HYPOTHEC, in Roman law, the most advanced form of the contract of pledge. A specific thing may be transferred to the pos session of a creditor on the condition that it is to be given back when the debt is paid; or the property in the thing may be as signed to the creditor while the debtor is allowed to remain in possession, the creditor as owner being able to take possession if his debt is not discharged. Here we have the kind of security known as pledge and mortgage respectively. In the hypothec the property does not pass to the creditor, nor does he get pos session, but he acquires a preferential right to have his debt paid out of the hypothecated property; that is, he can sell it and pay himself out of the proceeds, or in default of a purchaser he can become the owner himself. The name and the principle have passed into the law of Scotland, but the number of instances in which movable property may be hypothecated is restricted to a few cases under the heads of (I) landlord and tenant (q.v.), (2) agent and client, (3) maritime hypothecs and (4) privileged debts. A law agent has a hypothec for his amount of expenses incurred in an action over his client's right contained in a furnish ing of expenses due to the client from his opponent, which failing, over any principal sum declared for in the client's favour. In maritime hypothecs the ship may be hypothecated for (a) bot tomry loans, (b) repairs executed abroad, (c) seamen's wages, and (d) collisions and salvage. A debtor's personal estate also is subject to hypothecs (a) in favour of the claim for unpaid taxes, (b) in favour of domestic and farm servants for their current wages and (c) where the debtor has died, in favour of his medical attendant for death-bed and funeral expenses, in favour of his widow for mournings, and in favour of his landlord for the cur rent rent of his dwelling house.