§ 8.01-546.2.Hearing on claim of exemption from levy or seizure.

Attachment can freeze a debtor’s ability to pay for groceries or make payroll long before a court ever decides whether the underlying claim has merit, so Virginia gives debtors a fast track to challenge specific seizures. Once a debtor files a request for a hearing on an exemption claim, the clerk has ten business days to put it on the docket and must tell both sides — and state the exemption being claimed — when and where the hearing will happen. Rather than forcing debtors through multiple separate court dates, the statute lets this hearing ride along with a hearing under § 8.01-119 or § 8.01-568, or even with a trial on the merits, as long as everything still happens inside that ten-business-day window.

Because a sale can happen quickly once property is seized, the statute gives the court a tool to freeze that process: an interlocutory order staying the sale until the exemption hearing takes place. Absent such an order, the sheriff keeps following the writ — the clerk only needs to send the sheriff a copy of the court’s order or the hearing outcome when the writ or levy ends up dismissed or modified, and that order takes effect the moment the sheriff receives it. If the court agrees the property qualifies as exempt, the outcome is concrete: the property comes out from under the creditor’s lien, and the court orders the sheriff to hand it back to the debtor.