louisiana purchase agreement does. The exclusion has to be written in clear and unambiguous terms and brought to the buyer's attention. It does not bind the buyer when the seller declared that the house had a quality the seller knew it did not have.

A seller who knew of a defect and kept quiet faces more than a refund. Under article 2545 that seller owes the return of the purchase price with interest, reimbursement of the reasonable expenses of the sale and of preserving the thing, damages, and reasonable attorney fees. Under article 2534, a buyer has until the earlier of two years from delivery or one year from discovery to sue a seller who did not know, and the earlier of one year from discovery or ten years from the sale to sue one who did.

So the waiver and the disclosure document do different jobs: the waiver addresses what nobody knew, and the document records what you did know. A Louisiana real estate attorney can tell you whether the waiver language in your purchase agreement meets article 2548.

Does the lead paint rule apply to a Louisiana home sale?

Yes. The federal lead-based paint disclosure rule covers housing built before 1978 in every state, on top of the commission form. The buyer gets 10 days to arrange a paint inspection or risk assessment unless both sides agree in writing to a different period or the buyer waives it.

The two exemption lists do not match. Foreclosure sales are exempt from both, but a sale by a succession representative, which is exempt from the state document, is not on the EPA's list. An executor selling a 1960s ranch house in Baton Rouge still owes the buyer the lead pamphlet, the warning statement, and any reports in the file.