QuestionI'm sorry this will take a while to set up my question.
over nine months ago my husband (fiance at the time) was given a vehicle. he had the title changed to his name, but he didn't reregister it i guess because they kept asking for money from us. i paid the $88.00 fee and never got tags for the car. because neither of us drove at the time we didn't pay it any mind.
unfortunately, our vehicle did get towed by request of the police. i wasn't allowed to do much with the towing agency because we weren't' married. at the time my husband was in training with a new company and wasn't allowed to take time off from work to take care of the towing and/or registration issues.
i talked to the towing people and they said that it would cost us $450 to get it out of tow in two weeks when we would have enough money. there, of course, were no payment plans or anything of the sort. i asked about the amnesty program and the gentleman told me it would cost $500+ to give them our car. when i inquired about the timeframe we had to get him the money, he said we had 30 days.
two weeks later, i call him up to let him know that we'll be working it out to pay him in about a week because (since we're planning a wedding) some other expenses came up. but we'll definitely get down there to give him the money to donate the vehicle.
i call a week later to come down the next day and they'd already taken my vehicle to be auctioned! my fiance and i never signed anything and they said it was too late! we'd have to wait for a bill to come that was the difference between the towing fees incurred and the amount it sold for.
we didn't get a bill from them, it was straight from a collection agency. we set up a payment plan and have been paying for months now on it. i told a friend of mine and he said that there was something fishy about their business practices.
should we have signed something in order for them to take our car before 30 days were up? is there something in the state laws for towing that addresses this? even if it is in their favor and they are doing things by the book, if there's something that i can look at to see why and how they're able to charge us upwards of $1000 through the collections place, i'd love to see it.
Answerwell first of all, differant states have differant laws regarding abandoned vehicles and lein processing. In some states vehicles valued under a certain ammount can be disposed of in under 30 days, in some states it takes anywhere up to 180 days.
Now with the vehicle not being registered as you mentioned, then the last registered owner of the vehicle would receive a certified letter from the towing company. if they returned it with statement that they sold it, then you would not of got any notice.
As to signing papers, leins are not usually done with the owner signing anything other than for the letter.
The collection agency letters are usually what happens when the vehicle sold for less than the towing and storage fees owed.
BY CHANCE are you in Hollister California ?
There is some articles I am following about a company there and the collection process...
I am sorry but it seems that you might be stuck, and if the state laws were followed..
