Donald Trump cannot finance the $454 million (£357 million) bond for his New York civil fraud case, his lawyers have claimed, raising the prospect the state could begin seizing his assets.

The former president has faced “insurmountable difficulties” in trying to secure the cash and has been rejected by 30 surety companies, according to a court filing.

If forced to sell off his real estate empire in a “fire sale” to come up with the funds, he will face “textbook irreparable injury”, his legal team argued.

Last month, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Mr Trump and his co-defendants to pay the huge sum in damages for fraudulently inflating his assets for a decade to secure favourable loans.

Mr Trump does not have to pay the fine to the state while he appeals against the decision. However, he must send the full amount to a secure account to be held while the appeal is ongoing or obtain bond by March 25.

A bond is when an insurance firm guarantees to pay the court the full amount if Mr Trump loses his appeal and is unable to provide the cash himself.

A bonding company charges a fee and usually requires cash or other forms of collateral.

On Monday, his legal team asked the appeals court to pause the $454 million judgment, including accrued interest, or accept a bond of $100 million (£78.5 million).

If the court refuses, it raises the possibility that Letitia James, the attorney general, could begin seizing the Trump Organisation’s assets.

In a filing with the appellate division of Manhattan Supreme Court, Mr Trump’s lawyers said despite “diligent efforts” they had been unable to secure a bond for the full amount.

Mr Trump’s team unsuccessfully approached around 30 surety companies and spent “countless hours negotiating with one of the largest insurance companies in the world”, they said.

They added a “critical” issue was that most companies would not “accept real estate as collateral”.

“A bond requirement of this enormous magnitude – effectively requiring cash reserves approaching $1 billion – is unprecedented for a private company,” Mr Trump’s lawyers wrote.

They added that obtaining funds “through a ‘fire sale’ of real estate holdings would inevitably result in massive, irrecoverable losses – textbook irreparable injury”.

The revelations of Mr Trump’s financial woes arrive barely a week after he posted a separate $91.6 million bond to appeal against a verdict of defamation in the case taken against him by E Jean Carroll.