I think you need to find a way. Talk to the apartment manager. Talk to the other neighbors. There are search tools you can use on the auto license plate; I just noticed this one:
Right. Have to Apartment complex owner or manager have it towed, then ask the towing company to let you know when it goes up for auction. Often less that the accumulated fines & fees.
I’d be willing to bet, if the OP is correct that the previous tenent is the owner of the car and it was left behind in the parking lot, is that there is a lien on that vehicle as well with a bank or finance company that would like to get it back, but since the parking lot is gated the repossessor can’t get to it.
If so, whenever you attempted to get a new title on the vehicle the lien would pop up.
I don’t know how anyone can get title of an abandoned car. I do know that, In CA at least, if you want to register it, you’ll have to pay the registration fees for the years that it wasn’t registered, too. This also applies to cars that have been scrapped for a time and then repaired.
Another vote for auction. The apt. building owner prob. doesn’t know it’s abandoned. Let them know, get it towed, have it sit in a lot for a while, go to the auction to buy it.
Yes that’s going to take time and money. You are not getting this for free.
That’s what I suspected, either take PastTense’s advice and track down the owner (which a co-worker IRL suggested) or be prepared to spend some time & money. I really don’t want to spend time or real money on the car, but this was a question that crossed my mind frequently because I see it every day.
More than likely it is financed and the “owner” wouldn’t have the title anyway, so it’s probably not worth putting any time into.
I found a number of people through Google that claim they know how to do this in California. I did no deep dive, but the common thread was that they car in question had been abandoned on their property, so they could force a sale to satisfy a lien to cover storage costs.
So that said, I don’t think @nate can do this as it’s not nate’s parking lot.
I’ve done it through a lien sale. It’s a long and arduous process. And if you don’t get one step right you get to start again.
The first thing you have to do is start charging for “storage”. Write up an invoice that says you are charging the owner $50/day for the last 60 days. This says that the owner now owes you $3,000 for storage.
Next you file to the DMV telling them that you have a lien for $3000 on a vehicle but you don’t know who it is. Pay the fee and they will send you the legal owner (if that exists) and the registered owner.
Next you send them a registered, return receipt, letter with the invoice telling them that you are intending to sell the vehicle at a lien sale on such and such a date unless the bill is paid. They likely don’t live at those addresses anymore and the mail will come back. keep those envelopes unopened with the return stamps.
At the same time you will be filling out a notice that you are doing a lien sale and hanging it in your front window for all (who might walk up to look) to see.
Finally, on the day of the lien sale, no one comes. you fill out the DMV paperwork saying that no one came and you thus take possession of the vehicle. you can then get it titled in your name and do with it what you like.
If the car sitting there is a nuisance, @nate’s solution is to take that up with the apartment management. Which might be an effective way to start the inquiry that eventually leads to @nate getting a car for cheap, but not free.
But yeah, if the OP’s idea is zero effort, zero cost, and then somebody hands you a clean title and a set of keys, you’re gonna need to find a magic wand first.
Why? My daughter and SIL bought a brand new minivan and paid the loan off inside of a year. They could have paid cash to begin with but there was some sort of benefit to taking the loan and keeping it for a certain amount of time.
I thought maybe it’s like finding cash where you can issue a public notice and if no one claims it it’s legally yours. At least that was what the Brady Bunch taught me when I was a kid but admit that kind of seems outdated now.
It’s not a nuisance at all, just kind of odd to see a barely used Mazda 3 covered in dust. I think I’m the only one left around here, including the apartment owners, that knows anything about its history.
But they’re two different things. In one case, someone (presumably) legally parked their car in a parking lot and their only crime was not coming back for it. In the other case, your friend and/or the AAA driver stole a car.
And speaking of that, either we’re missing some details or this isn’t what happened. Will AAA tow a car from one parking lot to another without the owner’s consent?
I also don’t understand why they wouldn’t go through the appropriate steps to have the car legally removed, at no cost (monetarily or legally) to themselves. Usually not much more difficult than calling the police to have the car ticketed, then calling a tow company to come and impound it.
In my experience, AAA has never checked ownership. They have normally wanted the keys which , of course , I wouldn’t have for a car that was parked on the street that I have no connection to - don’t own and wasn’t driving. As for the OP - whoever controls the parking lot can have it towed if they want to. If it’s abandoned - and it may not be.
If a AAA member asks for a tow the driver may want to see ID and/or a AAA card, but they don’t question the ownership of the car. IME, any hesitation concerning procedures can be resolved by giving the tow driver a few bucks. Legally, I think AAA relies on the customer’s authorization to move the car. They can’t tow it to an impound lot (although the same tow company may do that also), I don’t think they’d leave it on the street either.
Is the abandoned car in an assigned space? Or is it just one of the generic spots which should be open for use by any resident?
Either way, it is taking up space that belongs to someone else.
Maybe the landlord doesn’t care, but could you demand that he allow you the use of that same spot?
Because, say, you want to buy a second car and as a paying tenant, you have the right to use the parking lot like all the other tenants, on a first come-first served basis. And the abandoned car clearly does not belong to a paying tenant.
Check the laws on abandoned cars. You can’t steal an abandoned car because, well, it was abandoned. In Illinois, a car can be considered abandoned in an amazingly short amount of time.
Illinois law: " Has not been moved or used for more than seven consecutive days and is apparently deserted. A towing service may begin to process an unclaimed vehicle as abandoned by requesting a record search by the Secretary of State up to 10 days after the date it was reported." In fact, once a car is considered abandoned, you can start the paper work necessary to legally acquire ownership of the car yourself.
I’ve absolutely had them leave a car on the street- I live in a city where most people park on the street , so if I want it towed home, they will leave it on the street.
Yes - for all the OP knows, the car owner is paying building management for the space by the month. Which means the car is not abandoned.
I suppose if the person who called AAA is a AAA member that makes more sense. I was picturing how it would work if I, a non-member, tried this. I think not being a member would be the end of that conversation. Even if the car had a AAA sticker on it, I wouldn’t know that person’s name.
But that didn’t happen. You said your friend called AAA and had the car towed to an empty lot in a bad part of town. That’s not legally acquiring ownership, that’s stealing a car.
That’s what I keep wondering. For all we know, the rightful owner may well still have an agreement with the property owner to keep their car there for whatever reason.