Seizure (penhora)

A seizure is ordered within an enforcement action: a creditor holding an enforceable title (a judgment, a bill, a contract) asks the court to attach the debtor's assets up to the value of the debt. When the asset is a property, the seizure is entered in the land registry and appears on the registry certificate — which is why that certificate is the first document to obtain before bidding.

For a buyer, a seizure is not a defect of the property: it is the reason the property is on sale below market value. What matters is different — how many seizures and mortgages exist, for what amounts, and in what order they will be paid. That determines whether the charges are extinguished by the sale (the normal case in enforcement) or whether one survives and becomes the buyer's problem.

The seizure gives the enforcing creditor the right to be paid from the sale proceeds ahead of ordinary creditors, but not ahead of creditors with security registered earlier (an older mortgage, for instance). That ordering is called the ranking of creditors and is decided by the court, not by the buyer — the buyer only needs to confirm that the sale transfers the property free of encumbrances.