Vehicle Storage Charges and the Caps on Them

The towing charge is a single number and the storage charge is a number multiplied by days. That structural difference explains why almost every serious dispute about a towed vehicle is really a dispute about storage, and why the statutes concentrate their controls on the rate, on disclosure and on the points at which the meter stops.

Capping the rate by reference

Rather than legislating a dollar figure, statutes commonly cap charges by reference to another rate that already exists.

One approach treats a charge for towing or storage as excessive if it exceeds the greater of two benchmarks: what would have been charged for the same service at the request of a law enforcement agency under an agreement between the towing company and the agency with primary jurisdiction where the property is located, or what would have been charged under the rate approved for that operator by the state agency responsible for the jurisdiction.

The reference approach has a practical advantage. It produces a defensible figure without a legislature setting prices, and it gives a disputing vehicle owner something concrete to compare against. Statutes accordingly require the operator to make its approved rate available for inspection and copying.

Local regulation sits on top. Statutes often provide expressly that their requirements are minimum standards and do not preclude additional regulation by a municipality or county, including the right to regulate rates for tows from private property. In many metropolitan areas the local maximum, not the state benchmark, is the operative number.

Filing and posting the schedule

Disclosure obligations run before any charge is incurred. An operator that proposes to require payment of towing and storage costs before redemption must file and keep on record with the local law enforcement agency a complete copy of the current rates to be charged, and must post an identical rate schedule at the storage site.

Some statutes require the written contracts with property owners authorizing the operator to remove vehicles to be posted alongside the rates, which allows a vehicle owner at the counter to check both the authority and the price.

Failure to file or post is not merely a technical breach. Statutes commonly make it an offense, and it undermines the operator's ability to justify a charge that appears nowhere in a filed document.

How the charges accrue

Storage is quoted by the day and accrues from the day of arrival. Statutes rarely require proration, so a vehicle collected the morning after a tow is commonly charged for two days.

The clock is therefore the vehicle owner's principal exposure, and it runs while the owner is doing everything correctly: waiting for a notice, requesting a hearing, arranging payment or arguing about whether the tow was proper. Nothing in the ordinary sequence pauses accrual.

Two categories of charge sit outside the daily rate and are worth separating. The towing charge itself is a one-time item fixed at removal, subject to the drop fee rule where the driver returned before transit. Additional items such as after-hours release, dollies, or lien processing appear at redemption and are enforceable only if they were filed and posted.

The distinction matters when a vehicle sits for weeks. A towing charge disputed on the ground that the tow was improper is a fixed amount, and the argument is worth having. Storage accrued over a month can exceed the towing charge several times over, and by then the question is less whether the removal was justified than whether the owner was told promptly enough to have collected the vehicle before the charges outgrew it.

When accrual stops

Statutes fix several stopping points, and they are the most useful provisions for a vehicle owner in the whole scheme.

The first is release. Once the vehicle has been redeemed, charges end, and an operator that continues to bill for a vehicle no longer in its possession has no basis for doing so.

The second is notice failure. Where the operator or the agency has failed to give the notice the statute requires to the registered and legal owners, statutes commonly limit or bar the accrual of storage charges for the period during which the owner was not told where the vehicle was. The rationale is straightforward: an owner cannot collect a vehicle they cannot locate.

The third is the lien sale. Charges accrue until the vehicle is sold, at which point the proceeds are applied against them and any deficiency becomes a debt rather than a growing charge. That process is described under titling an abandoned vehicle after a lien sale.

The fourth is a determination that the storage was improper. Where a hearing finds that reasonable grounds for the storage were not established, the agency employing the person who directed it becomes responsible for the costs, and where a private tow failed the statutory conditions, the person who authorized it commonly faces double the charges.

Checking a bill in practice

A disputed bill is checked against four documents, and obtaining them is most of the work.

The filed rate schedule shows what the operator is permitted to charge and whether each line item was disclosed. Any applicable local ordinance shows whether a lower maximum applies. The notice of storage shows when the owner was told, which bears on whether the full accrual period is chargeable. And the receipt shows what was actually charged and for what.

Where a line item appears on the bill but not on the schedule, or where the total exceeds a local maximum, the charge is challengeable without any argument about whether the tow was justified. Where the tow itself was unauthorized, the conditions that make one lawful are set out under signage that makes a private tow lawful, and the release and hearing rights that run alongside are covered under getting a towed vehicle back.