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Louisiana landlord-tenant law.

Updated August 2026. La. R.S. 9:3258 (1977) declares the lessor's right to own, control, use, and dispose of leased property, which secondary legal sources treat as barring parish or municipal rent control; no Louisiana parish or city currently has a rent control ordinance, and this reading has not been tested in Louisiana courts.

Deposit limit

No statutory cap on the amount a landlord may charge as a security deposit (La. R.S. 9:3251 governs return, not the amount).

Deposit return

Landlord must return the deposit, less any amount reasonably necessary to remedy the tenant's default or unreasonable wear, within one month after the lease terminates, and must send an itemized statement of amounts retained within that same month (La. R.S. 9:3251). A landlord who willfully fails to remit within 30 days of the tenant's written demand is liable for the wrongfully withheld amount plus the greater of $300 or twice that amount, and the court may award the prevailing party costs and attorney fees (La. R.S. 9:3252, 9:3253).

Notice to pay

Louisiana has no separate pay-or-quit notice statute. Under La. Civ. Code art. 2704, nonpayment of rent lets the lessor seek dissolution of the lease under the general rules for putting an obligor in default, unless the lease itself provides for automatic dissolution on nonpayment, which is common in Louisiana leases and enforceable. Whatever the ground for termination, the lessor must still deliver the notice to vacate described below (La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4701) before filing the summary eviction proceeding, unless the lease waives that notice.

Landlord entry

No Louisiana statute sets a required notice period for landlord entry. The Civil Code's lease articles (arts. 2668-2729, particularly the lessor's principal obligations around arts. 2682-2686) protect the tenant's peaceable possession generally, but entry timing is left to the lease. A 24-hour notice is common practice, not a legal requirement.

Security deposits

Deposit limit. No statutory cap on the amount a landlord may charge as a security deposit (La. R.S. 9:3251 governs return, not the amount).

Getting it back. Landlord must return the deposit, less any amount reasonably necessary to remedy the tenant's default or unreasonable wear, within one month after the lease terminates, and must send an itemized statement of amounts retained within that same month (La. R.S. 9:3251). A landlord who willfully fails to remit within 30 days of the tenant's written demand is liable for the wrongfully withheld amount plus the greater of $300 or twice that amount, and the court may award the prevailing party costs and attorney fees (La. R.S. 9:3252, 9:3253).

Late fees and rent

No Louisiana statute caps late fees or requires a grace period. Courts apply a general contract-law reasonableness and anti-penalty test: a late fee must approximate the landlord's actual added cost rather than punish the tenant. Figures like 5 to 10 percent of monthly rent are common practice, not a statutory standard.

Ending a tenancy

Nonpayment of rent. Louisiana has no separate pay-or-quit notice statute. Under La. Civ. Code art. 2704, nonpayment of rent lets the lessor seek dissolution of the lease under the general rules for putting an obligor in default, unless the lease itself provides for automatic dissolution on nonpayment, which is common in Louisiana leases and enforceable. Whatever the ground for termination, the lessor must still deliver the notice to vacate described below (La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 4701) before filing the summary eviction proceeding, unless the lease waives that notice.

Month-to-month termination. Governed by La. Civ. Code art. 2728, and the notice period scales with the rental period, not a flat 30 days: a month-to-month lease needs at least 10 calendar days' notice before the end of the current month; a lease with a period longer than a month needs 30 calendar days before the end of that period; a lease running one week to one month needs 5 calendar days; a lease shorter than a week can be terminated at any time before the period ends. A late notice still terminates the lease, at the end of the next period for which it was timely given.

Landlord entry

No Louisiana statute sets a required notice period for landlord entry. The Civil Code's lease articles (arts. 2668-2729, particularly the lessor's principal obligations around arts. 2682-2686) protect the tenant's peaceable possession generally, but entry timing is left to the lease. A 24-hour notice is common practice, not a legal requirement.

Required disclosures

  • Federal lead-based paint disclosure for housing built before 1978 (42 U.S.C. Section 4852d; 24 C.F.R. Part 35), applies in Louisiana as in every state
  • La. Civ. Code arts. 2696 to 2699: the lessor's warranty against vices or defects functions like a disclosure duty in practice: a waiver clause must be in clear, conspicuous language, cannot cover defects the lessor knew or should have known of, and can never waive defects that seriously affect health or safety in a residential lease
  • No currently effective, Louisiana-specific statute requiring a lease disclosure of flood history or flood-zone status could be confirmed; some secondary sources reference one, but this should be treated as unconfirmed rather than a settled requirement

Lease clauses that do not hold up

  • A lease clause waiving the lessor's warranty against vices or defects is void as to defects the lessee did not know of and the lessor knew or should have known of, and can never be waived for defects seriously affecting health or safety (La. Civ. Code art. 2699)
  • Louisiana has no statewide statute banning retaliatory eviction, and none banning attorney-fee-shifting or confession-of-judgment clauses in residential leases; any such protections likely exist only at the local level (for example, a New Orleans ordinance touching retaliation), not as state law

Notes for landlords

Louisiana's civil-law structure means eviction is a two-step process: a notice to vacate (Code Civ. Proc. art. 4701, minimum 5 days, commonly and validly waived in the lease itself) followed by a summary eviction proceeding, rather than a single common-law pay-or-quit notice. Because the open-ended lease termination notice (art. 2728) scales with the rental period (10 days for month-to-month, not 30), a system built around a generic 30-day common-law rule will misstate Louisiana's actual timeline.

Sources

This guide is general legal information for landlords, not legal advice. Statutes change and local ordinances can add stricter rules on top of state law. Confirm any requirement with the current statute or a licensed attorney in your state before acting on it.

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