You sold property in Louisiana and took payments in place of a bank loan. We take that note, credit sale or bond for deed, to buyers who purchase Louisiana paper and hand you the worksheet behind every offer.
What costs a Louisiana note holder money before any buyer bids.
The same worksheet comes with every offer.
| Remaining balance | $129,400 |
|---|---|
| Payments left | 168 |
| Buyer’s target yield | 8.0% |
| Purchase price | $115,000 |
| Discount from balance | 11.1% |
| Our fee | shown on every offer |
| Sell the whole note | Sell 60 payments | Keep it | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash today | $115,000 | $56,200 | $0 |
| Payments still coming to you | None | 108 payments of $1,140 | 168 payments of $1,140 |
| Total you receive | $115,000 | $179,320 | $191,520 |
| What you give up | Every future payment | The next five years | A lump sum now |
Illustrative example. Totals add up the payments as scheduled; they assume the payer keeps paying and are not adjusted for the value of money over time.
The promissory noteThe mortgage or deed of trustA payment historyThe closing statement from the saleLouisiana law grew out of the civil law tradition, and its paperwork uses terms of its own. Property sits in a parish, and documents are recorded in the parish records. The security instrument, meaning the document that ties the debt to the property, is generally a mortgage, and deeds of trust are rare here. A note on property in Texas or Mississippi, where deeds of trust are common, follows that state’s practice instead.
Seller financing is often written as a credit sale: one act that transfers the property and gives the seller security for the unpaid price. The other form you may hold is a bond for deed, Louisiana’s name for a contract under which the seller keeps title until the price is paid. A bond for deed behaves more like a land contract than a mortgage note, and buyers price it that way.
The starting point is an owner-financed sale. A seller in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Lafayette or Lake Charles agrees to take payments from a buyer who could not get a bank loan. Outside the cities the property is a timber tract in the north of the state, a hunting or fishing camp, a few acres in Acadiana, or a manufactured home on its own lot.
Heirs hold some of these notes too, having received them through a succession, which is the Louisiana word for probate. If that is you, the payments may be arriving each month while most of the paperwork is missing, and your first job is to find the recorded act.
Foreclosure in Louisiana generally runs through the courts. A mortgage may contain a clause called a confession of judgment, which commonly opens a shorter court route known as executory process. Whether yours has one depends on how it was drafted, and a bond for deed follows different rules again. Practice shifts over time and from parish to parish, so have a Louisiana attorney or title company read your documents before you rely on any of this.
A note buyer pays less than the balance you are owed. The size of that gap comes from the return the buyer wants on the money they put in. Cost and doubt push that return up, which lowers the price.
The court route is one cost: recovering a property through a court takes legal work, and a buyer allows for it. Flood exposure is another. Across much of south Louisiana a buyer will ask which flood zone the property is in and whether insurance is in force. The form of the contract matters as well, because a recorded credit sale with a mortgage is something more buyers are set up to purchase than an unrecorded bond for deed. And if the note reached you through an estate, the buyer needs to see the document that gives you authority to sell.
Which of these apply to yours can only be read from the documents. When you send us the details of your Louisiana note, say at the start if it is a bond for deed, because it goes to a different group of buyers.
These points change who bids and the return they ask for, and none of them rules out a sale. The part you control is the paper, since paperwork quality affects a note’s value here as it does anywhere.
Look at the heading of your recorded document. If it says act of credit sale or mortgage, you hold a mortgage note. If it says bond for deed, you hold a contract, and it helps to find out whether it was ever recorded in the parish records. Put that document with the note and whatever payment record you have. For a note that came to you through a succession, add the succession paper that names you as the new holder.
Yes. A credit sale that gives the seller a mortgage on the property is a common way to owner-finance in Louisiana, and note buyers will price it. They will want the recorded act and the note itself. A Louisiana attorney can confirm exactly what your documents created.
No. With a bond for deed the seller generally keeps title until the buyer has paid, so there is no mortgage to assign. Fewer buyers bid on them and the price reflects that. Tell us which one you hold at the start.
It is one factor. Foreclosure in Louisiana generally goes through the courts, and a buyer allows for that cost when setting the return they need. A buyer starts from the payments, the equity in the property and the payer's record, and adjusts for the legal route after that.
Yes, once you can show you have the authority to sell it. That commonly means succession paperwork naming you as the owner or as the person acting for the estate. What is required varies, so check with a Louisiana attorney before you sign anything.