If caught driving drunk repeatedly, you could lose your car, even if it's registered to your spouse. A family car can be confiscated by court order regardless of which spouse it is registered to. This was clarified by the Supreme Court in a new review of judicial practice. Read more in the material “Pervy Tekhnichesky”.
Scale of the phenomenon
According to the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court, since 2023, property confiscation in criminal cases has been applied almost twice as often. In 2025, courts decided to confiscate only monetary funds totaling over 26 billion rubles when passing sentences, and for the first half of 2026 — already more than 17 billion rubles.
A driver caught driving under the influence repeatedly faces a criminal case, and the relevant article of the Criminal Code provides for the confiscation of the car. There is one condition — the car must belong to the driver by right of ownership. However, in practice, this has led to disputes.
In what cases can a car be confiscated
If a driver gets behind the wheel drunk again, the car can be confiscated, even if it is registered to his wife. The Supreme Court explains this by the fact that property purchased by spouses during marriage is generally considered joint. Therefore, the entry in the documents itself does not save the car from confiscation.
In one case, the car was registered to the driver's wife. After her husband's arrest, she sold the car for 350 thousand rubles. Lower courts did not confiscate the money, but the Supreme Court overturned their decisions and sent the case for a new review. Now the court needs to determine the real value of the car.
If the car has been sold, the court may decide on the confiscation of money equal to its value. It is important to establish how much the car actually cost, and not to focus only on the amount specified in the sales contract.
A car can also be confiscated if it is registered to a woman with whom the driver lives without a registered marriage. Here there is no rule about automatic joint ownership of spouses, so the court will have to find out who the car actually belonged to.
Various circumstances can indicate this — who paid for the car, who repaid the loan, who constantly used it and paid for repairs. In one case, the Supreme Court agreed to the confiscation of the car, as the couple maintained a common household, jointly bore the costs of its maintenance, and the convicted person regularly used the car, including for committing offenses.
The Supreme Court separately reminded that received bribes are subject to confiscation. This rule also applies if the convicted person's sentence has been deferred. The deferral does not exempt him from the obligation to transfer illegally obtained money to the state.