Attachment

What is attachment for payment?

Legal definition and fundamental mechanism

Attachment is a compulsory execution procedure that allows a creditor, armed with a writ of execution, to seize sums of money owed by a third party to the debtor. The mechanism is governed by articles L. 211-1 et seq. of the Code des procédures civiles d'exécution (CPCE).

It features three actors: the distraining creditor (the person initiating the seizure), the seized debtor (the person whose rights to funds are seized) and the garnishee (the person who actually holds the funds - most often a bank, but also a tenant, a notary in charge of a sale, a customer of the debtor). The court commissioner summons this third party and orders it to stop paying into the hands of the debtor.

In practice, seizure of bank accounts is the most common form of attachment: using the FICOBA bank account database, the court commissioner identifies the institutions where the debtor holds an account and proceeds with the seizure. But the scope is much wider: rent owed by a tenant, dividends paid by a company, the sale price held by a solicitor, recurring fees - any claim for a sum of money can in principle be seized.

The break with garnishment: why 1991 changed everything

Prior to the reform introduced by Act No. 91-650 of 9 July 1991, French law only allowed for garnishment. This procedure had one major shortcoming: it was merely a protective measure. The creditor had to obtain a validation judgment before the funds were actually paid out, which could take months and left the door open to obstructionist manoeuvres.

In 1991, the law abolished this compulsory judicial phase. This gave rise to the attachment for payment procedure, in which a simple document served on the garnishee is sufficient to transfer ownership of the sums. The intervention of the enforcement judge is no longer the rule, but the exception - only in the event of a challenge by one of the parties.

The three players and their respective roles

Le distraining creditor is responsible for initiating the measure. Armed with a enforcement order, In the case of a debtor's assets, the debtor appoints a court commissioner to seize the debtor's assets in the hands of a third party. Once the deed has been served, ownership of the sums is transferred to the debtor.

Le seized debtor his rights to the funds held by the third party are immediately transferred. The third party has one month in which to contest the seizure before the enforcement judge (JEX). Once this period has elapsed, the seizure is final and the funds are paid to the creditor.

Le garnishee is caught in a vice: he receives an order from the court commissioner prohibiting him from paying the debtor, and he is personally liable to the distraining creditor. Their obligations are strict, and any breaches are heavily penalised.

Conditions for implementation

Enforcement orders: which acts authorise seizure?

Not all creditors have access to attachment. Article L. 211-1 of the CPCE makes it imperative that you hold a enforcement order. Article L. 111-3 of the same code sets out a list of such documents: court decisions and judicial deeds that have become res judicata, notarised deeds with an enforceable clause, documents issued by social security bodies or professional orders, etc. The list is not exhaustive.

The most common court decision is a judgment in which both parties are heard and which has been provisionally enforced, or which has become res judicata. A notarised loan deed also constitutes a direct writ of execution, enabling the creditor bank to seize the debt without first going through legal proceedings. The Court of Cassation recently recalled that the enforcement formula affixed to a notarised loan deed confers this force even on the sub-guarantee undertaking contained therein (Cass. civ. 2e, 27 March 2025, no. 22-11.482).

The statute of limitations on a writ of execution is a frequent ground for dispute: court judgments are time-barred after ten years, ordinary civil claims after five years. A creditor who acts on a statute-barred instrument risks having the seizure lifted.

A claim that is liquidated and payable

The security must record a receivable liquid (quantified in money, or the amount of which can be easily determined by a simple calculation) and due (whose payment term has expired). A claim that is subject to a condition that has not been fulfilled, or whose due date has not yet arrived, cannot form the basis for an attachment order.

The statement of the sums claimed must be detailed in the writ of attachment: principal, costs, accrued interest and provision for interest to fall due within the one-month period allowed for the dispute. Where the creditor relies on several enforceable titles, he must submit a separate statement for each of them, on pain of nullity (Cass. civ. 2e, 23 Feb. 2017, no. 16-10.338).

Seizability: what can and cannot be seized

Not all claims for money can be seized. The law protects certain resources considered vital.

The labour compensation are subject to their own regime (the attachment of earnings, governed by the Labour Code), with progressive seizable portions and a separate procedure before the distributing court commissioner. The seizure-attribution of the CPCE is not applicable.

Some social benefits are completely exempt from seizure: RSA, family allowances, personalised housing benefit.

When a bank account is seized, a minimum amount must remain available to the debtor:

In addition, the credit lines granted by the bank to the debtor are not subject to seizure: a credit line represents an obligation to do something (make funds available), not a claim to an existing sum of money. The seizure can only relate to funds that are actually available.

The procedure

• 1
  Seizure deed served on the garnishee

  The court commissioner notifies the third party (bank, tenant, etc.) of the seizure report. Compulsory details to be respected on pain of nullity. For banks: electronic transmission compulsory from 1 April 2021.

• 2
  Declaration by the garnishee «on the spot»

  The third party must immediately declare the nature and extent of its obligation to the debtor. A third party who fails to do so may be ordered to pay the costs of the seizure.

• 3
  Notification to the debtor - 8-day period

  The court commissioner informs the debtor of the seizure, failing which it lapses. The notice of seizure must specify the one-month time limit for contesting the seizure and the competent court.

• 4
  Account frozen - 15 working days

  The bank has 15 working days to calculate the final balance that can be seized, taking into account current transactions (cheques, transfers, direct debits). The SBI is automatically preserved.

• 5
  Payment to the creditor - or challenge before the JEX

  After the 15 working days, the sum seized is paid to the creditor - unless the debtor has lodged an objection within one month with the enforcement judge.

The seizure deed: strict formalities and compulsory information

The procedure is the exclusive responsibility of the judicial officer. Article L. 122-1 of the CPCE reserves the monopoly of seizure of assets to these officers: a deed drawn up by a clerk, even in his own name, would be null and void without it being necessary to prove a grievance (Cass. civ. 2e, 28 June 2006, no. 04-17.514).

The court commissioner serves the garnishee with a writ of attachment. For credit institutions, since 1 April 2021, service must be made electronically (art. L. 211-1-1 CPCE). It must be served on the head office or branch that holds the debtor's accounts - service on another entity is ineffective (Cass. civ. 2e, 22 March 2006, no. 05-12.569).

To be valid, the seizure document must contain several items of information required by article R. 211-1 of the CPCE:

• Full identification of the creditor and debtor (name, company name, address or registered office).
• A statement of the enforceable title on which the claim is based.
• A detailed statement of the sums claimed (principal, costs, accrued interest, provision for accrued interest), with a separate statement for each security if several securities are claimed.
• The garnishee is prohibited from paying the sums owed to the debtor.
• An indication that the garnishee is personally liable to the distraining creditor.
• The time of service of the document.

If any of these details are missing, the seizure will be null and void. It may also render the inadmissibility of any late challenge unenforceable against the debtor, if the act of denunciation fails to indicate the obligation to denounce the challenge on the same day to the court commissioner (Cass. civ. 2e, 10 March 2004, no. 02-16.900).

The garnishee's obligations and penalties for non-compliance

Upon receipt of the writ of attachment, the garnishee is required to make an immediate declaration. Article R. 211-4 of the CPCE requires the garnishee to declare «immediately» to the court commissioner the nature and extent of its obligation to the debtor. For a bank, this means disclosing the balance of all the debtor's accounts on the day of the seizure, as well as any previous assignments, delegations or seizures affecting these accounts.

Case law strictly interprets the immediacy of this obligation. Only a legitimate reason On the other hand, the absence of managers or computer malfunctions do not constitute legitimate reasons.

The penalties for defaulting garnishees are severe and cumulative:

• If he fails to respond without a legitimate reason, he may be ordered to pay the costs of the seizure, up to the limit of his obligation to the debtor.
• If they make an inaccurate or misleading declaration, they may be liable for damages.

These two penalties are quite distinct and may be imposed together (Cass. civ. 2e, 5 July 2000, no. 97-19.629).

Notification to the debtor: a mandatory 8-day period

Attachment is a procedure carried out at the initiative of the creditor, without the debtor being informed beforehand. The law compensates for this surprise effect by guaranteeing that the debtor will be informed rapidly: within a period of eight days from the date of service on the garnishee, the court-appointed agent must notify the debtor of the seizure, failing which it will lapse.

On pain of being declared null and void, the notice must contain :

• A copy of the seizure report.
• The one-month time limit for lodging an objection and the date on which this time limit expires must be clearly indicated.
• Designation of the competent enforcement judge.
• The obligation to report any dispute to the court commissioner on the same day as the summons, by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt.
• For seizures of bank accounts: the amount of the SBI and the obligation for the debtor to declare the sums he claims are exempt from seizure.

Failure to comply with the eight-day time limit will result in the lapsing of the seizure - its retroactive annulment, as if it had never existed. This is one of the rare cases where a creditor's error benefits the debtor in its entirety, regardless of the legitimacy of the claim.

Note: this eight-day period does not apply where the debtor is served with a copy of the deed converting a protective attachment order into an attachment for payment - a separate procedure governed by its own rules (Cass. com., 2 March 2010, no. 08-19.898).

Freezing the account and the adjustment period

When a bank account is seized, all the debtor's accounts with the seizing institution are made unavailable as soon as the seizure document is received.

The bank has a period of 15 working days (art. L. 162-1 and R. 211-19 CPCE) to calculate the final balance that can be seized, taking into account outstanding transactions: cheques issued but not yet debited, transfers ordered, authorised direct debits awaiting processing. This adjustment period ensures that the debtor is not charged for transactions that he or she is not yet aware of.

At the end of these 15 working days, only the sum corresponding to the reasons for the seizure remains blocked - after deduction of the SBI. The remainder is returned to the debtor.

The effects of attachment

Immediate attribution: an instantaneous transfer of ownership

The absolute originality of the attachment for payment lies in its immediate effect, enshrined in article L. 211-2 of the CPCE. As soon as the garnishee is served with the official report, ownership of the sums seized is transferred from the debtor's assets to those of the garnishee - up to the amount for which the seizure is made.

This effect does not depend on the garnishee's declaration: it operates even in the absence of any response from the garnishee (Cass. civ. 2e, 30 Sept. 2021, no. 20-14.060, confirming Cass. ch. mixte, 22 Nov. 2002, no. 99-13.935). The creditor is the owner of the funds from the time of service, not from the time of actual payment.

This has two major consequences:

First of all, the impossibility of requesting a period of grace on the sums seized (art. 1343-5 of the Civil Code). Since these sums have left the debtor's assets at the very moment of service, he can no longer defer payment. The attributive effect deprives the judge of the power to grant a payment schedule for funds already seized.

The next step, protection from other creditors and insolvency proceedings. No other creditor, even a preferential creditor, may challenge the allocation already made. The opening of receivership or liquidation proceedings after the seizure has been served does not affect the transfer of ownership - provided that the seizure was served before the opening judgment.

Successively enforceable claims: attribution extends over time

Attachment may relate to a debt with successive performance: a debt whose payment is staggered over time under a single contract - lease payments, management lease fees, life annuities, recurring fees.

In this case, the attributive effect is not limited to sums already due on the day service is effected. It extends to all future instalments, until the seizing creditor's debt is discharged in full (Cass. ch. mixte, 22 Nov. 2002, no. 99-13.935; Cass. civ. 1re, 13 May 2014, no. 12-25.511). A single act of attachment is therefore sufficient to capture all future payments - the creditor does not have to repeat the procedure at each due date.

Case law has confirmed that sums paid under a single contract but in instalments do indeed constitute a claim for successive performance, opening the way to this extended form of attachment (Cass. civ. 2e, 14 Apr. 2022, no. 20-21.461).

It is even possible to carry out a seizure-attribution in one's own hands - what the doctrine calls self-seizure. Thus, a creditor who is simultaneously a debtor of his own debtor (for example, a tenant to his landlord-debtor) can seize his own debt to set it off against what is owed to him (Cass. civ. 1re, 13 May 2014, no. 12-25.511).

What the attributive effect prohibits: grace period, collective proceedings, territoriality

The immediate attributive effect also has a geographical dimension. The Court of Cassation has ruled that an attachment for payment presupposes the exercise of a constraint on the garnishee, and can only be effective if the garnishee is established in France - either by its registered office, or by an entity with the power to effect payment. Service on a foreign branch of a bank where the debtor's accounts are held at that branch is ineffective (Cass. civ. 2e, 10 Dec. 2020, no. 19-10.801).

Contesting an attachment order

The one-month time limit before the enforcement judge

The debtor who intends to contest the seizure has a period of’one month from the date of notification, on pain of inadmissibility (art. R. 211-11 CPCE). The Court of Cassation has confirmed that this time limit applies to all disputes relating to attachment by way of payment, including those relating to the substance of the right, such as the limitation period of the title (Cass. civ. 2e, 9 Sept. 2010, no. 09-16.538) or the invalidity of a judgment (Cass. civ. 2e, 31 Jan. 2019, no. 17-28.369).

The time limit may be interrupted by the filing of an application for legal aid: the summons does not need to be served before the time limit expires if the application for legal aid was filed before that deadline (Cass. civ. 2e, 21 March 2019, no. 18-10.408).

The challenge must be lodged by writ of summons with the JEX of the debtor's place of residence. The summons must be served the same day to the garnishee by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, and the garnishee must be informed by simple letter. Failure to comply with these parallel formalities means that the dispute is inadmissible - unless the notice of attachment did not specify this obligation, in which case it cannot be enforced against the debtor (Cass. civ. 2e, 10 March 2004, no. 02-16.900).

Grounds for challenge

Wrongful seizure and the principle of proportionality

Seizure of assets is not in itself abusive: the creditor has a free choice of enforcement measures. Article L. 111-7 of the CPCE explicitly confirms this, but sets a fundamental limit: «the execution of these measures may not exceed what is necessary to obtain payment of the obligation».»

This criterion of proportionality is assessed on a case-by-case basis by the JEX. It is not enough for the seizure to cause harm to the debtor - any seizure does. Case law requires proof of fault on the part of the creditor, or even intent to harm. The pursuit of a seizure by a creditor when the writ of execution on which it was based had been annulled and the creditor had not released the debt was deemed to be abusive. Conversely, the mere fact that a seizure involves a large amount in relation to the debtor's income does not make it unreasonable.

The burden of proving disproportionality lies with the debtor (Cass. civ. 2e, 15 May 2014, no. 13-16.016). In practice, it is the debtor who will have to show that the creditor's measures exceed what is necessary for recovery.

If the seizure is found to be abusive, the JEX may award damages and order the debt to be released. The bank or garnishee that has been forced to pay twice may also seek to hold the garnishee liable for having placed it in this situation.