QuestionQUESTION: San Diego CA Regal Towing
Is it illegal for a towing company to charge me to retrieve items from my car
ANSWER: well as easy as it seems to answer this question the correct answer is YES and NO
Tow companies have "office hours" even though they are a 24 hour service...
Add in the fact that in most contracts with police departments they have "specified hours of operation" where there is no "after hours fees"
Now GENERALLY, Monday though Friday 8AM to 5PM there should be no fee to get your belongings from vehicles... This excludes holidays (if the bank is closed its generally a holiday).
Now if you showed up at 11PM or 4 AM on Monday then yes there is a fee to open up the office, get the paperwork, open the gate and be there while you get your stuff..
BUT then on the other side, if the vehicle was towed from private property some of the rules change regarding retrieving property...
And lets not forget if you wrecked your 1974 Pinto and have no insurance at all, and want to take your 4000 dollar stereo and 2000 rims off it, then I bet you would have to pay the towing fees to do such...
So you can see that they are really several answers to this question and I would need more information in order to "properly answer" this question ...
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: thanks! this is a grey area. so i was told by SDPD.
the car (2003 dodge stratus) was repo'd from around near my house and i went to pick up items (baby stroller, work boots, baby toys, car info etc.) during office hours and they still want to charge me. is that illegal?
Answeroh a REPO. Well there goes a whole other issue... Repo companies do tend to do things totally different than towing companies.
Plus the laws are different from regular towing companies... I did a quick search of laws in California regarding repos and did not find much information available.
Sorry.
