Art. 3571.Grounds For Sequestration

Sequestration protects a different interest than attachment does. Where attachment secures payment of a money debt against a debtor's general assets, sequestration exists to preserve one specific piece of property, the thing a party is claiming an interest in, so that it survives the litigation intact and available for whoever the court ultimately says is entitled to it.

Article 3571 opens the sequestration section by defining who can use the remedy and when. The claimant has to assert an interest in the property itself: ownership, a right to possess it, or a real right over it such as a mortgage, security interest, lien, or privilege. A generic money claim against the property's owner will not support sequestration; the claim has to be tied to the property.

The trigger is risk to the property during the suit. Sequestration is available when it lies within the defendant's power to conceal the property, dispose of it, let it waste away, or remove it from the parish before the litigation resolves who has the better right to it. Without that risk, a claimant with a real interest in property still generally has no need to seize it while the ownership or privilege dispute plays out in court.