Towing Issues: hoa towed my car, small claims court, ownership document

Question
I have a question regarding my hoa my car was parked in front of my town home on a public road this is not a gated community and was towed by my home owners association. I do believe that it states no parking in the street in the hoa manual but can they have my car towed off of public property at my expense legally..this is in the state of alabama (car was not illegally parked) and there are no signs that say no parking

Answer
Ah the fun HOA questions arise again...


A HOA has all sorts of rules, regulations and covenants which they make up at a board level, in order to rule, govern or just plain enforce...

That being said, most HOA's have control of the streets for parking and such and yes it is very common to have a "no parking on the street" regulation which is in effect at night.  Now since most HOA's lack police and fire coverage, they contract out to have the service provided. But they still maintain control of the roadways even though the city may do the sweeping and paving from time to time.

Now as to if it was illegally parked, that would be hard for me to determine, but as to legally towed... Well someone had to "authorize" the tow and sign a form stating that the vehicle was to be towed.

That is the person who would be responsible for the "legality" of the tow...

Now you can go to the City or County and get information on who actually "owns" the streets and who is responsible for the maintenance... It might be that they do not have the "rights to tow" from the streets but that would be all in the records you would be looking for...


As to recovering "some, all or none" of the money you would have to go the small claims court route as that would be where they would determine the actual laws...

Best answer is to treat this like you would go to court with it, research out the ownership, document all the information including date and time of who you talked to.   

As this is all done, you will figure out if you have a case or not, or if it is really a waste of time and one of life's lessons we all have to learn.

Good luck.