(a) The word Apotiki is an acronym of the words "Apo Tehei Kai" - from here you will take repayment of your debt (Rashi Bava Kama 11b).

There are two types of Apotiki: Apotiki Stam and Apotiki Mefurash.

1. An Apotiki Stam is where the borrower, at the time of the loan, specifies a specific property for the repayment of a debt. This does not affect the rights of the creditor to claim his debt from other property, if necessary.

2. An Apotiki Mefurash is where the borrower tells the creditor (at the time of the loan) that he will only be entitled to reclaim his debt from a specified property. In this case the creditor may not claim his debt from other property, even if he was unable to claim his debt from the specified property, for example if it became worth less that the value of the debt.

The borrower, however, retains the right to repay the debt with cash (Bava Metzia 15b).

(b) As a rule an Apotiki can only be real estate. This is because we cannot expect buyers of other types of property to take care that the property that they are buying has not been given as security for a loan. This is because people would not hear about the fact that a specific article had been given as security for a debt. The Chachamim therefore decided that Apotiki should only apply to real estate (see Gitin 40b Tosfos DH Hekdesh).

However, a slave may become an Apotiki because if a slave was to be made an Apotiki, we expect that this would be well known.

Dov Freedman