Sell My House Fast in Louisiana: We Buy Houses for Cash, As-Is, Any Condition

Before Any State Clock Starts: the Federal 120-Day Rule

Every state timeline on this page sits behind a federal one, and it is the single most useful thing to know if you have missed payments. Under Regulation X, 12 CFR 1024.41(f)(1), a mortgage servicer generally “shall not make the first notice or filing” required for a judicial or non-judicial foreclosure unless the borrower's mortgage loan obligation is more than 120 days delinquent.

That is roughly four months of missed payments before the state process is even allowed to begin. It is why a state sequence that looks alarmingly short on paper is usually longer in practice than the statute alone suggests.

The exceptions, because they are real. The rule does not apply where the foreclosure is based on a violation of a due-on-sale clause, or where the servicer is joining the action of a superior or subordinate lienholder. Small servicers are not exempt from this particular prohibition. Loan types and servicing arrangements vary, and some loans are outside Regulation X altogether.

So treat 120 days as the general floor rather than a guarantee, and work from the dates on your own paperwork. If a notice has arrived and you do not believe you are past that point, that is a question worth putting to a HUD-approved housing counselor or an attorney before you do anything else.

If The Sale Skips The Appraisal, The Debt Goes With It

This is a strong protection, and it works backwards from what people expect.

Louisiana mortgages commonly contain a waiver of appraisement, which lets a creditor move faster to a sheriff's sale. Louisiana Revised Statutes 13:4106 is the price of that shortcut:

“if a mortgagee or other creditor takes advantage of a waiver of appraisement ... and the proceeds of the judicial sale thereof are insufficient to satisfy the debt for which the property was sold, the debt nevertheless shall stand fully satisfied and discharged insofar as it constitutes a personal obligation of the debtor. The mortgagee or other creditor shall not have a right thereafter to proceed against the debtor or any of his other property for such deficiency”

In plain terms: sold without appraisal, no shortfall can be chased. However far under the debt the property goes, the personal obligation is extinguished. So a Louisiana homeowner is often better off when the creditor takes the quick route.

Now the three qualifiers, because this is too important to state loosely.

One. The subsection begins “Unless otherwise provided by law” and ends “except as otherwise provided by law”. It is a strong rule, not an absolute one, and we are not going to present it as though nothing could qualify it.

Two. Subsection (B): where a mortgage affects two or more properties, selling one without appraisement does not stop the creditor enforcing the mortgage in rem against the others. Your personal liability goes. The claim against the other property does not.

Three. Subsection (C) limits the section to judicial sales of mortgaged property, and it does not apply to sales of collateral under Chapter 9 of the Louisiana Commercial Laws.

The federal rule above generally sits in front of all of this. Free HUD-approved housing counseling is available before you commit to anything, including to us.

Official source: La. R.S. §13:4106

Where There Is An Appraisal, You Get To Name Your Own Appraiser

If the sale is going ahead with appraisement, Louisiana gives you something worth knowing about: a say in who values your house.

Under La. R.S. 13:4363(A), the sheriff must serve written notice on the debtor and on the seizing creditor, “directing each to name an appraiser”. The timetable is short and every step excludes holidays:

• The sheriff serves that notice not less than seven days before the sale.
• You must notify the sheriff of your appointment at least four days before the sale.
• The appraisal itself must reach the sheriff at least two days before the sale.

That is a right, and like most useful rights, nobody exercises it for you. If that notice arrives and you do nothing, you have given up your voice in what the property is said to be worth.

Where there are multiple debtors or creditors who cannot agree, or where an appraisal is required and the section does not otherwise provide for it, subsection (B) lets the court designate who acts as or appoints the appraiser on an ex parte application.

Why the with-or-without question matters so much here. Read this card together with the one above. Whether your sale happens with or without appraisement decides two separate things: what the property is valued at, and whether any shortfall can follow you afterwards. If you are facing a sheriff's sale in Louisiana, that is the first question to put to an attorney.

One small practical point. Under La. R.S. 13:4359, the portion of the price a bidder must pay at the moment of adjudication is never less than ten per cent, and it must be stated in the advertisement. The advert therefore tells you something real about how the sale has been set up.

Official sources: La. R.S. §13:4363 and §13:4359

What We Are Not Telling You About Louisiana, And Why

Louisiana is a civil law state. Its property law descends from a different tradition to every other state's, and the honest position is that we have read less of it than we have elsewhere. Rather than dress that up, here is exactly where the gaps are.

We state no foreclosure timeline. We did not read the sections governing notice and advertisement before a sheriff's sale, so you will not find a number of days or weeks anywhere on this page. If you see one on another site, ask where it came from.

We make no claim about the minimum bid. You will read elsewhere that a first offering cannot go below two-thirds of the appraised value. That may well be right, but the provision sits in the Code of Civil Procedure and we could not reach it, so we are not repeating it as fact.

We make no claim about redemption after a sheriff's sale, or about whether Louisiana gives any right to catch up and reinstate before one. Neither section was read.

Transfer tax. Louisiana does not impose a state transfer tax on the sale, so that line is not part of your arithmetic the way it is in most states. We say that without citing a section, because it is an absence rather than a provision.

And a specific warning if you are selling in New Orleans. Orleans Parish is widely reported to charge a documentary transaction tax that other parishes do not. We could not reach a source to confirm it, so we are not going to state it as fact, but we are also not going to let you assume the line is zero. Ask your closing attorney or notary specifically whether a parish charge applies, and ask before you agree terms rather than after.

What holds generally. Selling as-is describes who pays for repairs, not what you are allowed to leave unsaid, and ordinary obligations around misrepresentation do not switch off because a sale is as-is. A surplus is not simply yours to collect: junior liens, second mortgages and the costs of the sale are ordinarily paid ahead of the former owner. We have not summarized Louisiana's seller disclosure obligations.

Official source: La. R.S. §13:4106