Property Law

A fence is not a boundary — the law and the survey are.La. C.C. arts. 784–796

Few disputes turn neighbors into adversaries faster than a contested property line. Louisiana resolves them through the action of boundary (the action en bornage), which fixes the limit between estates based on titles, surveys, and, where they apply, the rules of acquisitive prescription — under which long, possession of land up to a visible boundary can ripen into ownership.

Aertker Legal prosecutes and defends boundary actions, coordinates licensed surveyors, and resolves encroachments — by agreement where possible and by judgment where necessary.

Your neighbor’s right to cross your land — or yours to cross theirs.La. C.C. art. 646 et seq.

A servitude is a charge on one estate for the benefit of another or of a person. Louisiana’s civil law recognizes predial servitudes — rights of passage, drainage, view, and utility — as well as personal servitudes such as usufruct, use, and habitation. An owner of an enclosed estate with no access to a public road has a statutory right of passage over neighboring land.

The firm establishes, enforces, modifies, and defends servitudes, and drafts the predial-servitude agreements that prevent these disputes in the first place.

• Rights of passage and enclosed-estate access (C.C. art. 689)
• Utility, drainage, and pipeline servitudes
• Usufruct, use, and habitation
• Servitude establishment and extinction
• Encroachment and interference claims

On a construction project, a missed deadline can erase your security.La. R.S. 9:4801 et seq.

Louisiana’s Private Works Act gives contractors, subcontractors, laborers, and material suppliers a privilege against the improved property — but only if its notice and filing requirements are met within strict deadlines. For owners, the same statute creates exposure that proper contracting and bonding can control.

Aertker Legal represents both sides of construction disputes: preserving and enforcing statements of claim and privilege for those owed money, and defending owners and contractors against improper or untimely claims.

• Statements of claim and privilege (lien filings)
• Notice of contract and bonding
• Owner, contractor, and supplier representation
• Lien cancellation and concursus
• Construction-defect and payment disputes

When the government takes your land, the Constitution guarantees you just compensation.La. R.S. 19:1 et seq.

Government and utility entities can expropriate private property for public purposes — but only upon payment of just compensation. Too often the initial offer falls short of the property’s true value, including severance damages to what remains. Where a taking occurs without formal proceedings, an inverse-condemnation claim may be available.

Aertker Legal represents landowners — not the condemning authority — challenging valuation, severance damages, and the scope of the taking to secure full and fair compensation.

Co-ownership in Louisiana is never forced — any owner can demand a division.La. C.C. art. 807 et seq.

When property is owned in indivision — by heirs, former spouses, or business partners — no co-owner is obliged to remain in that arrangement. Louisiana law allows partition in kind, physically dividing the property, or, where it cannot be divided conveniently, partition by licitation, a court-ordered sale with division of the proceeds.

The firm handles partitions of inherited land, community property, and jointly held investments, protecting each owner’s share and resolving the valuation and reimbursement questions that come with them.

In Louisiana, the minerals beneath the land follow their own code.La. R.S. 31:1 et seq.

Louisiana’s Mineral Code governs the rights to oil, gas, and other minerals as a distinct body of law. Mineral servitudes, royalties, and leases carry their own rules — including the prescription of nonuse, under which a mineral servitude can be lost if not exercised within ten years.

Aertker Legal advises landowners and mineral owners on leases, royalty disputes, servitude prescription, and the interplay between surface and mineral rights.

You may do as you please with your land — until it harms your neighbor’s.La. C.C. arts. 667–669

Louisiana’s law of neighborhood — the obligations of vicinage — balances an owner’s freedom to use his property against a neighbor’s right to enjoy his own. Under Civil Code articles 667–669, a landowner answers for works or activities that cause damage to a neighbor, while the mere inconvenience that neighbors must reasonably tolerate is not actionable. Excessive smoke, odor, noise, vibration, and the diversion of water tend to fall on the actionable side of that line.

Separately, local zoning and land-use regulation — parish and municipal ordinances, permitting, variances, and nonconforming uses — governs what may be built and operated where; and recorded subdivision building restrictions (C.C. art. 775 et seq.) bind owners to one another by covenant.

Aertker Legal handles both sides of these disputes — pressing and defending neighbor claims under the obligations of vicinage, litigating drainage and runoff disputes, and representing owners before parish and municipal bodies on zoning, variances, permits, and the enforcement of or relief from building restrictions.

• Obligations of vicinage and neighbor-damage claims (C.C. arts. 667–669)
• Drainage, runoff, and natural-servitude disputes
• Noise, odor, smoke, and vibration nuisance
• Zoning, variances, and conditional-use permits
• Nonconforming uses and permit denials
• Subdivision building restrictions and covenant enforcement (C.C. art. 775 et seq.)