Art. 2751.Grounds For Arresting Seizure and Sale; Damages

Executory process moves fast precisely because it skips the ordinary lawsuit's slower, fully adversarial path to judgment -- the creditor gets a court order to seize and sell property based on authentic evidence alone, without first proving the debt at trial. That speed carries a risk of getting it wrong, and Article 2751 is the primary safety valve: the defendant's chance to stop a seizure and sale before it becomes irreversible.

The article recognizes three grounds for that injunction. The first is that the debt the mortgage, security interest, or privilege secures has been extinguished -- paid, forgiven, offset, or otherwise wiped out -- so nothing remains to enforce. The second is that the debt is legally unenforceable, a broader category covering situations where the obligation exists on paper but the law will not let the creditor collect on it. The third looks past the debt itself to the proceeding used to enforce it: if the procedure the law requires for executory process was not followed, the seizure and sale can be arrested on that basis regardless of whether the debt itself is valid.

The article's title also flags damages, and the chapters that follow round out what that means in practice. Articles 2752 through 2754 set the procedure for seeking this injunction and, in some circumstances, require the defendant to post security before a court will issue one -- a check against tying up a legitimate sale on a ground that turns out to be without merit.