§ 33:3306 — Special assessment and lien installment payments

A. Upon receipt of the certified statement or report of the engineer as provided for in the preceding section, the governing authority shall review said certified statement or report, including the proposed local or special assessments, and thereafter shall make a determination as to whether each lot or parcel of real estate to be assessed will be benefited to an amount not less than the proposed local or special assessment. Proposed assessments that are found by the governing authority to have been erroneously assessed or for which the governing authority does not find said benefit shall be deleted from said certified statement or report. The deletion of such proposed assessments from said certified statement or report for either of said reasons shall in no way invalidate or affect the legality of the contract awarded for the construction of said proposed improvements nor shall such deletions constitute a violation of the public contracts law of this state.
B. Following said review and finding as to benefit by said governing authority there shall be mailed to each property owner to be assessed a notice advising each property owner of his proposed assessment and the manner and time for payment thereof. Said notice shall set forth a general description of the proposed improvements, such description of the property to be assessed and the location thereof as the governing authority may deem necessary, and shall notify the property owner to advise the municipality in writing within fifteen days from the date of said notice if inaccuracies exist in the proposed assessment. The aforesaid notice shall be given by depositing said written notice in the United States mail, postage paid, and addressed to the property owner at his address as it appeared on the last municipal assessment roll on which the property was assessed for municipal taxes. The certificate of the clerk or secretary of the governing authority levying any such assessments that the aforesaid notice has been given in writing to all property owners to be assessed shall establish a conclusive legal presumption that all requirements of notice as set forth hereinabove have been legally satisfied.
C. After thirty days has elapsed from the date of the mailing of said notice of the proposed assessments, the governing authority shall adopt an ordinance levying a local or special assessment on each lot or parcel of real estate abutting the street, road, sidewalk, or alley to be improved, including such lots or parcels of real estate as may be located wholly or partly outside of the municipal limits or boundaries, in proportion that its frontage bears to all the abutting lots or parcels of real estate to be improved in accordance with the contract awarded or in accord with the cost of improvements, when undertaken by the municipality. The total of all such local or special assessments shall represent the total cost of the improvement, including street intersections, engineer's and attorney's fees, and all other costs incidental to the work, after deduction therefrom of the amount of participation, if any, made by the municipality as hereinafter provided in R.S. 33:3318. The amount assessed in the ordinance shall be due and collectible immediately on its passage, and if not paid within thirty days from the date of the adoption of the ordinance, it will be conclusively presumed that any property owner whose property is affected thereby, exercises the right and option, which is hereby authorized, to pay the amount due in equal annual installments bearing interest at a rate or rates not exceeding the maximum rate provided for conventional interest by Article 2924 of the Louisiana Civil Code as the same now exists or may be hereafter amended, and extending over a period not exceeding twenty years, as provided for in the ordinance levying the local or special assessments. The first installment shall become due on December 31st of the then current year, or one year after the date of the assessment ordinance herein provided for, in the discretion of the governing authority of the municipality, and annually thereafter. The local or special assessments may be carried on the tax roll of the municipality and collected at the same time as taxes. The failure to pay any installments or the interest thereon when due, shall ipso facto cause all other installments and the interest thereon to become due and payable and the municipality shall within thirty days from date of such default, proceed against the property for the collection of the total amount due thereon, including interest, plus ten percent additional on the principal and interest of the past due installment or installments or ten percent of the amount sued for, and in the event judgment is necessary to effect collection, ten percent of the amount of the judgment rendered, as attorney's fees. Provided that, said attorneys' fees shall be payable by the property owner only if demand by the governing authority of the municipality through registered or certified mail has been made on the property owner and he has failed to pay the amount due within ten days after such demand. A certified copy of the ordinance levying the local or special assessments on the real estate shall be filed with the clerk of court in the parish in which the municipality is situated, who shall forthwith record the same in the mortgage records of the parish, and when so filed and recorded, shall operate as a lien and privilege against all real estate therein assessed, and which aforesaid lien and privilege shall prime all other claims except taxes, and prior recorded local or special assessments levied for streets, sewerage or water improvements. The payments made in cash shall be expended for no other purpose than for the payment of the cost of the improvements. Any errors in descriptions or amounts in any assessment ordinance adopted pursuant to this section may be corrected by the adoption of an amendatory ordinance which need set forth only the corrected descriptions or amounts and which amendatory ordinance shall be recorded in the same manner as the original ordinance levying the assessments. The adoption of any such corrective ordinance shall serve only to postpone the thirty days' period for cash payment in full of the assessment actually affected and corrected by such amendatory ordinance, and the due dates of the installments of such assessments so corrected as are not paid in full in cash within thirty days from the date of the adoption of the amendatory ordinance, shall be the same as the due dates of the installments of the assessments levied in the original ordinance and not affected or corrected by any such amendatory ordinance or ordinances.

Legislative History

Amended by Acts 1950, No. 192, §3; Acts 1950, No. 525, §1; Acts 1952, No. 144, §1; Acts 1954, No. 610, §1; Acts 1958, No. 238, §1; Acts 1960, No. 325, §1; Acts 1970, No. 552, §1.