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Criminal Procedure Act 2011

Miscellaneous and transitional provisions - Miscellaneous provisions

377: Restitution of property

You could also call this:

"Getting stolen property back to its rightful owner"

If you are found guilty of a crime, the court can order that any property you have, or that someone else has for you, be given back to its rightful owner. The court decides who the rightful owner is. You might have to pay the person who bought the property if they did not know it was stolen.

If you had money on you when you were arrested, the court can use some or all of that money to pay the person who bought the property. The court can make you pay the person who bought the property, and this payment can be enforced like a fine. This payment does not stop the rightful owner from trying to get more money from you in a separate court case.

If you stole something and then pawned it, the court can order the pawnbroker to give the property back to its rightful owner. The court might make the owner pay the pawnbroker some or all of the money they lent you, or they might not. The pawnbroker gets to tell the court their side of the story before the court makes a decision.

If the court orders the pawnbroker to give the property back to its rightful owner without paying them, the owner cannot later say that the pawn was not valid. The court's order only changes who has the property, and it does not affect who really owns it or any other rights related to the property. You can find more information about this by looking at the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 and s 404 of 1961 No 43.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM3360594.

Topics:
Crime and justice > Criminal lawCrime and justice > Courts and legal helpMoney and consumer rights > Consumer protection
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Part 8Miscellaneous and transitional provisions
Miscellaneous provisions

377Restitution of property

  1. If a person is convicted of an offence, any property found in his or her possession, or in the possession of any other person for him or her, may be ordered by the court to be delivered to the person who appears to the court to be entitled to it.

  2. If an order is made under subsection (1), and it appears to the court that a purchaser has bought the property in good faith and without knowledge that it was dishonestly obtained, the court may order that on the restitution of the property the offender must pay to the purchaser a sum not exceeding the amount paid by the purchaser.

  3. If, on the arrest of the offender, any money was taken from him or her, the court may in its discretion order the whole or any part of the money to be applied to any payment required to be made under subsection (2).

  4. An order for payment under subsection (2) may be enforced in the same manner as a fine.

  5. An order for payment under subsection (2) does not affect the right of any person to recover by civil proceedings any sum in excess of the amount received under the order.

  6. If a person is convicted of having stolen or dishonestly obtained any property, and it appears to the court that the property has been pawned to a pawnbroker, the court may order the pawnbroker to deliver it to the person appearing to the court to be entitled to it, either on payment or without payment to the pawnbroker of the amount of the loan or any part of the loan, as the court in all the circumstances of the case considers just.

  7. Before an order is made for the delivery of the property without payment to the pawnbroker under subsection (6), the pawnbroker must be given an opportunity to be heard.

  8. If a person in whose favour any order under subsection (6) is made, by that order, obtains the property, that person may not afterwards question the validity of the pawn.

  9. Except as provided in subsection (8), an order made under this section—

  10. has no further effect than to change the possession; and
    1. does not prejudice any right of property, or any right of action in respect of any property, existing or acquired in the goods either before or after the offence was committed.

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