New South Wales Consolidated Acts

IMPOUNDING ACT 1993 - SECT 27

27 General right to recover impounding fees and charges and damages

(1) An impounding authority may recover the following amounts as a debt from the person responsible for an impounded item:

• the fees and charges payable in respect of the impounding, holding and disposing of the item,

• in the case of an animal impounded because it was trespassing-the cost of rectifying any loss or damage attributable to the trespassing of the animal.

(2) The Commissioner of Police may recover as a debt from the owner of an impounded item the fees and charges payable in respect of the impounding of an item by a police officer.

(3) The person responsible for an impounded item for the purposes of this section is the owner of the item unless the owner, within 21 days after being required to do so by the impounding authority by notice in writing:

(a) supplies by statutory declaration to the impounding authority the name and address of the person (being a person who is at least 18 years of age) who was in charge of the item immediately before it was abandoned, became unattended or was permitted to trespass, or

(b) satisfies the impounding authority that he or she did not know and could not with reasonable diligence have ascertained that name and address.

(4) If the owner supplies such a statutory declaration, the person named in it is the person responsible for the impounded item for the purposes of this section.

(5) Amounts recoverable under this section can be recovered only if they have not already been paid, or deducted from proceeds of sale.

(6) An impounding authority must pay any amount recovered by it under this section for loss or damage attributable to the trespassing of an animal on private land to the person who suffered the loss or damage.

(7) For the purposes of subsection (6), an impounding authority is entitled to treat the owner of the land concerned as the person who suffered the loss or damage unless satisfied that the loss or damage was suffered by some other person.