Art. 3721.Methods of Enforcing Mortgage

A hypothec is Louisiana's civil-law term for a real security interest in immovable property — what most people call a mortgage. When a mortgage-holding creditor wants to enforce that security and collect on the underlying debt, the lawsuit used to do it is the hypothecary action, and Article 3721 opens this Chapter by naming the two ways to bring one: an ordinary proceeding or an executory proceeding.

The article also addresses a practical problem that comes up in nearly every mortgage enforcement case: the debt keeps growing after judgment, through accruing interest, advances for taxes and insurance, inspection or other contractual fees, attorney fees, and court costs. Article 3721 lets the judgment or executory order account for those amounts even though they had not yet accrued when the judgment or order was rendered, and it overrides any other law that would otherwise require a judgment to state a fixed, definite dollar amount.

To keep that flexibility from becoming a source of dispute at the moment of sale, Article 3721 requires the seizing creditor or counsel to file the payoff amount, including everything that accrued after suit was filed or judgment was rendered, into the record before the sheriff's sale. Anyone with an interest in the seized property — including other mortgage or lien holders — can file a rule to show cause to traverse, meaning formally dispute, that payoff figure, but has to do so before the sheriff disburses the sale proceeds. A sale conducted under court order remains valid even if an interested party never got around to challenging the payoff amount.