To impound refers to a process in both civil practice and criminal law, where the court or police take custody of personal property, such as an automobile or building. Generally, it is understood that the property will be returned to the owner at the end of the proceeding. The process of impounding property does not affect the title to the property in any way and gives rise to a duty to the court or other property holder to safeguard and return the property intact at the end of the proceedings. Impound can also refer to a court’s decision to hold in its custody any evidence introduced in hearings before the court. If impounded property is permanently forfeited to the state (e.g., in cases involving illegal drugs), it becomes a confiscation.
New York State’s Civil Practice Laws and Rules §7103 allows property to be impounded “pending judgment or further order of the court, upon motion of any person claiming the right to its possession, upon notice to the sheriff and to all parties to the action.” The moving party must prove that if they are found entitled to possession then the payment of pecuniary value of the property would be insufficient to compensate for the loss. Outside of civil impounding, an example of an impounding statute is New York State’s Vehicle and Traffic Law §424, which allows “the taking into possession by an agency of any motor vehicle which has been abandoned, repossessed, seized pending forfeiture proceedings, taken into custody or held as evidence in the course of a police investigation.”
Beyond its use in judicial control of property, the term impound can also refer to the collection of funds from a person who owes a debt secured by property, in addition to installment payments, and depositing them in a separate account to pay property taxes and insurance. This procedure safeguards the lender or seller against the borrower's failure to maintain insurance coverage or tax bills that constitute a lien on the property.
[Last updated in November of 2023 by the Wex Definitions Team]