Louisiana's New Home Warranty Act: what a builder must warrant

Louisiana's New Home Warranty Act sets warranties a builder gives the buyer of a new home: one year for the home, two years for plumbing, electrical, heating, cooling, and ventilating systems, and five years for major structural defects. It is a builder obligation set by statute, not a home warranty plan you purchase.

The short answer

The three periods: one year after the warranty commencement date the home must be free from defects from noncompliance with building standards or in materials or workmanship; two years for the plumbing, electrical, heating, cooling, and ventilating systems (not appliances, fixtures, or equipment); five years for major structural defects (R.S. 9:3144(A)).¹
When the clock starts: the date legal title is conveyed to the initial purchaser or the date the home is first occupied, whichever comes first (9:3143(7)).²
The notice step: before making a repair himself or suing for breach of warranty, the owner must give the builder written notice by registered or certified mail within one year after knowing of the defect (9:3145(A)).³
A short filing limit: an action to enforce a warranty is subject to a statutory deadline, called a peremptive period, of 30 days after the relevant warranty period ends (9:3146).⁴
Exclusive remedies: the chapter provides the exclusive remedies, warranties, and peremptive periods between builder and owner for home construction, and no other law on warranties and redhibitory vices and defects applies between them; a warranty of title is not affected (9:3150).¹⁰
Minimums that cannot be waived: the three warranties are minimums that the owner cannot waive and the builder cannot reduce, provided the home is a single or multiple family dwelling to be occupied by an owner as his home (9:3144(C)).¹

Why it matters

A new-home buyer in Louisiana may be offered a purchased home service contract as well. The two are different. The Act's warranties come from the statute and run against the builder; a home service contract is a product from a provider that Louisiana regulates through the Department of Insurance, covered in our guide to Louisiana home warranty regulation. Our general guide on how home warranties work explains the purchased kind.

Who is covered and by whom

The Act defines a "builder" as any person or entity that constructs a home or an addition, including a home first occupied by its builder, whether or not the consumer bought the land from the builder. A "home" is a new structure designed and used only for residential use, with its attached and unattached structures. The "owner" is the initial purchaser and later owners during the warranty periods.² The warranty and any insurance benefit transfer automatically, without charge, to a later owner, but a transfer does not extend a warranty's duration (9:3148).⁵ The legislature's stated purpose is clear and mandatory warranties for new-home purchasers, applying whether or not building code regulations are in effect where the home is located (9:3141).⁶

What the three warranties cover

Warranty periods under La. R.S. 9:3144(A)
Period after commencement	What the builder warrants
1 year	The home is free from any defect due to noncompliance with building standards, or other defects in materials or workmanship not regulated by building standards¹
2 years	The plumbing, electrical, heating, cooling, and ventilating systems, excluding any appliance, fixture, and equipment, are free from those same kinds of defects¹
5 years	The home is free from major structural defects from noncompliance with building standards or other defects in materials or workmanship¹

"Major structural defect" has a narrow statutory meaning: actual physical damage to designated load-bearing parts of the home (foundation systems and footings, beams, girders, lintels, columns, walls and partitions, floor systems, and roof framing systems), caused by failure of those parts, that affects their load-bearing function to the point the home becomes unsafe, unsanitary, or otherwise unlivable.²

What the warranty leaves out

Unless the parties agree otherwise in writing, the statute says the builder's warranty excludes a long list of items.¹ Examples include:

fences, landscaping, driveways and walkways, and other improvements that are not part of the home itself;
damage caused or made worse by negligence or improper maintenance, by changes to the grading or to the home after occupancy by someone other than the builder, or by inadequate ventilation or drainage;
normal wear and tear, insect damage, and mold and mold damage;
loss from events such as windstorm, hail, flood, and lightning, and certain soil movement covered by other insurance;
consequential damages, and relocation costs such as shelter, food, and storage during a repair; and
any defect not reported in writing by registered or certified mail to the builder or insurance company before the relevant period ends plus thirty days.

The list is longer than this; read R.S. 9:3144(B) in full. One exclusion allows a builder to obtain a written waiver of soil-condition or soil-movement damage where the home is built on land the initial purchaser owns.¹

If the builder does not perform

If a builder fails to perform as the warranties require, an affected owner has a cause of action for actual damages, including attorney fees and court costs. Damages for a single defect may not exceed the reasonable cost of repair or replacement needed to cure it, and damages for all defects may not exceed the home's original purchase price. The parties may provide for arbitration of a claim in dispute, which must comply with R.S. 9:4201 et seq. (9:3149).⁷ The statute also lets a builder insure all or part of its warranty obligation for the buyer's benefit through an insurer authorized in Louisiana (9:3147).⁸

The Act's remedies are exclusive between builder and owner

R.S. 9:3150 says the chapter "provides the exclusive remedies, warranties, and peremptive periods as between builder and owner relative to home construction and no other provisions of law relative to warranties and redhibitory vices and defects shall apply." It adds that nothing in the chapter affects or limits any warranty of title to land or improvements.¹⁰ In practice that means the Civil Code's general warranty against defects, described in our guide to Louisiana redhibition, is not the rule between a builder and the owner of a new home; the Act is.

What you can check

Find the date title passed or the home was first occupied, whichever was earlier. Every period runs from it.
At closing, or when the construction contract is signed if there is no closing, the statute says the builder must give written notice of the Act's requirements (9:3145(B)). Look for it among your documents.³
Put any defect report in writing and send it by registered or certified mail. The statute names that method.³
The Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors publishes the Act, a contractor search, and a complaint process on its consumer pages. The Act directs the Board to write rules for the builder's notice.⁹

Limits and unknowns

This page describes the statute text. It does not discuss court decisions or how a particular defect would be treated, and it does not say whether a given builder's contract changes any non-mandatory term. It does not cover purchased home service contracts, which we cover separately, or warranties other states require of builders.

General information, not legal advice. This page describes what the statute text says. It does not apply the law to anyone's facts, and it does not predict how a court or agency would decide a particular situation. Statutes change; the linked texts are the authority.

Last reviewed: 1 October 2026. Statute text as published by the Louisiana Legislature, with section histories through Acts 2004, No. 45 for R.S. 9:3144. See how we check and the Register for how we handle state requirements.