A Succession Representative's Duty to Preserve Property in Louisiana: Articles 3221, 3191 and the Personal Liability

Louisiana does not bury the duty to look after a succession's property in a general standard of care. It states it in one sentence, with four verbs, and then in a separate article makes the representative personally responsible for the damage if it is not done. For anyone administering a Louisiana succession that includes an empty house, those two articles are the whole picture.

Article 3221, In Full

Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure Article 3221 is headed Preservation of succession property and reads, in its entirety: "A succession representative shall preserve, repair, maintain, and protect the property of the succession."

That is the whole article. It is worth pausing on how little qualification it carries. There is no exception on its face for extraordinary loss, no threshold of value below which the duty does not apply, and no stated discretion to decide that a particular building is not worth the expense. Whether courts read limits into it in particular circumstances is a question for counsel on the facts of a succession; what the text itself says is preserve, repair, maintain, protect.

Where the Liability Sits

Article 3191(A) supplies the standard and the consequence in the same breath: "A succession representative is a fiduciary with respect to the succession, and shall have the duty of collecting, preserving, and managing the property of the succession in accordance with law. He shall act at all times as a prudent administrator, and shall be personally responsible for all damages resulting from his failure so to act."

Personally responsible for all damages is about as direct as a liability provision gets. It is not framed as a cost-shifting rule or as an exposure that arises on removal; it is stated as the representative's own responsibility for the damage that follows from failing to act as a prudent administrator. Read with Article 3221, the structure is simple: the duty names the acts, and the standard attaches the liability.

Why This Is Not the Texas Page With a Different State Name

The two states reach the same practical place by different routes, and the differences are real enough to matter to anyone who administers in both.

• Texas Estates Code Section 351.101 excepts extraordinary casualties and yields to a court order directing the representative not to repair; Louisiana's Article 3221 states neither qualification on its face
• Texas routes neglect through Section 351.003 — removal costs, additional costs, and fees for obtaining compliance, reaching the representative and the sureties on the bond; Louisiana's Article 3191 states personal responsibility for all damages in the duty article itself
• Texas pairs a prudent-person standard with a specific buildings obligation in one sentence; Louisiana separates the standard (Article 3191) from the acts (Article 3221)
• Louisiana's vocabulary differs throughout — succession rather than probate, succession representative rather than executor or administrator — which matters when reading forms or searching for guidance

For how the Texas provisions operate, see an executor's duty to maintain estate property in Texas.

The Out-of-State Representative

This is the provision most useful to the families who actually face the problem, and it is routinely missed. Article 3191(B) provides that a nonresident succession representative "may execute a procuration or mandate appointing a resident of the state to represent him in all acts of his administration," and that a resident representative who will be temporarily absent from the state may similarly appoint an agent for the period of absence. The article adds that the procuration or mandate "shall be filed in the record of the succession proceeding and shall not need court approval."

An heir in Houston or Atlanta administering a succession that includes a house in Shreveport or Lafourche Parish does not have to choose between flying in repeatedly and leaving the building to itself. The mechanism for appointing someone local exists in the code, is filed rather than applied for, and does not require a hearing. Note that the same paragraph separately allows a representative to appoint an agent to alienate, acquire, lease or encumber specifically described property on specific terms — a narrower and different authority from general representation in the administration.

Paying For It

Where the succession has no liquid funds, Article 3228 provides a route. When it appears to the best interest of the succession, and after compliance with Article 3229, the court may authorise the representative to borrow money "for the purposes of preserving the property or the orderly administration of the estate, of paying estate debts," and may authorise encumbering succession property as security on such terms and conditions as it directs.

Article 3229 sets the timing, and it is faster than most people expect. Notice of the application is published once, in the parish where the succession proceeding is pending. No court order is required for the publication itself. The notice must state that the order may be issued after seven days from the date of publication and that an opposition may be filed at any time before the order issues. Where no opposition is filed, the court may grant the authority after those seven days. An opposition is tried as a summary proceeding.

What the Duty Looks Like on a Vacant Louisiana House

Article 3221 names acts rather than a schedule, so the practical content is whatever preserving, repairing, maintaining and protecting require for the building in front of you. In the Gulf South that list has a particular shape.

• Secure the openings — an empty house in a parish that knows it is empty is the ordinary case, not the unlucky one
• Keep the grounds cut to the local standard, so the succession does not inherit parish or municipal citations during the administration
• Manage humidity and water intrusion, which in this climate does more damage to an unoccupied building than any single event
• Prepare for named storms on a property nobody is living in, and document the condition before and after each one
• Record each visit with dated photographs, because personal liability for all damages is argued on evidence of what was done and when
• Keep the file per property, since an accounting is read by heirs who were not there and sometimes by a judge