Towing Issues: Getting towed from your own deeded parking space, snow removal company, townhouse community


Question
Hello. I own a townhouse and live in a townhouse community in the suburb of Boston. we recently experienced a major snow storm. Our condo association does have a contract w/ a snow plowing company. The policy is, when they are here to plow we simply move our cars in order for them to clear out the path, as well as our parking spaces. Most of the time, the men will just ring our door bells and we move our cars....no big deal. This morning we received a memo from the president of our condo association that for future snow removal: for cars that are being left in their parking spaces during the snow removal such cars will be towed. Can they actually do this? We own our units as well as our parking spaces....these are deeded parking spaces. With the holidays coming, most of us will be away leaving 1 or 2 cars behind....God forbid another storm is coming while we are away and come back to find an empty deeded space. I just find it hard to believe they can simply tow our cars from spaces that's legally ours.

Answer
Well, as I am not a lawyer and I understand your point about the legality of being towed.

But if I understand the issue, the Condo association contracts with the snow removal company to clear the whole lot and walkways. Now if they do not complete the job due to vehicles in the way, do they get paid full rates, or do they violate the contract terms.

Now if the snow removal people were knocking on doors to get vehicles removed then it most likely was a courtesy...

Now if the condo association wants a tow company to come and just move vehicles around in the lot then they would be most likely paying the fees.  But if they towed off vehicles which were parked during the snow removal process then it would be the vehicle owners responsibility.
Does the condo have garages or carports?  

I understand your point on the deeded parking spaces, but how many spaces are you allowed, that is another point.
If you are allowed only 1 space and use 3 then aahhh what should be done.
Also a question about the ownership of the parking space is who would be paying taxes on the space. Tax payments really do determine ownership.

But back to the question of can they legally tow the vehicle, they can legally sign authorizations to have the vehicles removed by the tow company. As to if they did have them towed it would be up to a judge to determine if it was legal. I do believe somewhere in the lease - purchase paperwork is something about having vehicles towed.

I know its not a proper answer, but it is really hard for me to answer this type of question...