New South Wales Repealed Acts

This legislation has been repealed.

LOCAL COURTS (CIVIL CLAIMS) ACT 1970 - SECT 59

59 Sheriff or bailiff to take under writ of execution

(1) The Sheriff or a bailiff of any court may seize and take under any writ of execution whereby he or she is directed to levy any sum of money, and may cause to be sold:

(a) all the goods, chattels and other personal property, other than chattels real, of or to which the person named in the writ as judgment debtor is or may be possessed or entitled, or which the person can, either at law or in equity, assign or dispose of, except:

(i) any wearing apparel and any bedroom or kitchen furniture, and

(ii) any ordinary tools of trade, plant and equipment, professional instruments and reference books, not exceeding in the aggregate $2,000 in value,

being used as such by the judgment debtor or any member of his or her family, and

(b) subject to this Division, all the land of or to which the person named in the writ as judgment debtor is seized or entitled, or which the person can, either at law or in equity, assign or dispose of.

(2) The Sheriff or a bailiff shall, before selling any property, diligently ascertain whether it would be best, with the view of obtaining the highest prices for the property, to cause the sale to be at the place of levy or elsewhere, and shall sell at the place where, in his or her judgment, those prices are most likely to be obtained.

(2A) If, in the opinion of the Sheriff or a bailiff of any court, the cost of seizing, removing, storing and selling property to be seized or taken under a writ of execution is likely to exceed the total sale price of that property, the Sheriff or bailiff concerned may decline to execute that writ.

(3) A judgment debtor against whom a writ of execution has issued may inform the Sheriff or bailiff that his or her property available for execution is more than sufficient to satisfy the execution and point out to the Sheriff or bailiff what part or parts of the property he or she will have first sold, and that part or those parts shall be sold accordingly but, if that part or those parts is or are not sufficient to satisfy the execution, the Sheriff or the bailiff shall proceed to sell the whole of the property or such other parts thereof as are sufficient to satisfy the execution.

(4) All property taken under a writ of execution shall be put up for sale as soon as possible with due regard to the interests of all parties but, if the Sheriff or bailiff cannot effect an early sale of any property without a sacrifice of its reasonable value, he or she may delay the sale.

(5) Where any property is to be sold pursuant to any such writ, the Sheriff or bailiff shall cause notice of the writ, of the intended day and place of the sale and of particulars of the property, to be published in such manner as may be prescribed.

(6) The Sheriff or a bailiff may serve:

(a) on a judgment debtor against whom a writ of execution has issued, or

(b) on any person who has the custody of any personal property of such a judgment debtor,

a notice in writing informing the person so served that that person is responsible for the safekeeping of such of the personal property of the judgment debtor in his or her custody as has been seized under the writ of execution.

(7) A person (whether or not the person is the judgment debtor), knowing that any personal property has been seized under subsection (1) or is the subject of a notice under subsection (6), shall not, except with the consent in writing of the Sheriff or bailiff by whom the property was seized or by whom such a notice was served, interfere with or dispose of any such property or remove any such property from the place at which it was seized or at which it was situated when the notice was served.

Maximum penalty: 50 penalty units.

(8) Nothing in this section affects the provisions of the Judgment Creditors’ Remedies Act 1901 .