Arrestment

Arrestment, "a process of attachment prohibiting a person in whose hands a debtor's movables are to pay or deliver up the same till a creditor who has procured an arrestment to be laid on is satisfied, either by caution, i.e. security or payment according to the grounds of arrestment." In Scottish law the term denotes that process by which a creditor detains the goods or effects of his debtor in the hands of third parties till the debt due to him is paid. It is divided into two kinds: - 1st, arrestment in security, used when proceedings are commencing, or in other circumstances where a claim may become, but is not yet, enforceable; 2nd, arrestment in execution, following on the decree of a court, or on a registered document under a clause or statutory power of registration, according to the custom of Scotland. By the process of arrestment the property covered by it is merely retained in its place; to realise it for the satisfaction of the creditor's claim a further proceeding, called "Forthcoming," is necessary. By old practice alimentary funds, or those necessary for subsistence, were not liable to arrestment, In 1870 the wages of all labourers, farm-servants, manufacturers, artificers, and workpeople are not arrestable except (1) in so far as they exceed 20s. per week; but the expense of the arrestment is not to be charged against the debtor unless the sum recovered exceed the amount of 20s.; or, (2) under decrees for alimentary allowances and payments, as for rates and taxes imposed by law. It is also a process in Scotch law for bringing a foreigner or other debtor living abroad and not within the jurisdiction of the Scottish Courts, amenable to such jurisdiction to the extent of making any movable property he may possess in Scotland answerable for the claim. The analogous practice in England is the custom of foreign attachment in the Mayor's Court in the City of London.