It happens more often than you’d think. The rego runs out on an old car, and it gets parked on the street outside your house in Kingswood, Cranebrook or St Marys “just for now”. Months go by, and the car stays there.
If that sounds familiar, it’s worth knowing the rules before a council notice turns up on the windscreen.
In NSW, parking an unregistered vehicle on a public road is an offence. It doesn’t matter whether the car is in perfect condition or has flat tyres. Once registration lapses, the car can’t legally stay on the street.
The Public Spaces (Unattended Property) Act 2021 came into effect on 1 November 2022 and replaced the old Impounding Act 1993. It gives councils stronger powers to deal with unattended and unregistered vehicles. These include on-the-spot fines, faster seizure of vehicles, and recovering towing and storage costs from the owner.
The exact process depends on the council, but it generally goes like this: the vehicle is reported, officers try to contact the owner, a notice is placed on the car, and if nothing happens, the car can be removed. Storage fees then keep adding up until the owner collects it.
Car Removals NSW operates from our yard on Lee Holm Road, St Marys, right in the middle of the areas we cover. That means we can often collect an unregistered car the same day across Kingswood, Cranebrook, Emu Plains, Glenmore Park and the surrounding suburbs. Unregistered cars have to be towed rather than driven, and our free car removal service covers that at no cost to you. Registered or not, running or not, we’ll give you a fair quote based on the car’s actual condition.
An unregistered car on the street loses value every month it sits there, and it puts you at risk of fines. If your car’s rego has lapsed and you don’t plan to renew it, our old car removal service can take it off your hands quickly and legally.
