Preservation of tangible personal property - You are a creditor

Verified 12 janvier 2026 - Public Service / Directorate of Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

Your situation

  • You're a creditor
  • You have a document justifying a seizure
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The process to do is different depending on whether you have one of the following documents:

  • Enforceable Title
  • Court decision not yet enforceable (because the time limits for appeal have not expired)
  • Unpaid accepted bill of exchange
  • Unpaid promissory note
  • Unpaid check
  • Written lease, in case of unpaid rent
  • Provisions payable in respect of the projected budget of the condominium or made payable in the absence of payment of a single provision on its due date.

1. Call on a commissioner of justice (formerly judicial officer and judicial auctioneer)

You must appoint a commissioner of justice to make the preventive seizure.

Please note

If the property is not at the debtor's domicile, but at the domicile of another person, you (or the Commissioner of Justice) must first request authorization of the preventive seizure by query with the enforcement judge the court in which the debtor's domicile depends.

2. The day of seizure

On the day of the seizure, the Commissioner of Justice goes to the home of the debtor.

The Commissioner of Justice shall draw up a deed of seizure which includes the seized property.

After the Commissioner of Justice has made the protective seizure, the debtor may challenge it, in particular on the following grounds:

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Seizure is not warranted

If the debtor considers that the seizure is not justified, he may ask the enforcement judge the release of the preservation order. It is up to you to prove that the conditions for a preventive attachment are met (claim based in principle, circumstances that threaten the recovery of the claim).

FYI  

If the judge orders the release, you can be ordered to make good the damage caused by the precautionary measure.

You don't have an enforceable title

If the seizure was made without enforceable title, and you do not make the steps to obtain one within the following month, the debtor can ask the judge to release of the seizure.

FYI  

If the judge orders the release, you can be ordered to make good the damage caused by the precautionary measure.

Some tangible personal property is exempt from seizure, because they are necessary for the daily life and work of the debtor and his family:

  • Clothing
  • Bedding
  • Linen
  • Objects and products needed for body care and home maintenance
  • Food
  • Household items necessary for the preservation, preparation and consumption of food
  • Heaters
  • Table and chairs for communal meals
  • Furniture for storing clothes and laundry
  • Furniture for storing household objects
  • Washing machine
  • Books and objects necessary for further study or vocational training
  • Children's Objects
  • Memories of a personal or family nature
  • Apartment or on-call animals
  • Farmed animals (and the foodstuffs necessary for their rearing)
  • Working instruments necessary for the personal exercise of the professional activity
  • Fixed or mobile phone
  • Essential items for a disabled person
  • Objects intended for the care of a sick person.

Other property of the debtor may be subject to a preventive seizure, even if they are, for example, stored with another person.

If the debtor condemned to pay his debt does not pay it, you can instruct a commissioner of justice to signify to the debtor one act of conversion. That act contains, inter alia, command to pay.

If the debtor does not pay within 8 days, he then has 1 month to sell the seized goods himself and pay you back.

If he does not sell the seized goods within this period, a forced sale (public auction) is then organized by a commissioner of justice to reimburse you.

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