Towing Issues: Regulated fees for towing, seattle king county, small claims court

Question
QUESTION: My car was towed from in front of a friends mobile home in a private park. The park has no signs posted regarding parking regulations which is one issue. The second is, I was charged 415.00 to get my car back less than 3 hours after it had been towed. It seems extremely excessive. Is there anything regulating what a company can charge for towing??
If I dispute the fees and lose are there costs involved?

Thank you!

ANSWER: Yes you can always contest the tow, small claims court is generally the way to do that...

BUT, since you did not mention the city or state that you are in, I can not provide specific information on laws or procedures regarding if the tow was legal or not...

Signs can be one issue, but remember that not every city or state requires by law that signs be posted...

Costs, well there are filing costs, lost time for court costs, and that does not mean that the judge will rule that you win, or lose and have to pay other costs... That again is up to the area that it is in.

$415.00 does seem a bit high, but I bet there are all sorts of fees to get the bill up to there...

Like Tow fee, Towed mileage,  dollies or special equipment fees, storage fee,  (possibly an after hours fee to get it at night or on weekends)...



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Sorry, I am in King County, Washington

Answer
Sorry for the delay, but I have to say that as far as I know there are "no set rates" in the Seattle - King County area in regards to towing from Private Property. But a lot of tow companies do use the rates which are set by the Washington State Patrol (for tows ordered by them) as a basis for tows... That rate is based on an "hourly rate" with a 1 hour minimum...

I have lost the link to the latest rates that I had, which were also a couple of years old, but I also know that they should be changing again, as they tend to be updated in October each year.

I would guess that the fee did include storage also, along with a gate fee as I mentioned before, but without seeing the tow bill I can not tell you if it looks valid or not.