§ 62.001.Grounds

The grounds, and what distinguishes them from attachment is the subject of the suit.

Attachment secures a debt by seizing any property; sequestration holds the property the suit is about. That difference runs through the whole chapter.

The first ground covers personal property and fixtures. The suit must be for title or possession, or for foreclosure or enforcement of a mortgage, lien, or security interest, and a reasonable conclusion may be drawn that there is immediate danger that the defendant or party in possession will conceal, dispose of, ill-treat, waste, or destroy the property or remove it from the county.

"A reasonable conclusion may be drawn" is a lower threshold than proof, and "immediate danger" is what confines it.

The second ground covers real property, with a different catalogue of harm: that the possessor will use his possession to injure or ill-treat the property or waste or convert to his own use the timber, rents, fruits, or revenue.

Land cannot be removed, so the danger is different in kind — stripping timber, taking rents, letting a building decay.

The third ground needs no showing of danger at all: the suit is for title or possession of property from which the plaintiff has been ejected by force or violence.

Forcible ejection speaks for itself, and the chapter treats it as its own justification.

The fourth is about the defendant rather than the property: a suit to try title, remove a cloud, foreclose a lien, or partition real property where the plaintiff makes an oath that one or more defendants is a nonresident.

That mirrors the attachment chapter’s treatment of non-residence, and rests on the same concern about a defendant beyond easy reach.