Rule 85.20.Who may Intervene.

Not everyone with a stake in attached property is a claimant, an owner, or a nonowner in possession as defined in Rule 85.01. A secured creditor, a co-owner, or someone else with a claimed interest in the property might not fit neatly into any of those categories, yet still have something real at risk once the property is attached. Rule 85.20 gives that person a way in: intervention in the attachment proceedings.

The rule is brief because it is meant to be an open door, not a detailed procedure. It establishes only the right — anyone claiming an interest in the attached property may intervene — and leaves the mechanics of intervention to the ordinary rules governing that process in a civil action. What Rule 85.20 adds specifically to attachment practice is confirmation that this right exists in the attachment context and is not limited to the parties already named in Rule 85.01’s definitions.

This rule fits naturally alongside Rules 85.18 and 85.19, which deal with competing claimants attaching the same property. An intervenor under Rule 85.20 may not be a claimant at all — for instance, a lienholder asserting a prior interest in the property — but once that person intervenes, the proceeding can address the full range of interests at stake in the attached property, not just the interests of the claimant and the owner.