Clients describe the same sequence with remarkable consistency. The money is owed, the debtor stops answering, a lawsuit is filed, and a year later a judgment arrives — against a person who by then holds nothing in their own name. The apartment was transferred to a relative, the company account was drained, and the enforcement officer finds a desk and two chairs.
Provisional attachment (가압류) exists for that problem. It is a preservation measure under the Civil Execution Act (민사집행법): a court order that freezes specific property of the debtor now, so that the judgment you win later has something to attach to. It does not give you the money, and it does not decide who is right. It simply stops the asset from moving while the real case is fought.
→What the Court Requires
An application must establish two things, and they are usually pleaded together in a single document.
- The claim to be preserved (피보전권리). A monetary claim you would be entitled to enforce — an unpaid invoice, a returned deposit, money handed over under a contract that was not performed, damages. It need not be proven to trial standard at this stage, but it must be shown with supporting material
- The necessity of preservation (보전의 필요성). A reason to believe that without the order, enforcing the eventual judgment will be impossible or significantly harder. Assets already being sold, a business winding down, transfers to family members, or a debtor who has stopped responding and holds only movable wealth all speak to this
The distinctive feature is that the debtor is not told. The application is decided without notifying them, because notice would defeat the purpose — the point of the order is to arrive before the money leaves. The debtor learns of it when the bank freezes the balance or the registry entry appears.
Everything about the procedure is built around one idea: the debtor must not see it coming.
→What Can Be Frozen
You must identify the target. A court order does not go looking for assets on your behalf, which means the practical quality of your application depends on what you know about the debtor before you file.
| Target | How It Works in Practice |
|---|---|
| Real property (부동산) | Registered against the property in the register. It does not stop a sale outright, but it follows the property and makes the sale close to impossible in practice — and a registry search will tell you what the debtor owns |
| Bank deposits (예금채권) | The most immediate in effect. The bank freezes the balance up to the attached amount from the moment the order is served, and the account becomes unusable to that extent |
| Wages and salary (급여채권) | Effective against an employed debtor, but subject to statutory limits — only a portion of salary may be attached, and a minimum living amount is protected by law |
| Lease deposits (임차보증금) | Frequently the debtor's largest recoverable asset, attached in the hands of their landlord |
| Movable property (유체동산) | Business equipment and inventory, executed at the premises. Legally straightforward, practically the least rewarding in value |
| Claims against third parties | Money owed to your debtor by their own customers, attached in the third party's hands |
Where you genuinely do not know what the debtor holds, the honest answer is that the strongest applications follow from information gathered before the dispute became one — the account the payments came from, the address on the contract, the registry entry on the property, the employer named in the correspondence.
→Security: The Part Applicants Do Not Expect
Because the order is granted quickly, on limited material, and without hearing the other side, the court requires the applicant to provide security (담보) against the possibility that the attachment turns out to have been wrong.
Security is ordinarily provided in one of two ways: a cash deposit with the court, or a guarantee insurance policy (보증보험) from an insurer, which costs a premium rather than the full sum and is what most applicants use where the court permits it. The amount is set by the court by reference to the claim and the type of asset, and the practice differs between claim on real property and claim on deposits.
The other half of that bargain deserves emphasis. An attachment obtained on a claim that fails can expose you to liability for the loss it caused — a frozen business account is a real injury to a business that owed you nothing. Provisional attachment is a serious instrument, not a pressure tactic, and applying for one over a claim you cannot substantiate is a decision with its own consequences.
→How the Debtor Fights Back
A debtor served with an attachment has several routes, and a foreign creditor should know them in advance because two of them impose deadlines on you rather than on the debtor.
- An order to file suit (제소명령). The debtor may ask the court to order you to commence the main action within a set period. Miss it, and the attachment is cancelled — the preservation order is not a place to rest indefinitely
- Objection to the order (이의신청). A challenge to whether the claim or the necessity was made out, heard with both sides present this time
- Cancellation by counter-security (해방공탁). The debtor deposits the amount fixed in the order with the court and has the attachment lifted. This is not a defeat: the deposit becomes the fund your judgment reaches, and it is often the cleanest outcome available
- Cancellation for changed circumstances or for the passage of time. Where the ground has fallen away, or where an attachment has been left in place without the main case being pursued
In practice a properly grounded attachment survives these. What it rarely survives is inattention — the applicant who obtains the order, feels the matter is secured, and does not file the substantive claim.
→From Freeze to Payment
The attachment is a placeholder, not a recovery. The sequence that actually produces money runs: obtain the provisional attachment, file the main claim, win it, then convert the provisional attachment into an execution attachment (본압류) and collect from the frozen asset.
Two consequences follow for anyone deciding whether it is worth the trouble. First, timing matters more than volume: an attachment obtained before the debtor reacts is worth more than three obtained afterwards. Second, its real effect is often not enforcement at all — a frozen account or an encumbered property changes a debtor's calculation about settlement more effectively than any letter, and a large share of these matters resolve by agreement shortly after the order lands.
For foreign creditors there is one more consideration. Where the debtor is a foreign national or a foreign company, ask early where the assets actually are, because an attachment reaches property in Korea and nothing beyond it. That question is worth answering before the costs are incurred, not after the judgment is in hand.