Towing Issues: Storage charge limit for towed car, police tows, tow fee

Question
Hi, Sir:


My car was towed and the towing company send me the bill of 196 for towing and 70$ perday storage fee for 21 days. My question is should there be a charging limits for how much a towing company can charge per day for storage? It's in Everett, Washington state. The Company is Many's Towing.

It's an urgent case.

Thanks a lot for the hlep!

Answer
Well I would love to help here with this question but there are a few variables I do not know and which need to be looked at..

First of all, the State of Washington Highway Patrol does have rates regulated for towing and storage fees on tows done under state police authority..
Now the City of Everett did also adopt the same rates (i believe) for tows ordered by the City Police.

But as far as I am aware, tows done from private property (illegal parking issues) are still unregulated in Washington.  But when I worked in the Seattle area, the tow company I worked at (this is like 15 years ago) used the State Patrol rates for all police tows and impounds from Private Property.  Made it easy for drivers to charge the right prices...

Now I did some research on towing up in Everett and did not find anything specific up there rate wise on a quick search, and so I can not say that the storage rates are to high, but it does seem a bit much to me.  
I am not sure what reasons it was towed for and if it was stored inside a building or outside  (open windows or police had hold on it for fingerprint reasons which has to be inside to be done and preserve evidence) but that might make a difference..

But remember one thing, the storage fee is just like rent of the ground, and some places it is more to have that property available than others.

Hope it helped but I would try to discuss the fees for storage with the tow company and see if there is something that can be done.  The tow fee ($196) seems reasonable but as I said the storage has me interested.