Louisiana Foreclosure Help: Know Your Timeline, Know Your Equity
The earlier you act, the more options you may have.
Louisiana can seize your home without suing you first
Louisiana has no trustee sale, but it has something faster. Most residential foreclosures use executory process — an expedited proceeding in which the creditor files a verified petition with authentic evidence (an authentic act of mortgage containing a confession of judgment, plus the original note), and a judge signs an order for seizure and sale ex parte.
No hearing. No answer period. No prior notice. For most Louisiana homeowners the first thing that arrives is the sheriff's notice of seizure. Filing to sale commonly runs about 75 to 120 days.
Your remedies come after, not before
Because the order issues ex parte, your options are to seek an injunction to arrest the seizure and sale, or to take a suspensive appeal. Both are affirmative steps you must take.
One real defense: if the creditor cannot produce authentic evidence of the chain of title to the note and mortgage, executory process is improper and the creditor must convert to ordinary process — a normal lawsuit with a normal answer period. That is worth having a lawyer check early.
The notice you do get
The sheriff seizes on receiving the writ and serves you a written notice of seizure personally or at your domicile. It must state the sale details, reproduce the relevant Code article in full, specify the electronic auction platform and bidding start time if the sale is online, and — for residential property — include information about available housing counseling services.
The sheriff may not order advertisements until three days, excluding holidays, have passed after service of that notice. The first newspaper advertisement must run at least 30 days before the sale, and the second not earlier than seven days before and not later than the day before.
Appraisal is the whole ballgame on deficiency
This is the most important thing on this page. Under Louisiana's Deficiency Judgment Act, if the property is sold without appraisal — because the creditor took a waiver of appraisement — the debt is fully satisfied and discharged as a personal obligation. No deficiency at all.
Where the sale is made with appraisal, two more protections apply. At a first offering the property cannot be sold for less than two-thirds of the appraised value; the sheriff must re-advertise and re-offer. At the second offering it sells for whatever it brings, but the debt must still be reduced by the greater of half the appraised value (less superior liens) or the amount the bid exceeds those superior liens.
So Louisiana is fast and harsh on the front end, and among the most protective in the country on the back end.
No redemption, and no mediation
Louisiana provides no post-sale right of redemption, and has no foreclosure mediation program. Your leverage is entirely in the window between the notice of seizure and the sale — roughly a month — and in whether the paperwork supporting executory process is actually in order.
If the sheriff has been to your door, that is the day to make calls, not the week after.
A note on what this page is
This is general information about how the foreclosure process works in this state. It is not legal advice and it is not a prediction about your loan. Timelines vary by lender, by servicer, by county and by the specifics of your file, and the law changes. If you are facing foreclosure, a conversation with an attorney licensed in your state about your particular situation is time well spent — and a confidential review with us costs you nothing and commits you to nothing.
Understand your value. Know your equity. Review your options.
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