Short answer. One hundred twenty days from the date the bond was filed. No claim for damages for the taking or keeping of the property may be enforced against the bond unless the action is filed within that period, so the clock runs from filing rather than from any later event.
What the law says
No claim for damages for the taking or keeping of the property may be enforced against the bond unless the action therefor is filed within one hundred twenty days from the date of the filing of the bond.
Rule 57, Section 14 — Proceedings where property claimed by third person. Read the full provision →
Where the bond comes from
When property under attachment is claimed by someone other than the party sued, that person may serve an affidavit of title or right to possession on the sheriff while the sheriff still has possession of the property, with a copy on the attaching party. The sheriff is then not bound to keep the property under attachment unless the attaching party, on the sheriff's demand, files a bond approved by the court to indemnify the third-party claimant in a sum not less than the value of the property levied upon. That bond is the fund a damages claim is later enforced against.
The period runs from the filing of the bond
This is the detail that catches people out. The one hundred twenty days is counted from the date of the filing of the bond. It does not run from the date you discovered the loss, from the date the property was sold, or from the end of the main case. The attachment may well still be in force, and the underlying action still unresolved, when the period expires. Anyone whose property has been wrongly attached should find out when the indemnity bond was filed and diarise the deadline from that date.
The sheriff's position, and the value of the property
Once the bond is filed, the sheriff is not liable for damages for the taking or keeping of the property to the third-party claimant. So the bond, rather than the officer, is what you look to. The bond must be in a sum not less than the value of the property levied upon, and in case of disagreement as to that value, the question is decided by the court issuing the writ of attachment. Getting the valuation right at that stage therefore sets the ceiling on what can later be recovered.
What the deadline does not close off
The rule preserves a separate route. Nothing in it prevents the claimant or any third person from vindicating his claim to the property itself, which is a different remedy from a damages claim against the bond. Missing the one hundred twenty days is therefore not necessarily the end of everything, but it does remove the most direct financial remedy, and any other route carries its own requirements and periods. Treat this as the deadline to protect.