CHAPTER 5. PAYMENT AND COLLECTION PROCEDURE;

TAX SALES; ADJUDICATED PROPERTY

PART I. GENERAL PROVISIONS; PURPOSE; DEFINITIONS

§2121. Purpose; principles; property rights

            A. Purpose. The purpose of this Chapter is to amend and restate the law governing the payment and collection of property taxes, tax sales, and redemptions to:

            (1) Reorganize the prior law into a single comprehensive Chapter, using consistent terminology.

            (2) Encourage the payment and efficient collection of property taxes.

            (3) Satisfy the requirements of due process.

            (4) Provide a fair process and statutory price for the redemption of tax sale and adjudicated properties.

            (5) Encourage the return to commerce of tax sale and adjudicated properties, without unnecessary public expense, through clear procedures that allow interested persons to carry out the title search and notification procedures considered necessary under contemporary standards of due process to acquire merchantable title to those properties.

            (6) Avoid the imposition on the public of extensive title search and notification expenses for properties that are redeemed or that fail to attract any party willing to bear the expenses of establishing merchantable title.

            (7) Retain, to the extent not inconsistent with the preceding purposes, the traditional procedures governing tax sales, adjudications, and redemptions in this state.

            B. Effect of tax sale on property interest. No tax sale shall transfer or terminate the property interest of any person in tax sale property or adjudicated property until that person has been duly notified and both the redemptive period and any right held by that person to assert a payment or redemption nullity under R.S. 47:2286 have terminated.

            C. Tax sale title. (1) A tax sale confers on the tax sale purchaser, or on the political subdivision to which the tax sale property is adjudicated, only tax sale title. Tax sale title does not confer on the tax sale purchaser the right of possession of tax sale property that is occupied by the owner and does not confer on the tax sale purchaser the right to make improvements or charge rental or lease payments to the owner or occupants of the tax sale property. If the tax sale property is not redeemed within the redemptive period, then at the termination of the redemptive period, tax sale title transfers to its holder ownership of the tax sale property, free of the ownership and other interests, claims, or encumbrances held by all duly notified persons. Tax sale title is fully transferable and heritable, but any successor of a tax sale title takes it subject to any existing right to redeem the property, or to assert a nullity, to the extent and for the period of time that the right would have existed in the absence of the transfer or succession.

            (2) A person who acquires ownership of property through a tax sale title takes the ownership subject to any interests that are not terminated in accordance with this Chapter. Other than taking subject to those interests, the acquiring person's ownership of the tax sale property after termination of the redemptive period is not affected by any lack of notice to the holders of those interests.

            (3)(a) Notwithstanding any provision in this Chapter to the contrary, the following interests affecting immovable property shall not be terminated pursuant to this Chapter to the extent the interests remain effective against third parties and are filed with the appropriate recorder prior to the filing of the tax sale certificate:

            (i) Mineral rights.

            (ii) Pipeline servitudes.

            (iii) Predial servitudes.

            (iv) Building restrictions.

            (v) Dedications in favor of political subdivisions, the public, or public utilities.

            (vi) Integrated coastal protection as defined in R.S. 49:214.2 or a project listed in the comprehensive master coastal protection plan as defined in R.S. 49:214.2.

            (vii) Any levee or drainage project by the departments, agencies, boards, or commissions of the state of Louisiana and their political subdivisions, including but not limited to a levee district or levee and drainage district as identified in Chapter 4 of Title 38 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950, parishes or municipalities, and the United States.

            (b) Notwithstanding any provision in this Chapter to the contrary, the right of possession and occupancy of the owner of tax sale property shall not be terminated pursuant to this Chapter.

            D. Deficiencies in notices or procedures. Except for acts or omissions that result in redemption or payment nullities, none of the provisions in this Chapter concerning notices or procedures required in connection with a tax sale provide a ground for nullifying:

            (1) The tax sale.

            (2) The transfer at the end of the redemptive period of the ownership of property to which tax sale title has been issued.

            (3) The transfer or termination of any duly notified person's interest in the tax sale property or the adjudicated property.

            Acts 2008, No. 819, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 2009; Acts 2022, No. 270, §1; Acts 2022, No. 404, §1.