Definition
Property that has been seized or placed under legal hold by court process — typically a writ of attachment — as security for a potential or pending judgment. The property is said to be "attached" when it comes under the legal control of the court or its officer (usually the sheriff), thereby restricting the owner's ability to transfer, encumber, or conceal it pending resolution of the underlying claim.
The term most commonly appears in civil procedure contexts: a creditor obtains a writ of attachment before or after judgment, the sheriff levies on the defendant's property, and that property becomes "attached property" — subject to the court's jurisdiction and held as security. If the plaintiff ultimately prevails, the attached property satisfies the judgment. If the plaintiff loses, the attachment is dissolved and the property released.
A secondary usage appears in older procedural statutes: where a third party is found in possession of property subject to the writ, that party may be required to file a certificate or schedule describing the attached property in their custody — the amount, character, and nature of the defendant's interest in it. This certificate mechanism, codified in New York's Code of Civil Procedure and similar statutes in other states, served as an early form of what would become garnishment disclosure obligations.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Attached" in ordinary English means fastened to something, or emotionally connected to a person or thing. Property described as "attached" in everyday speech often means physically affixed — a shed attached to a house, or fixtures attached to land.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's defines "attach" in the legal sense as "to take or seize by legal authority," distinguishing it from the physical sense of fastening or joining. The legal usage was well established enough by 1913 to receive its own sub-definition.
The gap worth flagging: in real property contexts, "attached" can carry its physical meaning — a fixture "attached to the land" — creating a risk of confusion when the term appears without clear procedural context. A researcher encountering "attached property" in a deed, conveyance record, or property dispute should determine whether the term refers to prejudgment seizure or to physical annexation.
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Common Confusion
ATTACHED PROPERTY vs. GARNISHED PROPERTY: Attachment and garnishment both operate as prejudgment (or post-judgment) collection tools, but they are procedurally distinct. Attachment typically reaches tangible property in the defendant's own possession or in the possession of a third party; garnishment specifically targets debts owed to the defendant or property held for the defendant by a third party (such as a bank account or wages). In older practice and some historical sources, the line between these procedures was blurry, and "attached property" was sometimes used loosely to cover both. Modern practice treats them as separate writs with distinct procedural requirements.
ATTACHED PROPERTY vs. LEVIED PROPERTY: "Levy" refers to the act of the officer physically taking or asserting control over property under a writ. Property that has been levied upon is attached, but the attachment as a legal status often dates from the court's issuance or service of the writ, not solely from the physical levy. This distinction matters for priority disputes and fraudulent transfer analysis.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in the Law Mind Civil Procedure corpus should note that the procedural mechanics of attachment — including what constitutes "attached property," when attachment attaches, and what property is reachable — shifted significantly across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Early common law attachment practice was highly technical and varied enormously by jurisdiction; statutory reforms beginning in the mid-1800s (reflected in codes like New York's Code of Civil Procedure) standardized the process but introduced new documentary requirements, including the third-party certificate mechanism Black's references.
The certificate requirement Black's cites (Code Civil Proc. N.Y. § 650) is an important navigational marker: if you are researching New York attachment practice in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, this disclosure obligation is a primary source of dispute and litigation. Do not assume the same mechanism existed in other states without checking local codes.
In criminal law contexts within the Law Mind corpus, "attachment" carries an entirely different meaning — the attachment of jeopardy (Double Jeopardy, criminal_170) and the attachment of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel at critical stages (criminal_174). These are constitutional law concepts with no procedural overlap with attached property. A keyword search for "attachment" across the full corpus will surface all three contexts; researchers should filter by subject matter or encyclopedia section accordingly.
The Rapalje & Lawrence source material for this entry appears to be fragmentary or misattributed — the text references a ship's papers, which belongs to admiralty/maritime attachment doctrine (attachment of vessels), not general civil attachment. Admiralty attachment of ships was a distinct body of practice with its own writ (the maritime attachment) and should be researched through admiralty sources rather than general civil procedure materials.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary focuses specifically on the third-party certificate mechanism — the procedural obligation imposed on a person found holding the defendant's property when the sheriff arrives to execute the writ. This is a narrow but practically important slice of attached property doctrine, emphasizing the paperwork infrastructure that courts required to manage property in third-party hands.
Rapalje & Lawrence, as reflected in the available fragment, appears to address maritime attached property — specifically a ship and its papers. This points to admiralty attachment, a parallel tradition in which a vessel itself could be seized as security for maritime claims. The convergence of "attached property" across civil and admiralty practice in the historical dictionaries means researchers should be attentive to which body of law is operative when the term appears in older sources.
Neither source addresses the constitutional dimensions of prejudgment attachment that emerged in the twentieth century — particularly the due process requirements for notice and hearing before prejudgment seizure, developed through federal case law. Historical dictionary support for attached property therefore stops well short of the modern constitutional framework governing when and how property may lawfully be attached.
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Jurisdictional Note
Attachment law is primarily statutory and varies significantly by state. Some states permit prejudgment attachment on a broad range of claims; others restrict it to fraud, absconding debtors, or specific statutory categories. Federal courts exercising diversity jurisdiction look to the law of the state in which the court sits for attachment procedures. Researchers should not generalize from New York's historical code provisions to other jurisdictions without independent verification.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Attachment, Garnishment, and Prejudgment Remedies — The Law Mind Civil Procedure & Evidence Encyclopedia (civpro_118): Primary reference for the procedural framework governing attached property in civil litigation.
Double Jeopardy — Attachment and Scope — The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia (criminal_170): For the unrelated criminal law doctrine of when jeopardy "attaches."
Right to Counsel — Attachment and Critical Stages — The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia (criminal_174): For the constitutional doctrine of when the Sixth Amendment right attaches — distinct from property attachment in all respects.
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