QuestionIs there a cap on how much a towing company can charge an individual for impound fees in Washington state
Answerin order to properly answer this question, I have to ask a couple of other questions?
What was the reason for the tow, removal of a vehicle illegally parked on Private property ?
Towing by the City, County or State Police for an accident or arrest tow ?
Reason I am asking is that Washington State Patrol sets rates for tows ordered by them and many Cities have copied the rates for that service.
But for vehicles towed for illegal parking off private property there are some companies that use the state patrol rates and some use there own commercial rates for the services.
If we can get a few answers then I can maybe help with the question.
I feel though that this is concerning an PPI ( Private Property Impound ) towing issue.
Given the attention in the Seattle area given to a few companies I am going to say that for vehicles removed from Private property there are no set rates for towing fees charged to the public. Quoted rates in news articles of 250 to 300 have been published, but as always the ammount paid to the towing company is mentioned, but not without breaking down the actual fees which were charged. This can include storage (ground rental of the space it is parked in ), after hours fees for release of vehicles after normal business hours (monday to friday 8 am to 5 pm ) of which can be as high as HALF the basic impound rate.
I found some older rates from 2003 for towing under WSP rates during a search.
130 per hour (time out to time in )
68.00 after hours release fee
31.00 per day storage after the first hour, billed in half day rates
Just for the basic towing and storage of a vehicle kept in the lot for 2 hrs, on a friday night, you would be looking at paying out a min of $ 213.50 plus any taxes ..s
Hope this helps or that you can provide a bit more information to better answer your question
