Towing Issues: Car towed from public lot, caution tape, tow company

Question
This happened in a small town in New Jersey. On Friday afternoon I parked in a public parking lot and when I returned at night (approx 4 hours later), the lot was blocked off by caution tape and parking cones (it looks like they retarred the lot earlier, but not certain) and my car was missing.  After making some calls I found out that my car had been towed by the local parking authority.  There were no warning signs anywhere that the lot was going to be closed that night.  I ended up being stranded for a night and paying $220 to get my car released.

Do you think there is something I can do about this?

Answer
ok, got a question here.   How did you know that it was a public parking lot ???

was there a sign which said so?

Reason I ask is that in many cases (and questions here) I see that people read "ONE SIGN" and do not look around for others... Was this a lot were you pay to park and put money in a slot in a box? or is it a totally free parking lot.

Are there more than one entrance to the lot and separate exits. Can you or did you enter though an exit?
Generally signs are posted at the entrances to the complexes or lots and you would not see one if you went in thought the out drive.

I am not trying to defend the actions which were taken but I am trying to show the general picture of what happens.

And there were "NO SIGNS" at all regarding parking in the lot. And nothing anywhere which said that vehicles will be towed and what the tow company name and number is.

New Jersey did create and update some laws in the last couple of years regarding parking and if this lot is city owned then it might not be correctly marked. Or its not for general public usage.


Now as to the "repairs - repaving" of the lot, I am sure you would not want to have that stuff on your vehicle at all or be surrounded by it and not able to get your vehicle out for hours on hours. And you would not want to delay the work and have them charge you for the delay of the workers since your car was parked in the way.

In most cases any vehicles in the way of repaving or resealing parking lots are towed and the owner is responsible for towing and storage fees.


Can you do anything about this, well depends on a lot of things, but small claims court is one option. You might get a judge to believe that it was towed illegally and all that, but it depends on evidence. Then again, you mentioned no signs you seen, but they could of had signs, or did notices in the newspaper and such and if you did not live there then you would not of known about it, and they would argue that ignorance is no excuse.

Hope this helps