Vehicle impoundment

Vehicle impoundment is the legal process of placing a vehicle into an impoundment lot, which is a holding place for cars until they are placed back in the control of the owner, recycled for their metal, stripped of their parts at a wrecking yard or auctioned off for the benefit of the impounding agency.

Vehicles may be impounded:

The process for impoundment is as follows:

Before a vehicle can be impounded, the impounding agency must receive some right to perform impoundment. In some cases, this may involve a court decision. In others, there is an automatic right to impound if certain conditions are met. For example, in New York City, a parking ticket that is not pleaded for 100 days, or not paid 100 days after losing a court decision, results in default judgement, and a car with a ticket in default judgement may automatically be eligible for the New York City Sheriff to impound.

For repossession-based impoundment, the lending agency or its assignee is granted authority by either a court order, or in some cases, by contract law. In some jurisdictions, that authority may allow the lender to repossess the vehicle using its own resources; in others, the lender must request a sheriff, marshall, or other government agent to perform or oversee the repossession activity.

The impounding agency may identify an impoundment candidate and hunt for it. This is often true in cases of repossession, very large outstanding fines, or serious vehicle violations. More typically, an impounding agency has a list of vehicles to impound, and sends agents to check every car in a certain area against that list. If the agent happens to locate a vehicle on the list, the agent starts the process of taking possession and towing of the vehicle

The impounding agent may travel in a tow truck, in which case, he may be able to conduct the tow directly with no additional input. Often, the agent may not have the authority to do so, and may have to call in a specific resource (badged agent, marshall, etc.) to oversee the operation. If the locating agent and/or authorized agent do not have a tow vehicle, they will have to call one in, either from the agency's own fleet, or for a contracted towing company.

In some cases, if the owner or operator intervenes during the tow procedure, he may be able to stop it, often by paying the fine on the spot via a portable credit card reader.

The towed vehicle is taken to an impoundment lot. The lot may be exclusively for impoundments, or it may be a storage yard that also serves other functions, such as parking for an area site, or a vehicle repair shop.

An impounded vehicle auction is a type of auction that specializes in selling abandoned and disabled vehicles. Once a car is towed by municipalities or private companies and the requisite time has passed, the cars are auctioned to recover the cost of towing and storage.

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