What is a Saisie-Attribution in France and How It Works?

1. Saisie-Attribution: One of the Most Powerful Debt Recovery Tools in France

Among the enforcement measures available in France, saisie-attribution stands out for one reason: it allows the creditor to intercept money before it reaches the debtor. Instead of chasing assets already dissipated or hidden, the creditor targets claims held by the debtor against third parties—typically sums owed by a bank, a tenant, a customer, an employer, a business partner, or sometimes even the debtor’s own corporate structure.

The logic is simple and extremely effective. A creditor who holds an enforceable title may, through a saisie-attribution, collect directly from the debtor’s debtor (the tiers saisi). In practice, this can mean freezing and capturing funds in a bank account, redirecting rent payments, attaching receivables arising under a contract paid in instalments, or even attaching certain corporate entitlements when they qualify as present and available claims.

French law explicitly allows a single saisie-attribution to cover successive payments owed over time, such as rents, royalties, and contractual remunerations, until the debt is fully recovered. This continuity feature makes saisie-attribution particularly attractive when the debtor receives recurring revenue streams.

It is also a procedure that rewards preparation. A creditor who identifies the right third party—bank, tenant, customer, business partner, or professional structure—often converts a difficult recovery into a controlled and predictable payment route.

2. What Can Be Seized: Receivables, Successive Payments, and Unusual but Strategic Targets

Saisie-attribution is designed to seize claims for sums of money. This includes obvious targets such as bank balances and trade receivables, but also less intuitive categories that can be decisive in sophisticated recovery scenarios.

First, saisie-attribution can attach claims that are paid in successive instalments. A recurring rent, a monthly royalty, or remuneration under a continuing contract may be intercepted through a single seizure, with payments redirected over multiple months until the creditor’s claim is exhausted. This is often the most efficient way to recover from a debtor who appears “judgment-proof” but actually lives off steady inflows.

Second, French case law recognises that a creditor may, in certain configurations, perform a saisie-attribution “on itself”—meaning a person who is simultaneously creditor and debtor of the same counterparty may carry out the seizure in its own hands. This can occur in circular commercial relationships where obligations run both ways.

Third, saisie-attribution may reach corporate-related claims, but only when those claims are legally present and available. A striking example is the seizure of unpaid subscribed share capital. When a company’s share capital has not been fully paid in by shareholders, the unpaid portion constitutes an available claim of the company against its shareholders. Because it is a receivable, it may be seized by a creditor of the company through saisie-attribution.

Dividends and profit distributions require finer analysis and are a frequent source of litigation. Where a company owes amounts to an associate—particularly in closely held structures—creditors sometimes attempt to seize “dividends” or profit entitlements. French courts have adopted nuanced positions depending on the legal nature of the debtor’s right at the time of seizure. In some situations, courts have sanctioned a third party that denied owing anything where the financial relationship effectively generated sums attributable to the associate. In other situations—particularly where no distribution decision has been made and profits are carried forward—courts have treated dividends as non-existent until formally decided, making them non-seizable at that stage.

Finally, saisie-attribution may capture sums due under a single contract determining recurring remuneration, allowing the creditor to seize the successive payments due under that contract until full recovery.

The practical lesson is that saisie-attribution is not limited to bank accounts. It is an enforcement technology capable of reaching structured revenue flows—but only if the creditor properly identifies whether the debtor’s “right to be paid” exists in law at the time of seizure.

3. The Immediate “Attribution Effect”: Priority, Irreversibility, and Why Timing Wins Cases

Saisie-attribution has a defining characteristic that makes it uniquely valuable in French enforcement: the attribution effect is immediate.

At the moment the seizure is served on the third party, the seized claim is legally attributed to the seizing creditor. In practical terms, this means the creditor is no longer merely freezing funds; the creditor becomes the legal beneficiary of the seized sums, within the limits of the debt.

This immediate attribution has a major strategic consequence: the seizing creditor takes priority over later creditors, even over privileged creditors who attempt to seize after the fact. Once the saisie-attribution has been validly executed, later seizures generally cannot displace the first seizing creditor’s right.

This also affects the debtor’s ability to seek judicial relief. While French law allows debtors to request court-ordered payment deadlines (délais de grâce) even during enforcement in many contexts, the enforcement judge loses the power to grant such delays in the framework of a saisie-attribution. The reason is structural: once attribution has taken place, the judge cannot undo the transfer of ownership of the seized claim to the creditor.

For creditors, this is not a technical curiosity. It is a tactical advantage. Properly executed saisie-attribution often converts a slow litigation environment into a decisive recovery outcome—because it removes one of the debtor’s most common defensive tools.

4. Insolvency Risk: What Happens if the Debtor or the Third Party Enters Collective Proceedings

The interaction between saisie-attribution and insolvency is one of the most commercially significant aspects of French enforcement.

If the creditor executes a saisie-attribution before the debtor enters reorganisation or liquidation, the immediate attribution effect generally protects the creditor’s position. In many cases, the creditor effectively becomes paid (or at least legally entitled to payment) ahead of the collective procedure, even if the creditor would otherwise rank as an unsecured creditor. This can occur without the same dependency on the insolvency distribution timetable that typically disadvantages ordinary creditors.

However, the creditor is not immune to insolvency risk in all scenarios. The third party itself—the bank, tenant, customer, or other tiers saisi—may enter collective proceedings. If the third party becomes subject to safeguard, reorganisation, or liquidation, the creditor may need to declare its claim in that third party’s insolvency, because enforcement against a third party in insolvency is constrained by the collective regime.

There is also a clawback risk where the creditor acts with knowledge that the debtor is already in cessation of payments. Certain seizures carried out in a suspicious period can be challenged. French law draws a line between the creditor’s knowledge and the commissaire de justice’s knowledge; professional secrecy rules mean that the officer’s awareness does not automatically expose the creditor, but a creditor knowingly enforcing against a debtor already insolvent may face a challenge.

In short, saisie-attribution can be a powerful “race against insolvency,” but it must be executed carefully and ethically, with a clear eye on timing and on the solvency of both the debtor and the third party.

5. Procedural Fragility: When an Error Can Destroy the Attribution Effect

Because saisie-attribution is so powerful, French law is equally strict about its formalities. Certain procedural errors can cause the seizure to lose its immediate attribution effect altogether.

If the commissaire de justice commits an irregularity—particularly in the step requiring the seizure to be denounced to the debtor within the prescribed rules—the seizure may become void or lapsed, meaning there is no longer a transfer of the seized sums to the creditor.

This is not merely administrative. A lapsed seizure forces the creditor to start again. That delay can be fatal if:

• the debtor files for insolvency in the meantime, or

• another creditor performs a seizure first and captures priority.

For that reason, high-value or urgent saisie-attribution matters require meticulous execution and close supervision. In French debt recovery, procedural precision is not bureaucracy; it is the difference between payment and failure.

6. The Third Party’s Declaration: Immediate Disclosure Duties, Documents, and High-Stakes Sanctions

A saisie-attribution places the third party in a legally delicate position. French law requires the third party to provide, immediately (unless there is a legitimate reason), a declaration describing:

• the extent of what it owes to the debtor,

• how that obligation may be affected (terms, conditions, modalities), and

• any prior assignments, delegations, or earlier seizures.

The third party must also provide supporting documents that substantiate the declaration. This can include corporate documents and arrangements relevant to profit-sharing where a professional structure is involved.

The declaration duty is not satisfied by evasive behaviour. A person who merely accepts the act and points to another internal contact, without providing the required information, exposes the third party to sanctions. Likewise, the commissaire de justice must address the act to the correct legal person: for instance, where a professional operates through a professional partnership entity, that entity—not the individual professionals—may be the proper third party.

The duty to respond is, by default, immediate. Delay can be excused only by a legitimate reason, evaluated by the court. Courts have assessed legitimacy contextually, taking into account factors such as the timing of service, operational constraints, the size and age of the debt, and the practical impossibility for the person who received the act to hold the relevant information at that moment. In some cases, where the officer grants a short response window, the courts may treat the third party as temporarily relieved from instant response expectations.

Specific regimes apply to certain institutional third parties. Public accountants and the Caisse des dépôts may benefit from a short statutory period to respond. Where the seizure act is transmitted electronically, the third party must respond electronically as well, generally by the next working day, with limited extensions where a cause external prevents timely transmission.

Sanctions are severe. A third party that, without legitimate reason, fails to provide information may be condemned to pay the creditor as if it were the debtor, effectively substituting itself for the debtor—while retaining only a theoretical right of recourse against the debtor, which can be worthless if the debtor is insolvent.

If the third party makes a declaration but it is incomplete, inaccurate, or dishonest, the sanction tends to take the form of damages, which can be substantial and proportionate to the creditor’s loss. Failure to produce supporting documents may produce similar liability.

Even where the third party owes nothing to the debtor, it may still be exposed to damages if its failure to respond caused measurable harm to the creditor.

This is why third parties take saisie-attribution extremely seriously in France—and why creditors should do the same. Selecting the correct third party and ensuring the procedure is properly framed can transform the seizure into a fast, enforceable payment stream.

7. Payment to the Creditor: Certificates, Contests, and the Creditor’s Own Duty of Vigilance

The third party does not pay immediately upon service of the seizure act. Payment is generally made upon presentation of a certificate confirming that no contest has been filed within the statutory period following denunciation of the seizure to the debtor. Payment may occur earlier if the debtor provides written confirmation that it will not contest.

Where the debtor files a contest, the third party must wait until the enforcement judge has rejected the contest and that decision has been properly notified before paying the seizing creditor.

Critically, the creditor must remain vigilant. If the third party does not pay, the creditor does not automatically lose rights against the debtor—but negligence can be fatal. Courts have held that a creditor who fails to pursue a recalcitrant third party with reasonable diligence may lose recourse against the debtor in certain circumstances. A successful saisie-attribution therefore requires follow-through, not merely initiation.

The third party also faces real-world risk. A tenant who continues paying rent to the debtor after a seizure may end up paying twice: once to the debtor and once to the creditor. In that situation, French law recognises the third party’s right to sue the debtor for reimbursement, but that right is only as valuable as the debtor’s solvency.

In commercial reality, saisie-attribution works best when all players understand one core truth: once the procedure is properly served, payments must change direction. When they do, recovery becomes swift, structured, and predictable.