Overdue payment of traffic violation fines, can vehicle registration be returned?

DUY KHANH(Thanh Mien)

Reply:

Clause 1, Article 73 of the 2012 Law on Handling of Administrative Violations stipulates: “Individuals and organizations that are administratively sanctioned must comply with the sanction decision within 10 days from the date of receipt of the administrative sanction decision; in case the administrative sanction decision states a period of implementation of more than 10 days, it shall comply with that period.”

Clause 1, Article 78 of the 2012 Law on Handling of Administrative Violations stipulates: “Within 10 days from the date of receipt of the penalty decision, the penalized individual or organization must pay the fine at the State Treasury or pay it into the State Treasury account stated in the penalty decision, except for the case of paying the fine specified in Clause 2 and Clause 3 of this Article. If the above deadline is exceeded, the penalty decision will be enforced and for each day of late payment, the violating individual or organization must pay an additional 0.05% of the total unpaid fine amount”.

Clause 4, Article 126 of the 2012 Law on Handling of Administrative Violations stipulates: “For exhibits and means of administrative violations that have exceeded the temporary detention period, if the violator does not come to receive them without a valid reason or in cases where the violator cannot be identified, the person issuing the temporary detention decision must notify in the mass media and publicly post at the headquarters of the agency of the person with authority to detain; within 30 days from the date of notification and public posting, if the violator does not come to receive them, the competent person must issue a decision to confiscate the exhibits and means of administrative violations for handling in accordance with the provisions of Article 82 of this Law”.

Thus, if your vehicle registration is held but you do not pay the fine on time, you can still get your vehicle registration back after you have completed paying the fine at the State Treasury. However, you will have to pay an additional fine for late payment calculated based on the number of days late.