IMPOUNDING ACT 1993 - SECT 27
General right to recover impounding fees and charges and damages
IMPOUNDING ACT 1993 - SECT 27
General right to recover impounding fees and charges and damages
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 animalimpounded 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, in the approved
form, the impounding authority with 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 the name and address of the person who was
in charge of the item immediately before it was abandoned, the person named 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.
(8) Without
limiting the form that may be approved under subsection (3) (a), the form may
be an electronic form accessible on a publicly available website.
(9) A
person who provides the impounding authority with a statutory declaration
containing the particulars required by the approved form is taken to have done
so in the approved form.