8.4.6 Time to File

An action for a redemption nullity is subject to a prescriptive period of 6 months from the tax debtor being duly notified (if the tax sale certificate was recorded more than three, but less than 5 years ago) or 60 days (if the tax sale certificate was recorded more than 5 years ago).1  A client who has timely filed a nullity action only needs to prove a defect in the La. R.S. 47:2156 notice. If the nullity action is untimely, your client will likely need to survive an exception of prescription by proving a defect in whichever secondary form of notice the tax sale purchaser is claiming.

The date on which prescription begins to run and the procedure for asserting the nullity will differ depending on how the tax sale debtor was duly notified.

Quiet Title Action: If your client is served with a petition to quiet title,2  prescription runs from the date of service. Note that if the tax sale was recorded more than 5 years prior, the delay for answering the suit is only 10 days. However, this shortened period to answer does not affect the nullity prescription period.3  If the tax sale purchaser has filed a quiet title action, the nullity “action may be brought as a reconventional demand or an intervention . . . ” by the tax debtor.4  A tax debtor who files a separate action to annul the tax sale risks having the nullity action suit dismissed on an exception of lis pendens.5

Monition Action: If your client receives a monition notice, the notice should state that the prescriptive period to bring a nullity action commenced at first date of advertisement.6  The proper method to counter a monition action is by “intervention in a monition proceeding under R.S. 47:2271 through 2280.”7  Just as with a quiet title action, a separate action to nullify a tax sale could be dismissed on an exception of lis pendens.

Affidavit Procedure: If your client received a tax sale notice sent pursuant to La. R.S. 47:2157, the letter should state that the prescriptive period to file a nullity action commenced on the date of the notice. In this procedure, the tax sale purchaser shifts the burden onto the tax debtor to initiate a lawsuit by filing a nullity action in the district court of the parish in which the property is located.8

• 1La. R.S. 47:2287(A)(1).
• 2La. R.S. 47:2266.
• 3La. R.S. 47:2266(B).
• 4La. R.S. 47:2286.
• 5Dave v. Witherspoon, 2020-0239 (La. App. 4 Cir. 11/4/20), 310 So. 3d 593, 597 (“This court has recognized and held that the filing of a new suit naming new and additional parties will not defeat an exception of lis pendens. The party to the earlier filed suit is entitled to have the later filed suit dismissed as to him, and the new parties remain in the later filed suit.”).
• 6La. R.S. 47:2275.
• 7La. R.S. 47:2286.
• 8Id.