WAITING FOR THE CBP FORFEITURE NOTICE
The answer depends on the legal authority governing the forfeiture. For seizures covered by the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act procedures in 19 C.F.R. Subpart H, CBP generally must send written notice to known interested parties as soon as practicable and, subject to listed exceptions and extensions, no later than 60 calendar days after seizure.
Current 19 C.F.R. §162.92 generally requires CBP to send notice of a covered seizure to known interested parties as soon as practicable and ordinarily no later than 60 calendar days after the date of seizure.
Do not apply the 60-day rule blindly to every CBP seizure. The governing subpart contains exclusions and specific exceptions.
Where property is first seized by state or local law enforcement and later turned over to CBP for federal forfeiture, the regulation generally provides a 90-day notice period measured from the state or local seizure.
Section 162.92 permits specified administrative extensions and also allows a court to authorize additional extensions when the regulatory requirements are met.
Section 162.91 excludes several categories of forfeiture from the Subpart H CAFRA procedures, including seizures under specified Title 19 customs laws and other listed federal statutes.
The first step is therefore identifying the statute cited in the Notice or seizure paperwork.
For seizures governed by this subpart, §162.93 states that if CBP fails to send notice as required and no extension applies, CBP will return the property to the person from whom it was seized, without prejudice to the government commencing a later forfeiture proceeding.
The same regulation states that CBP is not required to return contraband or property that the person may not legally possess.
Because several filing periods run from the date the Notice of Seizure is mailed, preserve the notice, envelope, mailing date, seizure number and every page describing the available procedures.
For example, Part 171 generally gives 30 days from mailing of the seizure notice for an administrative petition. A qualifying §162.94 claim generally has a 35-day period from mailing unless additional time applies.
No. The 60-day rule applies to covered CAFRA seizures and is subject to exceptions, extensions and statutory exclusions.
The applicable remedy depends on the governing forfeiture procedure. For covered cases, the regulations address failure to provide required notice, while claim deadlines can also be tied to publication when notice is not received.
Several procedural deadlines are measured from the mailing date of the Notice of Seizure.
These government materials provide the principal CBP seizure, petition and forfeiture procedures discussed on this page.
Seizure cases can involve different statutes and procedural tracks, so the notice date and cited legal authority should be reviewed before filing a petition or claim.