How to Evict a Tenant in Louisiana: Laws, Process, and Timeline
Louisiana Eviction Timeline 2026: Two Different Notice Clocks, and Why New Orleans Has Its Own Courts
Louisiana runs on civil law, not the common-law tradition most of this guide’s coverage uses, and its eviction rules split into two tracks that a lot of guides collapse into one. For lease law, deposits, and repair rights, see our Louisiana landlord-tenant law guide; this page is the eviction lawsuit itself — the rule to show cause, the hearing, the warrant.
Grounds and Notice Periods — Cause vs. No Cause Aren’t the Same Clock
Code of Civil Procedure Article 4701 sets a 5-day notice to vacate once the tenant’s right to occupy has ended — the lease expired, the lessor ended it, rent went unpaid, or any other reason. Ending a lease with no fixed term in the first place is a different article: Civil Code Article 2728 runs on a graduated scale tied to how the lease’s period is measured, not a flat number. The two connect: under Article 4701, the Article 2728 termination notice for a lease with no definite term also counts as the notice to vacate, so no second 5-day notice is stacked on top.
| Ground | Notice Period | Statute | Curable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-payment of rent | At least 5 days from delivery | CCP Art. 4701; CC Art. 2704 | No cure period in Art. 4701 — the notice tells the tenant to vacate, not to pay |
| Lease violation, once the lease has been ended for it | At least 5 days from delivery | CCP Art. 4701 | No cure period in Art. 4701, same as non-payment |
| Fixed-term lease reaching its end (holdover) | At least 5 days from delivery; may be delivered up to 30 days before the term ends | CCP Art. 4701 | N/A |
| No-cause, ending a lease with no fixed term whose period is longer than a month | 30 calendar days before the period ends | CC Art. 2728(1) | N/A |
| No-cause, month-to-month | 10 calendar days before the month ends | CC Art. 2728(2) | N/A |
| No-cause, lease measured by a period from a week up to a month | 5 calendar days before the period ends | CC Art. 2728(3) | N/A |
| Fixed-term lease with a definite end date, not reconducted or extended | None to end the lease — it ends on the stated date (an Art. 4701 notice to vacate is still needed to evict, unless waived) | CC Art. 2720 | N/A |
For a home, the Article 2728 notice has to be in writing (CC Art. 2729). The 5-day floor under Article 4701 isn’t absolute either — a tenant can waive it by a written waiver in the lease, and where that clause exists, the landlord can start eviction proceedings as soon as the right of occupancy ends. Check the lease itself, not just the default rule.
The Court Process — and Why New Orleans Isn’t Like the Rest of the State
Eviction suits over residential leases can be filed in a justice of the peace court, a parish court, or a city court, each within its territory and concurrently with the district court (CCP Arts. 4912, 4844). New Orleans splits that city-court share by river bank: First City Court’s judges are elected by voters on the left bank of the Mississippi, and Second City Court’s territory is the part of the city on the right bank (La. R.S. 13:2151.2, 13:2151.4). Which bank the property sits on decides which city court hears the case.
- File a rule to show cause. Once the notice period runs out without the tenant leaving — or immediately, if the lease waived notice — the landlord has the tenant cited to show cause why possession shouldn’t be delivered. The rule must state the grounds for eviction (CCP Art. 4731(A)).
- Serve the tenant. The citation and rule are served on the tenant.
- Hearing. CCP Art. 4732(A) sets the floor: the rule can’t be made returnable earlier than the third day after service. There’s no single verified figure for how long the whole process runs start to finish — that depends on the court’s docket and whether the tenant shows up to contest it.
- Judgment. If the landlord wins, or the tenant doesn’t answer or appear, the court renders a judgment of eviction immediately, and that judgment stays effective for at least 90 days (CCP Art. 4732(B)).
- The 24-hour compliance window and the warrant. If the tenant hasn’t complied within 24 hours after the judgment, CCP Art. 4733 has the court issue a warrant immediately. A tenant can suspend execution by appealing — but only if they answered the rule under oath, pleading an affirmative defense to keep possession, AND applied for the appeal AND filed the appeal bond within 24 hours of the judgment (CCP Art. 4735).
- Execution. The sheriff, constable, or marshal executes the warrant in front of two witnesses, clearing the premises — breaking open locked or barred windows, doors, or gates if necessary to get in (CCP Art. 4734).
What This Costs
Filing fees are set by the individual court and aren’t published as one statewide number — check the fee schedule for the specific parish, city, or JP court before filing.
What a Landlord Cannot Do
The eviction title gives a lessor one way to take a unit back without a judgment: after the required notice, on a reasonable belief the tenant has abandoned it — business or residential occupancy stopped, keys returned, belongings moved out (CCP Art. 4731(B)). In a parish under a federal disaster declaration, an empty unit doesn’t count as abandoned for 30 days after the declaration, and Article 4731 lets a residential tenant recover $500 or twice the monthly rent, whichever is greater, when the lessor fails to comply with it. Louisiana’s lessor’s privilege on a tenant’s movables still exists (CC Art. 2707), but it’s enforced through a court writ of sequestration, which issues without the landlord posting security (CCP Art. 3575).
Retaliation is the gap. The Civil Code’s lease articles, the eviction articles of the Code of Civil Procedure, and the residential-lease sections of Title 9 of the Revised Statutes contain no retaliation provision. What tenants have raised instead is abus de droit, abuse of right, a civil-law doctrine a court can weigh as a defense to the eviction itself — Louisiana’s Fourth Circuit addressed it in an eviction in Capone v. Kenny, 646 So. 2d 510 (La. App. 4 Cir. 1994). Nothing in state law shifts the burden onto the landlord, so the tenant has to prove the motive. New Orleans renters should also ask the city about its own rental ordinances, which sit outside the state codes covered here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Louisiana’s 5-day eviction notice the same rule that applies to ending a month-to-month lease with no cause? No — they’re two different articles. The 5-day notice to vacate (CCP Art. 4701) applies once the right to occupy has already ended. Ending a month-to-month lease with no cause runs on Civil Code Art. 2728 instead — 10 calendar days before the month ends, not 5 — and that written notice then doubles as the notice to vacate.
Why does New Orleans have two city courts for evictions? The state statutes split New Orleans’ city courts by river bank: First City Court’s judges are elected by voters on the left bank of the Mississippi (La. R.S. 13:2151.2), and Second City Court’s territory is the right bank (La. R.S. 13:2151.4). Both share eviction jurisdiction with the district court.
Does Louisiana protect tenants from retaliatory eviction? Not by state statute — the lease, eviction, and residential-lease provisions contain no retaliation rule. The defense tenants raise is the civil-law doctrine of abuse of right, discussed in Capone v. Kenny (La. App. 4 Cir. 1994), with no statutory presumption to lean on.