The clock
Three years.
Then nobody can help you.
Three years from the day of the crash. Two if the driver was never found. When that runs out the claim is gone, however badly you were hurt and however clearly it was their fault.
You know who hit you
- Lodge · 3 yr
- Summons · 5 yr
- Gone
They drove off
- Lodge · 2 yr
- Summons · 5 yr
- Gone
1,095
days, if the driver was identified
It is not a guideline. It is a wall.
A claim lodged one day late is worth exactly nothing. There is no appeal from it and no sympathy in it. If your crash was anywhere near three years ago, stop reading this and phone.
012 000 0000Find yourself in this
Four situations, four answers.
They stopped, or you got the registration
The ordinary case. Three years from the day it happened to lodge the claim, and five years to issue summons if it has to go to court.
3 years
They drove off and were never traced
Shorter, and the one missed most often, because a claim against a driver nobody can name feels hopeless. It is not.
2 years
The injured person is a child
Time generally does not run against a minor. Do not treat that as breathing room. Evidence goes stale years before the law closes the door.
It waits
They cannot manage their own affairs
After a serious brain injury, for instance. It is a narrow exception and it has to be established, not assumed.
It may wait
Even with two years left
The deadline is not the reason to hurry.
People forget, then they move
A statement taken three weeks after a crash is worth more than the same person straining to remember two years on.
Dockets go missing
Police records are far easier to get in the first months than in the third year. We have chased dockets across three provinces and it is never quick.
The medical evidence has to be built
Specialist reports, a serious injury assessment, an actuary. That is months of work before anything can be filed.
The Fund is slow on its own account
Lodging on the last day of the third year is legal and it is still a mistake. Everything afterwards takes time you will wish you had back.
Give us the date. We will give you yours.
It takes about a minute, and you will know for certain either way.