Louisiana lien waiver: no statute voids it, and it is not a lien
Louisiana is a civil law state, and the thing you are giving up is not a lien. It is a privilege under the Private Works Act. No section of Louisiana law voids one waived before payment, and the section that does void construction contract clauses pointedly leaves waivers off its list.
No Louisiana statute voids a lien waiver signed before payment. La. R.S. 9:2779 declares contract clauses null and void as against public policy, but only clauses sending the dispute out of state or under another state's law. Waivers are not on that list. Under La. R.S. 9:4823 a privilege is extinguished when the obligation it secures is extinguished, so a waiver that kills the claim kills the privilege along with it.
Read the law: Louisiana Revised Statutes section 9:4823codes.findlaw.com
La. R.S. 9:4823, how a Louisiana privilege diesFill it in online Type your details in and download it already filled in.The obligation that it secures is extinguished
That is one line out of the extinguishment list in R.S. 9:4823, and it is the line that matters to anyone holding a waiver. A Louisiana privilege is accessory to the claim behind it. Nothing has to use the word waiver at all: release the claim and the privilege goes with it, on whatever terms the paper you signed happens to set.
Download a blank Louisiana lien waiver
Louisiana prescribes no statutory wording, so this is the general conditional waiver on progress payment, the form that fits most draws. Print it and fill it in by hand, or use the builder below and get it back already filled in.
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Why Louisiana calls it a privilege and not a lien
The Private Works Act at La. R.S. 9:4801 and following is where a Louisiana contractor's security lives, and it is built out of two things rather than one. There is a claim, which is the debt the owner or the contractor owes you, and there is a privilege, which is the security riding on the immovable. Everyone on a jobsite still says lien waiver and every form in circulation is titled that way, and that is fine, because a document is read for what it does. The vocabulary only matters when you go looking for the rule.
R.S. 9:4823 is the section that ends both of them, and it lists the routes. The claimant does not preserve the privilege as R.S. 9:4822 requires. The claimant does not sue the owner within one year of filing the statement of claim. The obligation that it secures is extinguished. The owner files a bond under R.S. 9:4835, or a contractor or subcontractor does. Or the parties are joined in a concursus.
The word waiver is not anywhere in that list, and it does not need to be. The third route does the work on its own, which is why Louisiana can have no anti waiver statute and still have waivers that bite.
What R.S. 9:2779 voids, and what it leaves alone
Louisiana does void construction contract clauses, and it says so in the strongest language a statute has. R.S. 9:2779 declares null and void and unenforceable as against public policy any provision in a contract, subcontract or purchase order that pushes the dispute into a forum outside Louisiana, or that has the contract read under another state's law, where a party is domiciled in Louisiana and the work is in the state.
That is the whole of the section. A legislature that writes null and void and unenforceable as against public policy into a construction statute, and then does not put an advance lien waiver anywhere in it, has made a choice rather than an oversight. The practical effect on you is the same either way: the waiver you were handed before the check is enforceable according to its own terms.
The sections that look like a rule and are not
R.S. 9:4854 is titled lien rights unaffected, and it says nothing contained in this Subpart shall abrogate or interfere with the lien rights of any person otherwise entitled to them. That reads like a shield until you see what it is shielding against, which is a misreading of the subpart it sits in. It is a savings clause about a set of notice provisions. It has nothing to say about a waiver you put your name on.
R.S. 9:4804 is the notice section and it does have teeth, just not the teeth people hope for. A lessor of movables that fails to give a timely and accurate response has its claim extinguished. A seller of movables that misses the seventy five day notice of nonpayment is not entitled to a claim or privilege at all. Those are deadlines rather than waiver rules, but a claim killed by a missed notice is just as dead as one signed away.
So there are two ways to lose the privilege on paper in Louisiana. You can sign it away, or you can miss a notice. The statute polices the second one closely and says nothing whatever about the first.
What to do about it on a Louisiana job
Sign conditional, never unconditional, until the money has cleared your bank. In a state with no anti waiver statute the wording of the form is the entire protection, and a conditional waiver that takes effect when the payment clears is a different document from one that takes effect the moment you sign.
Put the amount and the through date on every waiver. The privilege here is accessory to the claim, so the reach of the release is the reach of the claim it extinguishes. A waiver with no amount and no date on it is an argument about how much of the job you just gave up, and R.S. 9:4823 gives you nothing to argue with.
Keep the notice clock and the waiver clock apart in your head. Signing a conditional waiver preserves nothing. Preservation is the statement of claim under R.S. 9:4822, and the year to sue after filing it runs under R.S. 9:4823 whatever the waiver says. A waiver protects what you already have. It does not file anything for you.
Louisiana prints the wording of exactly one document in the whole of the private works part and it is not a waiver: a contractor doing residential home improvements has to hand the owner a notice of lien rights before or at the time of signing, and the sentence the legislature wrote into it tells that owner to require written lien waivers signed by everyone who worked on the house.
Which of the four to sign on a Louisiana job
Louisiana has no statute voiding a waiver signed too early, so the form is the whole of the protection. A conditional waiver releases nothing until the payment clears. An unconditional one extinguishes the claim on signature, and under La. R.S. 9:4823 the privilege is extinguished with it.
Questions people ask
Is a Louisiana lien waiver signed before payment valid?
Yes, as far as any Louisiana statute is concerned. No section of Louisiana law voids a waiver of Private Works Act rights signed in advance of payment. R.S. 9:2779 is the section that declares construction contract provisions null and void as against public policy, and it reaches out of state forum clauses and out of state choice of law clauses only.
Is it a lien or a privilege in Louisiana?
A privilege, under the Private Works Act at R.S. 9:4801 and following, together with a claim against the owner or the contractor. Forms titled lien waiver are used on every Louisiana job and they work, because a document is read for what it does. The word matters when you go hunting for the statute, because searching for a Louisiana lien waiver statute turns up articles rather than a section, for the good reason that there is not one.
How does signing a waiver actually destroy a Louisiana privilege?
Through R.S. 9:4823, which extinguishes the claim and the privilege securing it when the obligation that it secures is extinguished. The privilege is accessory to the claim, so a waiver never has to mention the privilege by name. Release the claim and the security behind it goes at the same moment.
Does Louisiana prescribe a lien waiver form?
No. There is no statutory Louisiana waiver wording, so the words on the form are the whole of the agreement between you and whoever handed it to you. A conditional waiver on progress payment that names the amount, names the through date and states that it takes effect when the payment clears is effective on exactly those terms, because no Louisiana statute overrides them.
Working in another state? The general lien waiver forms page covers all four waiver types, and conditional vs unconditional lien waiver explains which of the two to sign and when.
This page quotes Louisiana Revised Statutes section 9:4823 and explains what it says. It is not legal advice, and a statute can be amended. Read the linked section before you rely on it.