Property seizure and forfeiture
Police may seize property as evidence or as the proceeds of a crime. They may not keep it indefinitely without a hearing, take far more than the offense could justify, or treat a seizure as a windfall. Three parts of the Constitution govern what happens after the seizure: due process, the Excessive Fines Clause and the Takings Clause. Whether you have a damages claim, or only a way to get the property back, depends on which one was violated and by whom.
Sometimes this is a civil rights claim, and sometimes it is a paperwork problem with a deadline. The difference matters. If the agency has a working procedure to get your property back and you have not used it, expect the agency to say so. If the agency gave you no hearing, held the property long after any reason for holding it had ended, lost it, or forfeited something out of all proportion to the offense, the Constitution is involved and Section 1983 provides a claim.
Start with the voucher or receipt you were given. It identifies what was taken, by whom and under what category, and every deadline in the release procedure runs from it. Then read the rest of this page.
How it happens
- The car is held as an instrument of the crime. A vehicle is seized at an arrest and held for forfeiture. Months pass with no hearing, while the owner keeps making loan and insurance payments on a car in an impound lot.
- The cash is not vouchered, or is vouchered short. Money taken from a person's pocket or home is recorded at a lower amount than was taken, or is not recorded at all.
- The case ends and the property does not come back. Charges are dismissed. The agency still will not release the phone, the cash or the car without a document from the prosecutor that no one will issue.
- The innocent owner. The car belongs to a parent or spouse who was not there and was not charged. The agency treats the owner's claim the same as the driver's.
- The forfeiture that dwarfs the offense. A vehicle or a sum of money worth many times the maximum fine for the offense is forfeited on a low-level charge.
- The property is lost or destroyed. Items held as evidence are auctioned, destroyed or misplaced while the owner's demand is pending.
The claim
Due process: the right to a hearing
The Fourteenth Amendment forbids a state from depriving a person of property without due process of law. For seized property the question is what process, and when. In Culley v. Marshall, 601 U.S. 377 (2024), the Supreme Court held that due process requires a timely forfeiture hearing but does not require a separate preliminary hearing on whether the government may keep the property in the meantime.
New York City has long been subject to a more specific rule. In Krimstock v. Kelly, 306 F.3d 40 (2d Cir. 2002), the Second Circuit held that the City must provide a prompt post-seizure hearing before a neutral decision-maker for seized vehicles. Those are the Krimstock hearings, held at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH). How Krimstock and Culley fit together is a question we have flagged for attorney review, and we do not answer it here. As a practical matter, a person whose vehicle is seized by the NYPD should ask for the hearing.
Excessive fines
In Timbs v. Indiana, 586 U.S. 146 (2019), the Court held that the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment applies to the states. How the clause applies to a particular forfeiture is decided case by case, on the offense and the property.
Takings
In Tyler v. Hennepin County, 598 U.S. 631 (2023), the Court held that a county that sold a home for unpaid taxes and kept the surplus beyond the debt had taken property. The case was about a tax sale, not a police seizure, but the principle is the one that matters here: the government may collect what it is owed and may not keep the rest.
The seizure itself
Whether the property could be taken at all is a Fourth Amendment question, and it is covered on the unlawful search and car and phone searches pages. A phone seized at an arrest generally may not be searched without a warrant (Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014)). For NYPD seizures, the City's 2021 civil rights law creates a right of security against unreasonable search and seizure, enforceable against the officer and the City, with no qualified immunity defense (N.Y.C. Admin. Code §§ 8-802, 8-803, 8-804); see the city law page.
What is not published here
The state and city forfeiture statutes, the property clerk's release rules, and the deadlines inside them are not in our verified ledger, so this page does not state them. They are short, they differ by agency and by the category on the voucher, and they are the first thing a lawyer will check. Bring the voucher.
What they will argue
You had a remedy and did not use it
The first defense in a property case is that a procedure existed: a hearing you could have requested, a demand you could have made, a state court action you could have filed. A due process claim is strongest where the procedure was missing, was never offered, or did not work.
The hearing was timely enough
After Culley, the defense will say the Constitution requires only a timely forfeiture hearing and that you received or could have received one.
Only nominal damages
Compensatory damages require proof of actual injury. Without it, a procedural due process violation supports only nominal damages (Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247 (1978)). The defense will say that if the property would have been kept anyway after a proper hearing, the missing hearing caused no loss. The answer is evidence of what the delay cost: the payments on the car, the lost work, the value of what was destroyed.
Qualified immunity, Monell, and the State
Individual officers will claim qualified immunity (Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982)). A city answers only where its own policy or custom caused the violation (Monell v. Dep't of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978)). Property retention is often exactly that, a written procedure applied to everyone, which is why these cases tend to be brought against the municipality. A State and its agencies are not "persons" under Section 1983 at all (Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989)).
Heck
Where the forfeiture depends on a conviction that still stands, a damages claim that would imply the conviction is invalid is barred (Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994)).
What people have recovered
No public figure is published here for a property seizure or forfeiture case. Our ledger of public recoveries covers deaths, injuries, wrongful convictions and jail conditions, and has no verified forfeiture matter. We do not print an amount we cannot source. The public settlements page lists what we have verified, by state.
Those are other people's cases. What a case is worth depends on the injury, the evidence and the defenses; see what a case is worth. In a property case the measure usually begins with the property and what its absence cost you. A prevailing plaintiff in a Section 1983 action may be awarded a reasonable attorney's fee (42 U.S.C. § 1988(b)), which is what makes smaller property cases possible to bring.
The clock
The periods below are for a lawsuit. They are not the deadlines inside a forfeiture proceeding or a property release procedure, which are shorter and come first. State notice rules do not apply to the federal claim (Felder v. Casey, 487 U.S. 131 (1988)).
| State | Federal Section 1983 claim | State-law claim against a public employer | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | Three years; three years under the City civil rights law for NYPD seizures | Notice of claim within 90 days; suit within one year and 90 days | Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235 (1989); N.Y. CPLR 214(5); N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-806; N.Y. Gen. Mun. Law §§ 50-e(1)(a), 50-i(1) |
| New Jersey | Two years, also for the Civil Rights Act claim | Tort Claims Act notice within 90 days; six-month wait; barred after two years. No notice for a Civil Rights Act claim | N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2; 10:6-2; 59:8-8; Owens v. Feigin, 194 N.J. 607 (2008) |
| Florida | Four years | Written claim to the agency within three years; six-month wait; suit within four years | Fla. Stat. §§ 95.11(3), 768.28(6), (14) |
| Pennsylvania | Two years | Written notice to the government unit within six months. Personal property is one of the listed negligence exceptions to local agency immunity | 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 5524, 5522(a), 8542(b); Kach v. Hose, 589 F.3d 626 (3d Cir. 2009) |
The New York, New Jersey, Florida and Pennsylvania pages go through each state.
If the property was taken at an arrest and the charge is still open, talk to your defense lawyer before you describe the arrest to anyone, and before you sign anything to get the property back. A statement about who owns the cash or the car can matter in the criminal case. The criminal case and civil case page explains why.
Car and phone searches
When police may search the car or the phone they took, and when they need a warrant.
Car and phone searches →Unlawful search
The Fourth Amendment claim for the search and the seizure that started it.
Unlawful search →Code enforcement and licensing
When inspectors and licensing agencies single out one owner or one business.
Code enforcement →Common questions
The police took my car when I was arrested. Do I get a hearing?
In New York City, yes. Under Krimstock v. Kelly the City must provide a prompt post-seizure hearing before a neutral decision-maker for seized vehicles, and those hearings are held at OATH. Elsewhere, the Supreme Court held in Culley v. Marshall that due process requires a timely forfeiture hearing but not a separate preliminary hearing on keeping the car in the meantime.
My case was dismissed. Why do they still have my property?
A dismissal does not return property by itself. Release usually requires paperwork from the prosecutor or the agency, and each agency has its own procedure and its own deadlines to demand the property. Those procedures are not published here because they are not in our verified ledger. Ask your defense lawyer on the day of the dismissal, and keep the voucher.
Can the government take property worth far more than the offense?
There is a limit. In Timbs v. Indiana the Supreme Court held that the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment applies to the states. Whether a particular forfeiture is excessive depends on the offense and the property, and it is decided case by case.
How long do I have?
For a federal claim, three years in New York, two in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, four in Florida. But the deadlines that matter most in a property case are usually the short ones inside the forfeiture or property release procedure itself, and the state notice periods of 90 days to six months. Act on the voucher first.
Tell us what happened.
One conversation with an attorney, in your language. We tell you which claims the facts support, which deadline runs first for the agency involved, what evidence to preserve this week, and whether a pending criminal case changes the timing. If it is not a case we can take, we say so and tell you where to go.
(718) 484-7510If a criminal charge is still open, talk to your defense lawyer before you describe the arrest to anyone, including us. English, Russian and Spanish in-house; an interpreter for any other language. Contingency fee, confirmed in writing before we begin.