Seizing a Bank Account in France: The Practical Rules of Saisie-Attribution, FICOBA Access, and What Creditors Must Anticipate

1. Why Bank Account Seizure Is the “Workhorse” of French Debt Enforcement

In French debt collection, bank account seizure is one of the most frequently used and most productive enforcement measures. The reason is simple: where a debtor has liquidity, even temporarily, capturing it directly through saisie-attribution can resolve the matter faster than any asset-based strategy.

This procedure is not a separate regime. A bank account seizure follows the legal mechanics of saisie-attribution—meaning it targets a debt owed by a third party (the bank) to the debtor. The key difference is operational: when the third party is an institution legally authorised to hold deposit accounts, service of enforcement acts is conducted electronically, reflecting modernisation and speed.

The decisive advantage, however, is informational. In France, the commissaire de justice can access FICOBA, the national file listing bank accounts opened in the debtor’s name. This tool allows the enforcement officer to identify where the debtor holds accounts, removing much of the guesswork that often hinders recovery in cross-border or opaque situations. For creditors, especially businesses pursuing debtors who strategically fragment cash across several accounts, FICOBA access is a major strategic lever.

Yet the procedure remains technical and contains creditor-side risks. A successful bank account seizure is not merely “freezing funds.” It is a legally structured transfer mechanism governed by formalities, disclosure obligations, and strict limits—particularly where protected funds or family assets are involved.

2. The Bank as Third Party: Disclosure Duties, Scope of Seizure, and Cross-Border Reach

Once a bank is served as tiers saisi, it must declare spontaneously all accounts held in the debtor’s name and their balances. It must also disclose the relevant features affecting those accounts. The logic is protective: a creditor cannot be expected to identify every account type or internal banking structure, so the law imposes on the bank a duty of transparency.

This duty is not cosmetic. A bank that fails to provide required information can be exposed to serious consequences, including the risk of being ordered to pay the creditor itself, under the sanctions regime applicable to third parties in saisie-attribution.

Service at a bank’s head office has a particularly broad reach. When a seizure is delivered to the bank’s central entity, it covers all accounts held by that bank in the debtor’s name, including those managed through other branches. The reach can extend to foreign branches as well—provided those foreign operations do not have separate legal personality. In practice, this creates a crucial distinction between:

• a branch abroad (often lacking separate legal personality), which may be within scope, and

• a foreign subsidiary (a distinct legal entity), whose accounts are not automatically within the bank’s disclosure obligations.

This distinction is not theoretical. It can determine whether funds held in a foreign location are reachable through a French seizure served on the French headquarters.

Banks have historically sought to obtain more time to respond to seizures, arguing that instantaneous disclosure creates operational strain. French administrative and judicial authorities have generally resisted blanket relaxation. That said, a bank can sometimes rely on a legitimate reason to explain why it could not provide complete information instantly—particularly in operationally complex settings—though the “legitimate reason” concept remains scrutinised strictly.

A practical nuance also matters: where seizure is served at a head office rather than the specific managing branch, courts have accepted that the bank may not always be required to respond literally on the spot, given the need to consolidate information across a network. Even then, the bank’s duty to disclose remains real and enforceable.

Finally, creditors should not confuse banks with other financial intermediaries. For example, a factoring company does not hold deposit accounts in the same manner as a bank, and therefore is not subject to identical disclosure duties regarding “account balances,” even if it owes money to the debtor under separate arrangements.

3. The Bank Account Seizure “Freezes Everything”: Indisponibility and What It Actually Covers

Bank account seizure has a feature that surprises many non-French creditors: it can render unavailable the entirety of the debtor’s deposit-account claims, meaning the debtor may find multiple accounts effectively immobilised.

This is not simply a practical bank reaction; it is a legal consequence. The seizure affects claims for sums of money held through deposit accounts, and the bank must manage the seizure across the debtor’s account perimeter in accordance with the enforcement framework.

Certain assets connected to banking relationships do not fit neatly into the seizure’s disclosure or attachability scope:

• Funds placed in a plan d’épargne logement (PEL) may be attachable, reflecting their nature as accessible monetary value.

• Sums placed into an insurance life policy are, as a rule, treated differently and are generally not attachable through standard bank account seizure mechanics, because they are not legally equivalent to deposit-account claims.

• The bank is not necessarily required to provide full disclosure regarding securities accounts (accounts holding financial instruments), which follow distinct rules and often require separate enforcement pathways.

Bank account seizure also interacts with joint ownership structures. A recurring litigation point is the seizure of joint accounts. The absence of denunciation to the co-holder does not automatically eliminate the seizure’s validity, but joint accounts raise practical allocation issues, especially where spouses are concerned.

In regimes of separation of property, when a creditor of one spouse seizes a joint account, the creditor bears the burden of identifying the debtor-spouse’s personal funds. This is not a mere procedural detail—it can define whether the seizure succeeds in capturing meaningful amounts or collapses under contestation.

4. The “Moving Target” Problem: Transactions That Can Reduce the Seized Balance

A seized bank balance is not always a static snapshot. French law recognises that certain operations may legitimately reduce the balance after seizure, and it requires banks to provide transparency on these movements.

Where the seized balance is affected by specific permitted operations, the bank must send the creditor a statement—typically by registered communication—identifying those operations. The permitted reductions are strictly listed. They typically include mechanisms such as:

• the reversal of cheques previously deposited that later bounce,

• payment of cheques issued by the debtor and presented before the seizure,

• debits for cash withdrawals initiated before the seizure,

• card payments initiated before the seizure, subject to conditions on beneficiary crediting,

• reversals linked to discounted commercial instruments that remain unpaid,

• and payments made to the debtor of sums that are legally unseizable, with an internal balancing mechanism.

A key principle governs this area: the list is exhaustive. If an operation is not listed, it cannot be invoked to reduce the seized balance. This matters in practice for transfers. A transfer order issued before seizure does not necessarily reduce the balance if it had not been debited from the account prior to the seizure act.

Where reductions occur under the authorised categories, the bank must provide a comprehensive statement of operations affecting the accounts from the date of seizure onward. If it fails to do so, the bank is not automatically condemned to pay the creditor the full debt; rather, liability typically shifts to potential damages—depending on whether and how the creditor suffered harm.

For creditors, the lesson is strategic: bank seizure delivers enormous leverage, but the actual collectible sum may change through legally recognised banking operations. Monitoring, follow-up, and procedural discipline remain essential.

5. Protected Funds and Mandatory “Safety Amounts”: What the Creditor Cannot Take

French enforcement law draws a firm line: even after seizure, certain funds must remain available to the debtor, and certain family protections apply automatically.

First, the bank must leave the debtor—when the debtor is a natural person—a minimum subsistence amount, limited to the available credit balance. This protected amount is tied to the level of the RSA (a social minimum). This is not optional and does not depend on court discretion; it is a legal obligation on the bank.

Second, specific protections apply where an account is fed by a spouse’s salary under community property rules and the seizure is for the other spouse’s debt. In such cases, the bank must promptly preserve either the salary of the month preceding the seizure or the average monthly salary paid over the last twelve months. Critically, banks are not expected to wait for the spouse to request this protection—delays can expose the bank to liability.

Third, the law restricts seizure of certain funds in savings contexts. Where an account is fed by sums that are legally unseizable (such as certain periodic benefits), the protection can extend proportionally to the unseizable nature of the underlying benefits. Courts have treated the issue with sophistication, especially where periodic unseizable sums accumulate in savings accounts.

Finally, creditors cannot seize an unused overdraft facility granted by the bank. A mere authorised credit line not drawn is not a “claim” that the debtor holds against the bank in a form that can be captured through saisie-attribution.

For creditors, these rules are not obstacles so much as parameters. A well-structured strategy anticipates protected amounts and targets the seizure toward the accounts and time windows most likely to yield attachable balances.

6. Ending the Freeze: Guarantees, Negotiation Leverage, and the Role of the Enforcement Judge

Bank account seizure triggers immediate disruption for the debtor. That disruption often creates settlement leverage, but French law also provides a structured exit route.

The indisponibility of accounts may end if the debtor provides an irrevocable guarantee covering the seized amount. This may be agreed between debtor and creditor, or imposed by the enforcement judge if the parties disagree.

In practice, this mechanism often becomes the heart of negotiation: the debtor seeks to restore access to operating cash, while the creditor seeks security and certainty. A properly drafted guarantee can preserve the creditor’s position while avoiding the economic waste of prolonged immobilisation or contested enforcement.

This is one reason bank account seizure is not merely an enforcement tool; it is also a negotiation instrument—one that often produces quicker outcomes than traditional payment plans, precisely because it changes the debtor’s risk calculus immediately.

7. Bank Safe Deposit Boxes: Seizing Assets Held in a Coffre-Fort

Finally, creditors should be aware that bank-related enforcement is not limited to deposit balances.

Through a specific act, the commissaire de justice may seize assets held in a bank safe deposit box. The bank is required to provide identification of the box. Once the seizure is in place, access to the safe deposit box is prohibited without the presence of the commissaire de justice, who may apply seals to secure the contents.

This measure is particularly relevant where there are credible indications that value has been shifted out of accounts into physical stores of wealth—jewellery, cash, bearer instruments, or other items capable of being hidden in a coffre-fort.

For high-value debt recovery, combining FICOBA-driven account tracing with coffre-fort seizure can materially improve recovery outcomes—provided the procedure is handled with the precision and restraint that French enforcement courts expect.