Attachment for rent
If someone owes rent, a landlord can take legal steps to seize that person's belongings or crops to make sure the rent gets paid. This is allowed in certain situations: if the renter is planning to move their stuff off the property, is already moving it, moved it within the last 30 days, or sold/tried to sell crops grown on the property in a way that makes it harder to collect rent. It also applies when rent is overdue and unpaid after being asked for. To do this, the landlord files paperwork with a judge and puts up a bond — money to cover damages if the seizure turns out to be wrong. If someone buys crops from a renter and knows the crops were grown on rented land where rent is still owed, that buyer can be held responsible for the value of those crops.
441.240. . — 1. Any person who shall be to pay rent, whether the same be due or not, or whether the same be payable in money or other thing, if the rent be due within one year thereafter, shall be liable to for such rent, in the following instances:
(1) When he intends to remove his property from the leased or rented ;
(2) When he is removing his property from the leased or rented premises;
(3) When he has, within thirty days, his property from the leased or rented premises;
(4) When he shall in any manner dispose of the crop, or any part thereof, grown on the leased or rented premises, so as to endanger, hinder or delay the collection of the rent;
(5) When he shall attempt to dispose of the crop, or any part thereof, grown on the leased or rented premises, so as to endanger, hinder or delay the collection of the rent;
(6) When the rent is due and unpaid, after thereof. Provided, if such be absent from such , demand may be made of the person occupying the same.
2. The person to whom the rent is owing, or his , may, before an or the clerk of a having of s by attachment in ordinary cases, of the county in which the premises lie, make an of one or more of the foregoing grounds of attachment, and that he believes unless an attachment will lose his rent; and upon the of such affidavit, together with a statement of plaintiff's , such officer shall issue an attachment for the rent against the , including the crops grown on the leased premises, but no such attachment shall issue until the plaintiff has given , by himself or by some responsible person for him, as , in double the amount sued for, with good , to the to him if it appear that the attachment has been wrongfully obtained; provided, if any person shall buy any crop grown on upon which any rent is unpaid, and such purchaser has knowledge of the fact that such crop was grown on demised premises, he shall be liable in an action for the value thereof, to any entitled , or may be subject to at law in any suit against the tenant for the recovery of the rent.
(RSMo 1939 § 2986, A.L. 1945 p. 1107)
Prior revisions: 1929 § 2599; 1919 § 6893; 1909 § 7896
Attachment, generally, Chap. 521
(1993) Landlord's on tenant's crops attach in year crops sprout, rather than in year crops are harvested and sold. Lien for 1989 rent attached to crops planted in 1989 and harvested in 1990. Jenkins v. Missouri Farmers Association, Inc., 851 S.W.2d 542 (Mo. App. W.D.).
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Legal information, not legal advice. Always confirm with the official source at revisor.mo.gov.