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Glite Dictionary
🚔 Hold in custody 📄 Legal property claim 👮 Custody holder 🗝️ Keeps property
detainer

detainer

9.1
A legal order to make someone return a place or property after staying there without permission
  • noun
  • /dɪˈteɪnər/
  • Formal
translation icon : demanda por desalojo
  • The court issued a detainer allowing the owner to regain possession of the land after the unlawful occupation.

Examples

  • The landlord filed an unlawful detainer to reclaim the property from the tenant who had not paid rent.

  • And they go straight to the low court with the unlawful detainer.

    Blog text (8)

  • The goons at the Sammy White fraudclosure mill tried to set me up for an unlawful detainer, which, as you know, was not intended for the settling of complex title disputes.

    Blog text (8)

  • In cases of eviction, a detainer may be necessary to legally recover the property from an occupying tenant.

Synonyms

detinue
vsdetainer
  • Archaic
9.9

A legal case in which someone keeps another person's property and the owner asks for it back

names a legal order or claim rather than the wrongful keeping action

Surface Forms

detainer singular
detainers plural

Morphology

detainer = detain (semi-transparent) = detain + er

Formed from 'detain' + '-er', but this sense refers to a specialized legal claim concerning property possession that may not be predictable to an average learner.

Etymology

Detainer comes from the Latin parts de- and tenere, where tenere means 'to hold', the same root you see in retain and tenant. So a detainer in property law is a legal order to keep or take back possession of a house or land.