Mass. Gen. Laws » Part I Title XX Chapter 135
Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 135, § 8 (2026)

Unclaimed property in possession of police department; sale at public auction; notice

✓ current as of July 2026
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Section 8. If such property remains unclaimed in the possession of such police department or member thereof for one month and the owner thereof or his place of abode or business is unknown, or if the owner and his place of abode or business are known and the owner, after receipt by registered mail of a written notice from such department or member to take possession of said property, refuses or fails for a period of ten days following said receipt so to do, such department may sell the same, excepting money unclaimed, by public auction or any other licensed auction service, including sale over the Internet, notice of the time and place of sale, with a description of the property to be sold, first being given by publishing the same once in each of three successive weeks in a newspaper published in such city. Any violation of the provisions of this section shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty nor more than one hundred dollars and by forfeiture of any such property obtained as a result of such violation.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 1 case, 1979–1979 · leading case: Bane v. City of Boston, 396 N.E.2d 155 (Mass. App. Ct. 1979).
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Bane v. City of Boston, 396 N.E.2d 155 (Mass. App. Ct. 1979). “The notice further advised Bane that his car would not be released until he had paid the fees for the tickets "at the courts of issuance,” as well as the storage fees and that if the car were not claimed within ten days it would be sold at a public auction or otherwise disposed…”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.