Fines Victoria

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If you just found out that a fine has been issued against you and you did not receive it in person, there are options available to you.

If you didn't know about your fine, and it is now at Penalty Reminder Notice stage

If you were not issued an on-the-spot fine, you may be able to apply for an internal review on the grounds that you were not aware of the original fine.

See Request a review, open the Infringement Notice or Penalty Reminder Notice tab and refer to the section on Person Unaware. 

If you didn't know about your fine, and it is now at Notice of Final Demand or Enforcement Warrant stage

If you just found out that you have a fine, but it has progressed to a Notice of Final Demand or Enforcement Warrant, you may be able to apply for an Enforcement Review.  See Request a review, open the Notice of Final Demand or Enforcement Warrant tab and refer to the section on Person Unaware. 

If your fine is for a traffic offence or tolling offence (Melbourne City Link/Linkt or Eastlink), you may also be able to apply for an Infringement Extension with the Magistrates' Court within 14 days of becoming aware of the fine. This will give you a further 28 days to deal with the fine. 

Parking and other fines
If you did not receive the fine in person and have only just found out about it, you can apply for Enforcement Review on the grounds that you were unaware of the original fine. Note: this does not include excessive speeding fines of 25km/h or more over the limit.

If your application is granted you will have the opportunity to deal with the fine as if you were aware of the original infringement notice. This includes reinstating your options to nominate, elect to go to court or submit a review.

We must receive this application within 14 days of the date that you became aware of your fine. 

If you have lost your licence for excessive speeding (25km/h or more over the limit), but you did not know about the fine

Fines for excessive speed are different from other fines – they're more serious. A conviction will be recorded 28 days from the Infringement Notice issue date.

If you were not aware of the notice before the conviction took place, depending on the circumstances of the offence you can make one of the following applications for an extension of time to the Magistrates' Court:

  1. If you want to dispute the fine (object to the notice)
    If you want to dispute the fine, you can make an application to the Magistrates' Court for an extension of time to object to the notice. If your extension of time application is granted by a magistrate, the infringement is cancelled, and you will be served with a charge and summons with a date to appear to in court.

  2. If you were not the driver at the time
    If you were not the driver at the time of the offence, you can make an application to the Magistrates' Court for an extension of time to submit a nomination statement. If your extension of time application is granted by a magistrate, you will be provided more time to submit a nomination statement to Victoria Police.

    You must apply to the Magistrates' Court for an extension of time within 14 days of you becoming aware of the fine and your application must be accompanied by an affidavit or a statutory declaration setting out why the extension is sought. The magistrate will not grant the application unless they are satisfied that you were not aware of the fine before the infringement notice took effect as a conviction.

If you need more time to deal with your fine

If you simply need some more time to deal with your fine, you may be able to apply for an infringement extension to extend the time you have to deal with it.

Tolling, traffic (not including parking), speeding, drink-driving, drug-driving or alcohol-related boating fines

For these fines, you may apply to the Magistrates' Court for an infringement extension. The application should be accompanied with supporting evidence.

You must apply to the court within the following timeframes:

Tolling, traffic and speeding fines
(excluding excessive speed and parking)
Within 14 days of becoming aware of the fine
Drink-driving fines, drug-driving fines and excessive speed fines

If no conviction has been recorded, you must apply within 14 days of becoming aware of the fine. 

Alcohol-related boating fines

If no conviction has been recorded, you must apply within 7 days of becoming aware of the fine. 

If your application is granted, you will have an additional 28 days to deal with your fine.

See Magistrates' Court: Applying for an Infringement Extension to learn more about infringement extensions, including the eligibility criteria.

If you would like to request a review of your fine

For other fines (for example, traffic, parking, dog at large, public transport), you can:

  • apply to the enforcement agency for an internal review (when your fine is at Infringement fine and Penalty Reminder Notice stage), or
  • apply to Fines Victoria for an enforcement review (when your fine is at Notice of Final Demand and Warrant stage).

You must apply for the review within 14 days of becoming aware of the fine. The review may take us some time to process. During this time your fine will be placed on hold and further charges will not be added.

 

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