Western Australian Consolidated Regulations

PORT AUTHORITIES REGULATIONS 2001 - REG 88

88 .         Stray boats and other abandoned or unattended property

        (1)         The port authority may move and store at any premises of the port authority a drifting boat or anything else found abandoned or unattended in a port (the abandoned property ).

        (2)         The port authority may keep the abandoned property until it is claimed by its owner, who is liable for the port authority’s reasonable expenses in moving and storing the property and any port charges payable in relation to the property.

        (3)         The port authority may recover those expenses and charges in a court of competent jurisdiction as a debt due to the port authority.

        (4)         If the abandoned property is not claimed within 30 days after being found in the port, the port authority may sell the property by public auction after a notice of the proposed sale has been published at least once a week for 2 consecutive weeks in a newspaper circulating in the area where the port authority operates.

        (5)         The port authority —

            (a)         is to apply the proceeds of the sale of abandoned property in payment of the port authority’s reasonable expenses in moving, storing and selling the property and any port charges payable in relation to the property; and

            (b)         subject to subregulation (6), is to pay any surplus amount of those proceeds on demand to the owner of the property.

        (6)         If no demand is made by the owner of the abandoned property within 30 days after the sale of the property, the surplus amount of those proceeds is to be paid to the Treasurer to be credited to the Consolidated Account  ² , and any claim of the owner of the property to that amount is extinguished.