Sheriffs' Office

Observed the Sheriffs' Office in action today in the car park of our local shopping centre. Sheriffs' car driving up and down the lanes with a camera mounted on the side, they stopped at one car and proceeded to put a large clamp on the back wheel and 3 big yellow stickers on the rear, drivers side windows as well as the windscreen in front of the driver. I knew they had number plate recognition cameras, seen them at road blocks together with the police, but never seen them doing this mobile in a shopping centre car park.
When they finished with this car they picked up another one 3 cars away!

http://www.justice.vic.gov.au/home/j...te+recognition

Which is why I know people that carry a portable angle grinder with a diamond saw blade in their boot.

One person has actually used it after the sheriff clamped his wheel!

Anyone know if this is legal as they are on private property at the time?

SB

They had a lovely time here in Geelong, Vic.
First we had the Royal Geelong Agri. Show with 3 Car Parks, & they got quite a few there.
Then we had The Geelong Cup & then again they got quite a few there as well.
Of course, you only know about them, if you drive past the next Day.
I remember one such SUV sat there for quite a few days, must have lost it all on the Horses, & couldn't pay up.

Why is this clamping going on? Haven't heard of it in NSW. Is it because the cars are to be repossessed, or because they owe fines, or are unregistered?

Edit: Ok, just read the link - unpaid fines. Fair enough, but wait till they get one wrong.

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Originally Posted by AlexS

Why is this clamping going on? Haven't heard of it in NSW. Is it because the cars are to be repossessed, or because they owe fines, or are unregistered?

Edit: Ok, just read the link - unpaid fines. Fair enough, but wait till they get one wrong.

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This page explains what they do; http://www.justice.vic.gov.au/home/j...s+in+victoria/

First I had to double check what country you're in ... I had no idea that there are (still) sheriffs outside the US.

Next thing I was of course thinking of John Wayne, the 10 gallon hat and the star --- and next of what Robin Hood
would've made of these sheriffs.

Wonderous things .. well my mind goes off in all directions at times. Got the first smile of the day on my face anyway.
Better'n the grumpy face I had earlier because our dratted fridge died and we'll be living out of an Esky until the
new one shows up.

Wasn't it at the Swap Meet at Ballerat or Bendigo that they (sheriff and police) arrived very early in the morning with a caravan and a heap of officers who went around the carpark clamping cars that had outstanding parking/speeding fines as well as picking up a few bodies who had outstanding warrant on them. They worked all day and had a constant stream of people going through the caravan. At the end of the day they had netted $340000 in monies owed. Apparently there was a big carfuffle about the whole deal. I reckon it was a great idea to apprehend those who were otherwise side stepping the law

It would be good if the Sheriff made the same efforts in enforcing the law with delinquent tenants.

But I suppose that's not Government money..............

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Originally Posted by Bedford

It would be good if the Sheriff made the same efforts in enforcing the law with delinquent tenants.

But I suppose that's not Government money..............

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I think they do Greg, but you have to go through the courts and get an enforceable court order - probably not worth the time and effort.
I wonder if they get a share of the recovered money in those cases?

There are always the "friendly" bikies:D (then again they may be the delinquent tenants:rolleyes:)

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Originally Posted by Big Shed

I think they do Greg, but you have to go through the courts and get an enforceable court order - probably not worth the time and effort.
I wonder if they get a share of the recovered money in those cases?

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Yep got the court order, paid the roughly $300 in Sheriff fees and still have nothing.

The Sheriff got his $300 bucks though.:(

I think if they were getting a share they might chase it a bit harder.

Talking of the law and costs:

We have a neighbour who has a peltophorum tree, the branches of which hangover 5 meters into our yard and overhang the shed roof.
I want to put a carport up next to the shed but the branches are in the way. The leaves and pods from this tree clog the shed gutters and
the pods blow across the block and often land in our pool. Three times theses pods have destroyed the diaphragm in the creepy crawly.

We have asked the neighbour to trim the tree, but to no avail. He refuses to even talk about the problems. So we spent $305 and put the
matter in the hands of QCAT. The neighbour has not followed the instructions from QCAT to supply both them and us with certain information.

We now face the possibility of having to share, with the neighbour, the cost of getting a tree expert in to provide QCAT with a written report.
There is even a remote possibility that QCAT, if we win the case, could order us to pay half the cost of the tree trimming!!!

Before a decision is made therefore, we could be up for costs of about $800 dollars.

Why did we go to QCAT? Advice from the depart of the Attorney General and Justice and a pro-bono solicitor.You see the branches are more than
2.5 meters above ground leve and the implication is that I am not qualified to simply cut the bloody branches off!!

Sorry, didn't want to hijack the thread but you might get my point about the cost of the law as well as the seeming stupidity of the law.

Clamping cars in my local shopping center is a regular occurance. Happens every 6-7 weeks. Once the cars are clamped, they stay there for ages

Clamping will just drive people to register vehicles in other peoples names.

My then teenage son had a $500 deposit on a private sale used car "stolen" by the seller - an odd woman and it turned out it was not even her car - well the car was not in her name.

My son went to court twice to try to recover the money. The first time the woman was told by the court to return the money. After 3 months of letters and exasperating phone calls without success (woman claimed she had no money) my son went back to court and was awarded a Sheriff's order for repossession of goods to the same value . We went along to the court for moral support and before the hearing a "friend of the court" came up to us and quietly told us the accused was (index finger to temple and twirled a few times) in the courts every second week representing herself on usually trivial claims and none of her possessions in her name so even though we were likely to win don't bank on getting any money back. The magistrate was clearly highly irritated with the woman and cut her short several times during her lengthy garbled responses and claims. For example she claimed I had threatened her with violence when I had called her on the phone to get the money back - I only wish I had! When told a sheriff's order to take goods to the value of was being issued she said she had nothing in Perth of any value as all her stuff was in another state. We later found out she had been to court in that and other states for similar cases over a decade where she claimed all her stuff was in WA. She also had tens of thousands in unpaid fines around Australia. When the magistrate asked her why she was in court so often the woman claimed she was constantly being taken advantage of because she had a long bout Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease! The magistrate said that while might be a mitigating circumstance but she had never been able to produce a medical certificate to support her claim. Not to mention that CJD usually results in death after about a year.

The following day my son followed up with the Sheriff's office and they said they would not even bother to go around to the woman's place of residence (it wasn't her place) as they had been there multiple times and there was nothing of any value belonging to the woman there to take.

My son was naturally upset but I told him to treat the exercise as a "cheap lesson" in the Australian legal system and he agreed that he had learnt a lot. No wonder some people turn to criminals for some "justice"

A few months later my son bought another car of the same make and because of his previous experience, before purchasing he took the to a specialised service mechanic for a once over. At the mechanics, up on the hoist was the same car he had lost the deposit on was being worked on by the mechanic. It turned out the engine was stuffed and needed a complete overhaul - so even if he had been able to purchase the vehicle he would have been up for a lot more than the deposit.

What a story, BobL. I have long since come to the conclusion that some people are nothing but a boil on the behind of the universe.
Looks like your son met up with one of them.

At least it doesn't sound like she was the sort to take dozens of pensioners to the cleaners for hundreds of thousands (each). Who,
of course, also never have any assets or any money to pay back what they embezzled. Clamping their Ferraris doesn't usually do
much good either.

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Originally Posted by P.W.H.

What a story, BobL. I have long since come to the conclusion that some people are nothing but a boil on the behind of the universe.
Looks like your son met up with one of them.

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Thanks PWH. There's even more to the story that I can't really discuss in a place like this.

Quote:

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At least it doesn't sound like she was the sort to take dozens of pensioners to the cleaners for hundreds of thousands (each). Who,
of course, also never have any assets or any money to pay back what they embezzled. Clamping their Ferraris doesn't usually do
much good either.

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I don't think she would have had the slightest scruple about taking money from anyone.

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Originally Posted by BobL

Thanks PWH. There's even more to the story that I can't really discuss in a place like this.



I don't think she would have had the slightest scruple about taking money from anyone.

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Oh, absolutely not, I am sure. But you need a Beemer or a Merc, a chrome plated office and a sharp looking suit before you can bilk some clueless oldies out of hundreds of thousands by making them take out a mortgage on their home to "invest it in an opportunity with up to 25% returns over 5 years".

We had more than a dozen of that kind of operator here in NZ over the last 2-3 decades. Some of them are doing time, some of them ran away to your side of the pond, but in any case, they managed to hide most of the money in a way that some old folk lost their nest egg and some lost their home.

Your old woman there looks like a rank amateur by comparison. It rankles all the same - just the consequences aren't quite as dire.