Depends on what it was confiscated for.
It did happen to me once and it was a very expensive lesson.
One of my buddies was paralyzed in a car crash. To help him out, I fixed up an old street bike he had, so that he could sell it. After tuning it up and cleaning it, I commuted to the train station on it, even though it had an expired registration. It got 'towed' from the parking lot to an impound yard. I had to get the registration current before they would release it. There was an expensive storage charge for every day it was in the yard. It took me a week or so to get it taken care of. So between storage fees, late registration fees, tow fees, fines, and about two days off work to go fix the problem, it cost me more than the bike was worth to get it back for my buddy.