Towing Issues: HOA vs lease agreement, tow truck company, fedex package

Question
There's a few condos in the 92126 area. I'm currently renting from an condo owner and I don't see anything on the contract that prohibits me from parking any type of vehicle on my assigned parking lot. Today I happened to be working from home to wait for a FedEx package. All excited I went outside to find a tow truck getting ready to tow my Caddy. The car's registration recently expired but it was strange for someone to be dispatched to tow my car in the assigned lot. After arguing with the driver I found that on my car there's a piece of paper from an HOA saying I'm in violation of an vehicle without registration, and this happened 6 days ago. If that same piece of paper had been gone to my mailbox then I would have went to DMV to get that resolved, but now I was there talking to the driver. I agreed that I'd be moving the car, but I moved it to an unassigned lot. This I'd figure it buys me 96 hours from DMV article 22658(e)(1) in reference to complying with 22658(a)(2).

So there's two problems. One is my renter's lease agreement does not specify that I couldn't park a car with an expired registration. The other is that having two cars, it would be reasonable to assume that the supposed violation would be officially mailed to me, tried contacting me, talked to my landlord, or even come to my door since the HOA knows where I live. Instead I'm finding out the hard way that some tow truck company shows up and then to find out the notice stuck on my windshield.

What protections do we working folks have against this kind of ridiculous problem? There doesn't seem much on the surface in the DMV code that would help resolve this or even to suggest an arbitration. The worst is I live at the complex not provided all the rules. All I know is the renter's contract between me and my landlord without regards to any HOA.

Thanks and regards,
Mark

Answer
Well, first of all one of the common sections of leases do cover the unlicensed vehicles issue. Complexes can not have a bunch of vehicles which are not legal to drive...

Now as to the notice, as much as I agree they should of done more to attempt notification in person, the truth is that the management or who ever checks the lot does not carry around the list of what vehicles belong to who and where they live...  
Fact of life it's hard to try sending a notice in the mail, especially in California. The privacy act done that for most everyone being able to get vehicle owner information from DMV, so by mailing something to the owners is out..
And how would they treat the visitors to the lot..

You also mentioned that you stayed home from work the day you caught the tow truck, who is to say they did not come knock on the door and you were gone on any of the days from the notice and the date they tried to tow it..

The protections issue for working people, well California at the start of 2007 changed a bunch of the laws to help protect the vehicle owner, and some of the changes were against the property owner (yes they lost the rights to have vehicles towed quickly in some situations)

Also the issue of parking in complexes is multiplied by the fact that some people have 2 or more vehicles, which crowd the lot more...

Now the question does look as you did not have to pay anything so I would count my blessings and get the tags current to prevent any further problems.