Transaction coordinator in Louisiana: LREC agreement, Act of Sale and costs

What does a transaction coordinator do on a Louisiana deal?

A Louisiana coordinator takes the accepted purchase agreement and manages it through to the Act of Sale, the signing at which ownership passes. For licensees the agreement is not a choice. Under LAC 46:LXVII.3900, the form used by a licensee representing a buyer or seller in a residential sale must be the Residential Agreement to Buy or Sell prescribed by the Louisiana Real Estate Commission, and the official source is the Commission's website.

The current version is Rev. 01/2026. LREC announced the 2026 mandatory forms on November 3, 2025, and said they take effect on January 1, 2026, alongside a new property disclosure form. The Louisiana REALTORS legal counsel noted that the 2026 rewrite re-ordered the agreement to follow the sequence of a typical transaction, which moved several sections and changed line references. A coordinator using an older checklist should check every line number against the new form.

Louisiana is a civil-law state, and the vocabulary shows it. The closing is the Act of Sale, the buyer's inspection window is the Due Diligence and Inspection Period, and an “as is” sale means waiving the seller's warranty against redhibitory defects under Civil Code article 2520. The daily work of a coordinator is familiar, though: tracking the deposit, the inspection response, the lender and the title work, and keeping everyone pointed at the same Act of Sale date.

Which deadlines does the Louisiana purchase agreement set?

The 2026 Residential Agreement to Buy or Sell leaves most periods as blanks the parties fill in, and fixes a few. Its line numbers are printed on the form, so the table cites them.

The inspection stage has more automatic outcomes than most states' forms. If the buyer sends neither a termination nor a Buyer's Request before the inspection period expires, lines 187 to 190 treat that as acceptance of the property's condition. Once a request is in, silence works the other way. A buyer who fails to answer a Seller's Response in time leaves the agreement null and void under lines 240 to 242, with the deposit returned. If the seller doesn't respond, the buyer has 72 hours to accept the property or terminate, and missing that window also voids the agreement.

For a coordinator, that means a Buyer's Request starts two clocks measured in hours, not days, and each one can end the deal without anyone choosing to. The agreement doesn't exclude weekends from these hours, so a request delivered at 7 p.m. on a Friday has a response due at 7 p.m. on Monday.

When must a Louisiana seller give the property disclosure?

Under R.S. 9:3198, the seller must deliver the completed and signed property disclosure document no later than the time the buyer makes an offer. If it arrives after the offer, the buyer may terminate the resulting contract or withdraw the offer within 72 hours of receipt, excluding weekends and federal and state holidays. Those rights are waived if not used before the transfer of title or occupancy, whichever comes first.

Here the statute counts business days, which is different from the agreement's round-the-clock hours. A coordinator who receives a disclosure after the offer should note the delivery time and work out the termination deadline on its own calendar.

Does a transaction coordinator need a license in Louisiana?

Louisiana has no separate license or rule for transaction coordinators. The Commission answers the question through its guidance on unlicensed assistants, which it says is based on the questions it is asked most often, is not all-inclusive and points to R.S. 37:1431 for the activities that require a license. Among the tasks LREC says an unlicensed assistant can do:

• submit listings and changes to a multiple listing service
• check with the lender on the loan commitment once the contract is agreed
• type contract forms as directed by a licensee and supervising broker
• secure public documents from a courthouse, sewer district or water district
• act as a courier for documents and keys

The same page bars an unlicensed assistant from talking through or explaining contracts, listings and similar documents with people outside the brokerage. Pay can't be tied to real estate activity either, whether as a commission percentage or a sum per listing or sale. So an unlicensed coordinator shouldn't be the one walking the other side through an inspection response. They can chase the paperwork, and the explaining stays with the licensee.

Who handles the closing in Louisiana?

The agreement says the Act of Sale is executed before a settlement agent or notary public chosen by the buyer, on the date the parties write in, and that any change to the date must be agreed in writing by both. Civil Code article 2440 requires a sale of immovable property to be made by authentic act or by act under private signature. An authentic act, under article 1833, is executed before a notary public in the presence of two witnesses and signed by each party, each witness and the notary.

Title examination is an attorney's job by statute. Under R.S. 22:512, an examination that supports a title insurance report or policy may be conducted, and the opinion rendered, only by an attorney licensed in Louisiana. For a sale the minimum search period is 30 years, or longer if needed to reach an arm's-length sale between unrelated parties.

The agreement splits the costs. Under lines 107 to 111 the buyer pays the Act of Sale costs, abstracting, title search, title insurance and the costs of obtaining financing. Lines 113 and 114 put the tax, mortgage and conveyance certificates and any seller closing fees on the seller. The agreement names who holds the deposit and quotes LAC 46:LXVII.2717, which requires funds to go into the listing or managing broker's escrow account unless all parties agree otherwise in writing.

Louisiana limits transfer taxes in its constitution. Article VII, section 2.3 of the Louisiana Constitution bars any new tax or fee on the sale or transfer of immovable property after November 30, 2011. That bar covers new taxes, and New Orleans still levies one. The Orleans Parish Civil Clerk says the city's documentary transaction tax is a flat $325 on documents transferring real estate, collected by the Notarial Archives and paid by the seller. A file in New Orleans should have that line on the settlement statement.

Which MLS do Louisiana agents use?

The biggest system is ROAM MLS, formed by combining the MLSs of the New Orleans Metropolitan Association of REALTORS (its Gulf South Real Estate Information Network), the Greater Baton Rouge Association of REALTORS, the Greater Central Louisiana Association of REALTORS and the Bayou Board of REALTORS. NOMAR's 2024 member guide described ROAM as the state's largest MLS, with more than 12,000 REALTOR members across 32 parishes.

ROAM's board has decided to move all users onto a single statewide instance of the Flex MLS platform, with a launch targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026. A coordinator who enters listing changes, one of the tasks LREC allows an unlicensed assistant, should watch for ROAM's notices about the cut-over date.

How is the Louisiana housing market doing?

The Louisiana REALTORS 2025 annual report counted 40,266 closed sales across its service area, up 2.8% on 2024, at a median price of $247,000, up 1.4%. Sellers received 97.0% of list price on average. Single-family homes averaged 67 days on market and townhouses and condos 80. Months of supply climbed from 1.8 in 2021 to 5.4 in 2024, then eased to 5.2 in 2025.

What does a transaction coordinator cost in Louisiana?

None of the 21 published price cards in our October 2026 review came from a Louisiana firm, so there is no local figure to quote. Elsewhere, the cards priced one side between $300 and $550, usually payable only if the file closes. Use the TC fee per file calculator to set a Louisiana quote against the cost of an in-house assistant.

How do you hire a transaction coordinator in Louisiana?

Begin with the LREC list. An unlicensed coordinator can type forms and follow up on the loan, but cannot explain the agreement to the other side, so agree in advance who talks to whom. If you want a coordinator who handles more, hire a licensee and ask which broker supervises them.

Then test their knowledge of the 2026 form. Ask how they track a Buyer's Request through the seller's and buyer's 72-hour responses, and what happens if the buyer misses theirs. Ask how they work with the settlement agent or notary the buyer chooses. Our transaction coordinator checklist shows whether anything in their process is missing.

DeedSpring has no office in Louisiana. It works from the agreement and documents you upload, reviews every open file hourly and leaves each message for you to approve.

Freelance TC, TC company or DeedSpring: which fits a Louisiana agent?

The table sets the usual options side by side. A good freelance TC is worth every dollar on a messy file. What most agents are really paying for, though, is someone who never misses a date and always chases the lender. Software does that on every file at once.

To see what the gap means across a year of files, put your numbers into the TC fee per file calculator.

Compare plans on the DeedSpring pricing page.