Short answer. One hundred twenty days. The rule bars any claim for damages for the taking or keeping of the property from being enforced against the bond unless the action is filed within 120 days from the date the bond was filed.
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 60, Section 7 — Proceedings where property claimed by third person. Read the full provision →
The period runs from the bond, not from your loss
This is the detail that catches people, so it is worth stating plainly. The 120 days are counted from the date of the filing of the bond. They are not counted from the day the sheriff took your property, nor from the day the case ends, nor from the day you discovered the damage. A third-party claimant focused on the seizure itself can easily assume the clock started when the property left, and be well into the period before realising a bond was even filed.
Find out when the bond was filed
Because the trigger is the filing of the bond, the practical first step is to establish that date rather than to estimate from your own experience of events. The bond is the one the applicant files, on the sheriff's demand, to indemnify the third-party claimant after an affidavit of title or right to possession has been served. Its filing is a recorded step in the case. Treating the date as a fact to be confirmed, not assumed, is the single most useful thing to do here.
What the limit does and does not close off
Read the bar for what it says: no claim for damages for the taking or keeping of the property may be enforced against the bond outside the period. It is directed at recovery on that security. The same rule separately preserves the right of such a claimant or any third person to vindicate his claim to the property — that is, to assert ownership or the right to possess, which is a different thing from claiming damages on the bond. Do not read the 120 days as extinguishing your claim to the property itself.
Damages can also run the other way
The rule is not one-sided. It also preserves the applicant's right to claim damages against a third-party claimant who filed a frivolous or plainly spurious claim, in the same or a separate action. So the decision to file an affidavit of title is one to make on real grounds. Given that the period is short and measured from a date you may not currently know, anyone in this position should get the case record in front of a lawyer promptly rather than waiting for the main case to resolve.