§ 61.004.Available for Debt Not Due

A short provision solving a timing problem the rest of the chapter creates.

A writ of attachment may be issued even though the plaintiff’s debt or demand is not due.

The difficulty is obvious once stated. A creditor holding a note due next year may watch the debtor sell everything and leave the state this month. Waiting for maturity would mean waiting until there is nothing to attach.

The grounds for attachment describe exactly that debtor — one who is about to remove, hide, or convert property — and they do not distinguish between a matured debt and one that has not yet fallen due.

So the remedy is available on the general and specific grounds regardless of maturity.

The proceedings relating to the writ shall be as in other cases, so nothing else about the procedure changes.

The one exception is the judgment: final judgment may not be rendered against the defendant until the debt or demand becomes due.

That is the necessary limit. A creditor cannot be paid before the debtor is obliged to pay, and allowing judgment on an immature debt would accelerate the obligation by procedure.

The result is that the property is held while the case waits. The attachment lien attaches from the date of levy and survives until judgment, so the security is preserved without the debt being called in early.

Note the breadth of "debt or demand", which reaches beyond a contractual debt to any demand the suit asserts.