Domicile

The Mosaic law sets a narrow but explicit protection around a borrower's house. A creditor collecting a pledge may not cross the threshold; the household has the right to keep the transaction at the door.

Rights of the Householder Against a Creditor

When a loan is made, the lender is forbidden to enter the borrower's house to seize the pledge himself. The instruction is straightforward: "When you lend your fellow man any manner of loan, you will not go into his house to fetch his pledge. You will stand outside, and the man to whom you lend will bring forth the pledge outside to you" (Deut 24:10-11). The protection turns on the boundary of the dwelling. Whatever right the creditor has to the security, that right stops at the door, and it is the borrower who carries the pledge out.