Louisiana Wholesaling Law: HB 468 (Act 807)

State: Louisiana | Bill: HB 468, 2026 Regular Session, signed June 9, 2026 as Act 807, enacted as R.S. 37:1431(35)-(37) and 37:1448.5 | Effective date: August 1, 2026 (not yet in effect as of July 2026) | Applies to: Residential real property with 1 to 4 dwelling units | Bottom line: Wholesaling stays legal, including same day contracts. You must disclose your intent before signing, honor a 5 day seller cancellation window, and deposit at least 1 percent earnest money. Louisiana is the first state to write dry double closings into the definition of wholesaling.

What the Law Says (Plain English)

Louisiana added a wholesaling section to its real estate licensing law. This one is not a ban and it is not a waiting period law. It is a disclosure, cancellation, and earnest money law. Here is how it works.

Who counts as a "wholesaler": anyone "engaged in or intends to engage in the wholesaling of residential real property." And "wholesaling" is defined as "securing, negotiating, or facilitating the purchase or sale of residential real property with the purpose of transferring, assigning, or selling a contractual right to purchase or any other equitable interest in the residential real property, whether directly or indirectly, for financial gain."

Read that twice, because those words decide every loophole below. Three things stand out:

1. Marketing alone makes you a presumed wholesaler. The statute says "the marketing for sale of the contractual rights or other equitable interests constitutes a presumption" that you are wholesaling. In Louisiana, advertising your contract does not protect you. It labels you.
2. The definition expressly includes signing a purchase contract "with the intent of assigning or selling the contractual rights to another party before taking possession or legal ownership."
3. It also expressly includes dry double closings: "simultaneously consummating or closing two separate transactions relative to the same residential real property... without the purchaser providing all funds needed to close the sale transaction with the original owner and seller and without the intent to reside in, occupy, or otherwise materially improve" the property. Translation: if you close A to B and B to C at the same table using the end buyer's money, you are a wholesaler under this law.

What the law requires of a wholesaler:

• Disclose in writing, prominently, before each contract is signed: (1) that you intend to assign, transfer, convey, or sell your contractual rights or equitable interest "for a higher price than what is offered to the seller," (2) that the seller should get legal advice before signing, and (3) that the seller can cancel for any reason, without penalty, for at least 5 calendar days after signing. The statute does not require a separate document, so this can live inside your purchase agreement.
• Give the seller a 5 calendar day cancellation right. The clock starts on the later signature date (yours or the seller's). Your contract must print the exact cancellation date and time in a notice right next to the seller's signature line, using the statute's required language, and you must attach the Louisiana Real Estate Commission's mandatory cancellation form for free. During those 5 days you "CANNOT ask you to sign or have you sign any cash sale, conveyance or deed, or any other document," in the statute's own required notice wording.
• Put up real earnest money. Every wholesaling contract "shall include a deposit of not less than one percent of the purchase price," held either in the seller's account or in a Louisiana escrow account at a federally insured institution. The $10 earnest money contract is dead in Louisiana.
• Behave like a buyer, not an advisor. You cannot act or claim to act as an advisor, consultant, or representative of the seller. You cannot claim licenses you do not hold. You cannot record any lien, mortgage, or other encumbrance to cloud the seller's title. You cannot use deceptive or unfair trade practices.

Deposit mechanics if the deal dies: if the seller cancels inside the 5 day window, you get your full deposit back. If the seller terminates later because you violated the statute, the seller keeps your deposit.

What You CANNOT Do (After August 1, 2026)

• Sign a wholesale contract on a 1 to 4 unit house without first disclosing, in writing, that you intend to flip your contract for a higher price
• Have the seller sign a deed, cash sale, or any other document during the 5 day cancellation window
• Tie up a property with token earnest money (the deposit must be at least 1 percent of the purchase price, in escrow or with the seller)
• Record a memorandum of contract, lien, or any other cloud on the seller's title to stop them from selling to someone else
• Call yourself a consultant, advisor, or anything that suggests you work for the seller
• Do a dry, simultaneous double close funded with the end buyer's money and pretend the law does not apply to you (the statute names that structure)

What You CAN Still Do

• Wholesale, openly. Assignments remain fully legal. Disclose in your contract, respect the 5 day window, deposit the 1 percent, and run your business. There is no waiting period before signing and no license requirement.
• Sign the contract on the first appointment. Unlike Missouri's 14 day rule, Louisiana has no pre-contract waiting period. The 5 day clock runs after signing, during your inspection and disposition period anyway.
• Wholesale vacant land, 5+ unit multifamily, and commercial. Not covered (see Loophole #1).
• Double close with your own funds. A funded double close where you bring all the money to close leg one sits outside the statute's double closing language (see Loophole #3).
• Keep contracts signed before August 1, 2026 on your old paperwork. The Act does not apply to agreements completed before the effective date (but see the gaps note on the word "completed").

The Loopholes

Loophole #1: Vacant Land, 5+ Units, and Commercial (Clean)

"Residential real property" is defined as "real property consisting of one or not more than four residential dwelling units, which are buildings or structures each of which is occupied or intended for occupancy as single family residences." No building, no coverage. Vacant land, apartment buildings of 5 or more units, and commercial property are completely outside this law. Assign those exactly as you do today. Clean.

Loophole #2: Compliance Is the Play (Clean, if you disclose before signing)

This is the rare state where the honest path is also the easy path, but the timing word matters. The statute requires the three disclosures "before the execution of each related contract or written agreement" (R.S. 37:1448.5(A)), not 14 days before. It does not require a separate document, so the language can live in your purchase agreement. The open question is whether burying the disclosure inside the same contract the seller signs actually counts as disclosing "before the execution." No LREC guidance answers that yet. So:

• Present the three disclosures and the cancellation notice for the seller to read before they sign the purchase agreement, not as fine print they discover at signature. A separate acknowledgment page the seller initials ahead of the contract is the safest version.
• Print the cancellation notice with the exact date in immediate proximity to the signature line, using the verbatim language (see Required Disclosure Language below), and attach the LREC form.
• Let the 5 day window run while you do your normal inspection and disposition work.
• Fund the 1 percent deposit into a Louisiana escrow account.

Cost: a contract rider and real earnest money. On a $100,000 contract that is $1,000, and you get it back through closing or if the seller cancels in the window. What actually died here is the zero risk, zero disclosure contract, not your business. Clean, as long as the disclosure genuinely reaches the seller before signing.

Loophole #3: The Funded Double Close (Gray)

The statute only pulls a double close into "wholesaling" when it happens "without the purchaser providing all funds needed to close the sale transaction with the original owner and seller and without the intent to reside in, occupy, or otherwise materially improve" the property. Both conditions sit in the same sentence. If you bring all the funds needed to close leg one, whether your own cash or transactional funding you are personally on the hook for, the quoted trigger words do not reach you, because you provided the funds. Buying with a genuine intent to materially improve the property also falls outside the quoted words.

Why only Gray and not Clean: the definition opens with "includes but is not limited to," and the general definition ("selling... any other equitable interest... whether directly or indirectly") is broad. A regulator could argue a same day resale is still indirect equitable interest flipping. No case law exists yet. A non-simultaneous double close (buy, hold title even briefly, then resell) with your own funds is the stronger version. Cost: a second set of closing costs plus transactional funding fees. Gray, talk to a Louisiana attorney before building your model on it.

Loophole #4: Defer the Deposit Until the Cancellation Window Closes (Gray)

The statute requires the 1 percent deposit but never says when it must be funded. A rider suggested by an industry source makes the deposit due 24 hours after the seller's 5 day cancellation right expires, so you never have money in escrow on a deal the seller can kill for any reason. The statute's refund rule already protects you (a seller who cancels in the window triggers a full deposit return), but deferring avoids the round trip. This drafting is untested with the LREC. Gray, low stakes either way.

Loophole #5: Entity Sale / LLC Drop (Closed)

Selling the membership interest of an LLC that holds the contract, instead of assigning the contract, runs straight into the definition: "transferring, assigning, or selling a contractual right to purchase or any other equitable interest in the residential real property, whether directly or indirectly, for financial gain." The words "or indirectly" were written for exactly this move. Closed.

Loophole #6: Call It a Novation (Closed in practice)

The statute never uses the word "novation," but a novation transfers your position for financial gain, and the definition covers doing that "directly or indirectly." Relabeling the paperwork does not move you outside the trigger words, and the compliance burden you would be dodging is small anyway. Treat as Closed.

Not Loopholes in Louisiana (Know These)

• "Market the contract, not the property" works in marketing trigger states. Here it backfires: marketing your contractual rights "constitutes a presumption" that you are a wholesaler. It does not exempt you, it tags you.
• Getting licensed does not exempt you. The statute covers "any person or entity" and contains no carve-out for license holders.

Penalties If You Violate It

• Your contract dies at the seller's whim. Any violation, including a missing disclosure, makes the contract "immediately voidable and terminable at any time prior to transfer of title... at the seller's sole discretion." One written notice from the seller and your contract is "invalid and unenforceable."
• The seller keeps your earnest money when they terminate for a violation (outside the 5 day window). That is at least 1 percent of the purchase price gone.
• Unfair trade practice exposure. Every violation is an unfair trade practice enforceable by the Louisiana Attorney General's consumer protection section.
• Louisiana Real Estate Commission enforcement. Violations of the chapter can be investigated and enforced by the LREC.
• Civil penalty up to $5,000 per violation, imposed and collected by the commission, on top of every other remedy.

Related Rules in the Same Bill

• Title clouding ban. You cannot "impose, file, record, or place any lien, privilege, mortgage, or other encumbrance" on the property or otherwise cloud title. The memorandum of contract strategy for stopping a seller from going around you is illegal here.
• Advisor and credential bans. No posing as a consultant, advisor, or seller's representative, and no claiming licenses or professional memberships you do not have.
• Right-to-list agreements. The section also bans "the execution of unlawful real estate service agreements in violation of R.S. 51:1429," Louisiana's existing law against long-term exclusive listing type agreements (the NTLA model). If your strategy touches those, it now has a second enforcement hook.

Required Disclosure Language

Louisiana mandates two different things: the CONTENT of three seller disclosures, and the exact WORDING of one cancellation notice.

The three substantive disclosures (content mandated, exact wording not). Before the seller signs each related contract or written agreement, you must prominently disclose in writing (R.S. 37:1448.5(A)):

1. That you intend to assign, transfer, convey, or sell your contractual rights to, or equitable interest in, the property for a higher price than what is offered to the seller, or will otherwise market those rights or interests for financial gain.
2. That the seller should seek legal advice before signing each contract or written agreement.
3. That the seller has the right to cancel any contract or written agreement, for any reason and without penalty, for at least five calendar days after execution.

The statute mandates this content but not a script. You may write these three points in your own words as long as all three are covered.

The cancellation notice (VERBATIM). R.S. 37:1448.5(C)(2)(a) requires the contract to conspicuously include the cancellation date and time inside a notice, and that notice must contain this exact language:

> "NOTICE REQUIRED BY LOUISIANA LAW: You may cancel this contract at any time before 11:59 PM of [Insert Date]. [Insert Name of Wholesaler] CANNOT ask you to sign or have you sign any cash sale, conveyance or deed, or any other document until your right to cancel this contract has ended. See the attached notice of cancellation form for an explanation of this right. It is advisable that you find your own attorney before signing the contract. The law requires this contract to contain the entire agreement. You should not rely upon any other written or oral agreement or promise."

Fill the brackets with the cancellation date (the fifth calendar day after the later of your signature or the seller's) and your name. Do not paraphrase this notice; the statute prescribes the wording.

Formatting and placement requirements:

• The notice must be located in immediate proximity to the space reserved for the seller's signature (R.S. 37:1448.5(C)(2)(a)).
• The date and time by which the seller may cancel must be conspicuously included within that notice (R.S. 37:1448.5(C)(2)(a)).
• You must attach the Louisiana Real Estate Commission's mandatory cancellation notice form, at no cost to the seller, with every wholesaling contract (R.S. 37:1448.5(C)(2)(b),(c)).
• As of July 8, 2026, the LREC had not yet published that mandatory form. Confirm it is live on the LREC website before writing contracts, because your notice references an "attached notice of cancellation form."

The statute does not set a minimum font size for these disclosures. It requires the substantive disclosures to be "prominently" made and the cancellation notice to be "conspicuously" included, so treat both as bold, plainly visible text rather than fine print.

Quick Reference

This summary is an analysis of the bill text and secondary reports, not legal advice. Confirm your specific deal structure with a Louisiana real estate attorney, especially any double closing or entity structure.

Sources: full enrolled statute text at "various laws/louisiana law for wholesaling.md" (primary), a third-party industry report on wholesaling regulation (LOUISIANA section) plus third-party video commentary on HB 468, and the Google deep research report (Louisiana section).