Towing Issues: Car towed after being told to park in spot., handicap parking permit, salt lake city utah

Question
Location. Salt Lake City, Utah ... I live in an apartment complex. When I moved in, I went in the office twice and asked for a handicap parking stall closer to my apartment. The first time I was informed that a handicap parking stall would be marked off for me. A week later, I went into the office since this had not been done. I was told that one of the two end stalls would be marked for me. There is one covered parking stall and one not covered. I had been parking in both for 3 weeks while waiting for a sign to be placed there.

My handicap parking permit was hung on my mirror, but the property manager had my car towed even though I was parked where I understood I was to park.

The property manager said that they had put a sticker on my car 24 hours before they towed (I don't leave my apt much), and that covered parking is never for anyone but the tenant who lives there. Since I was told to park there, I assumed there was no one living there and no one had said otherwise.

Is there anyway I can recover the $281 towing fee? Also, the bumper of my car was scratched up real bad by the tow company. What can I do about this? Where can I find the laws which governing handicap parking?

Thanks in advance.

Wendy

Answer
Wendy, lets start at the end and work backwards. First of all contact the tow company about the damages and see what they will do.. Some companies are great about handling the damages claims and some really try to get out of any responsibility... Document everything, and keep good records and you might prevail...

Now as to recovering the fees, that will be a bit harder as it will most likely be a he says they say issue...  Verbal contracts or statements are hard to prove if taken to court...

As you mentioned, tenants are assigned a covered parking space and I take it that yours is to far away to be convenient.

Now as to the marking of spaces for handicapped spaces, that does require that some laws are followed and that is on both the state and federal levels... Trying to find out exactly what is legal and required is something that I have been looking into for a while as I get a lot of questions like this.. Each state is different and even some Cities have rules and regulations about this issue.  

Just because you have the handicapped permit and have it displayed does not mean parking regulations can be ignored. That permit really means that you are "legally able to park in a designated handicapped space" as so marked.
That being said, I would contact the apartment management and discuss this further with them as they should be aware of the issues of handicapped access and parking.  They should have a certain amount of designated spaces for this and they should also keep them available for people with permits to park in.
You have some powerful laws which can help you in dealing with issues like this, if you find the right people to help... Some times it is worth contacting an attorney do provide you with the local laws on handicapped issues... Or their might be an association which can help you...

I would love to provide more information for you, but like I said its a very confusing issue as things do tend to cross on both state and federal levels... Plus it also depends on the level of disability from what I see with some parking permits...