People who have their vehicles impounded in British Columbia often contact us asking whether they can dispute the car impound, and if yes, how they can go about it.
A vehicle impoundment in BC can happen for a number of reasons, such as an officer alleging you’ve committed certain offences, as a result of an IRP or if you’re charged with driving while prohibited.
Getting your car impounded is a very costly experience. In fact, a 30-day impound will cost you over $800 between the towing charges and vehicle storage.
Disputing a vehicle impoundment is not simple, and there are only limited circumstances in which you can even dispute.
30-day impound disputes
The first thing you should know if you want to dispute an impound is that it can only be disputed if it is for 30 days or more.
This means that if you received a mandatory 7-day impound, on the basis of the fact that you have an excessive speeding ticket, you could not dispute it. Unfortunately, you are stuck without your vehicle for the entirety of the 7 days.
The 30-day impound can be disputed through either a written or oral hearing.
In order to dispute, you will have to file an application with the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles within 15 days of the date that your vehicle was impounded.
You can then request whether you would like a written review for $50 or an oral hearing, that is conducted over the phone, for $100.
The review application must be submitted at ICBC, or through their online portal, and from there will get sent to an adjudicator who will review all the evidence in the submissions.
The police report for the vehicle impoundment will typically consist of two documents; the notice of impoundment and the report to the Superintendent for the impoundment.
Sometimes, in cases where the vehicle is impounded due to an IRP, there may be an additional police report to support the IRP. The adjudicator will consider everything submitted by the police officer.
Grounds to dispute an impoundment
There are four grounds on which you can dispute a vehicle impound.
The first is if you can prove you will suffer economic hardship if the vehicle is not released early. This is different than just it being an inconvenience because you must be able to demonstrate that you would suffer if you were being forced to pay the vehicle impound costs and be without your vehicle for 30 days.
An example of this would be if you use your vehicle to get to and from work. Say that your job requires you to be in person, and you have no access to public transit in your small town. If you could not attend work for those 30 days, then you would lose your job and your economic situation is such that you cannot afford to pay for taxis or other forms of transportation for the one-month impoundment period.
This is a very high standard to meet.
The second reason that you can have your vehicle released early is for compassionate grounds, so if your vehicle is required for reasons related to compassion, then it can be released early.
These include things such as using your vehicle to travel to and from important medical appointments, such as chemotherapy, an iron infusion or something that would involve life-saving medicine for you or somebody that you care about.
The third reason that could be used for disputing a vehicle impound is that the car was taken without the knowledge and consent of the owner. This would apply if your vehicle was stolen or if somebody you know took it without your permission.
Be careful with this reason though, because when disputing a vehicle impoundment on the basis that your vehicle was taken without consent, implied consent is still considered.
This applies to spouses, who are considered to give implied consent to one another to drive their vehicles, in the absence of evidence to show otherwise. This is the same for parents and their children, assuming the child has a driver’s license.
The fourth reason that could be used is that you did give somebody consent to take your vehicle, and you exercised reasonable care and judgement in entrusting the vehicle to that person at the time that it was impounded.
This is an incredibly high standard to meet because you effectively have to prove that whatever triggered the impound was something that you explicitly discussed and prohibited the driver from doing when they took your vehicle.
Simply trusting another person is not exercising reasonable care and diligence. You have to show that you took actual steps in attempting to prevent that person from engaging in the conduct that ultimately led to your vehicle being impounded.
Our office routinely handles vehicle impoundment reviews, and we are happy to help with them if you are currently in the process of filing a review.
Business vehicle impoundment disputes
There is a separate vehicle impoundment review process for vehicles that are registered to businesses. If a vehicle is registered in a corporate name, the vehicle can be released early, provided an authorized representative of the corporation files the application for early release and demonstrates the vehicle’s necessity to the business’s operations.
The business’s operations must depend on the vehicle in the sense that, it can’t just be a company car that’s given to one employee to use at their discretion. The vehicle needs to be part of how the business functions, so a delivery truck for a delivery company may be able to be released early provided the company cannot accommodate the absence of the vehicle.
If you are applying for early release of a vehicle under the business exception, you need to prepare corporate documents confirming that the corporation is active, registered and functioning, and bring those to the application when filing for review. They also need to be current.