I hope someone can shed some light, or point us in a direction…
My 17-y.o. daughter saved her money and bought her first car, then made the terrible mistake of driving it before she got it legal. She got pulled over.
They impounded her car, and she got $800 in tickets. Fair enough.
The problem is this: after the city sold the vehicle at auction, she is now being charged with storage fees of almost $1,000.
It was a very expensive learning experience for her…still and all, it doesn’t seem right that after she’s paid her tickets AND they sold her vehicle, she still has to pay for storage for it. Shouldn’t the money the city collected on the sale of her vehicle be part of the payment of these penalties?
It is just too much for one dumb teenage mistake, IMO.
Who could she speak with about this? It is already in collections. Any help appreciated!!!
Thx!
I don’t know if this is accurate, or applies in this case, but I recall hearing that if an impounded car is sold, storage fees and other charges related to the impounding have to be taken from the proceeds.
Whether it’s too much for a dumb adult mistake (you let your daughter drive and own a car but don’t consider her an adult???) is debatable, but your daughter doesn’t sound responsible enough to drive.
Yes, I would think so. But maybe they did!
How much money are they now asking for, and how much did they sell the car for? If they sold the car for $1500 and are only asking you for the other $300, then that sounds right. But if they want the whole $1800 after pocketing the sale of the car, then I think there’s something wrong there.
Legal. Ethical. Fair. All of them.
We all despise when the city govs do dumb things and run at a loss. The whole issue of registration/license/impounding in Phila and other cities is a big friggin’ management headache, with costs on top of costs.
Here they collect money to cover their end and keep their already overflowing lots from costing even more money, and we are tempted to question the legality.
Oh, it’s legal, because the costs are known… and like the law itself, ignorance is no excuse. If you want to know how much it costs to store your car if it gets impounded, it is not pulled from a hat.
I thought that they would hold a car for a while before it’s sold - so your daughter must have left it at the impound lot for quite a while before it was sold. They don’t just turn around and sell it immediately. How long did you (she) leave it there? Did the impound fees add up to more than the value of the car?
Not only are the costs known, also what paperwork is needed, and what other hoops need to be jumped through. They’re broadcast all over the country on Parking Wars.
[ul]
[li]So are you saying it was the City of Philadelphia (through the PPA) that towed and impounded the car after Philly Police stopped your daughter?[/li][li]If so, did you contact them right away?[/li][li]Can someone in Pennsylvania under legal age actually purchase and register a vehicle in their name?[/li][/ul]
Have you considered contacting the Mayor’s office?
Legal advice is better suited to IMHO rather than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Suppose she had bought a car from a dealer, they had repossessed it with her still owing $5000 on it, sold it at auction and got only $3000 for it. Would the dealership still come after her for the $2000 shortfall? Of course they would! And they could legally collect it.
Same thing with the city. She owes all the fines & fees, and so she has to pay them.
I don’t know about Philadelphia, but usually the vehicle is sold in order to pay for storage fees so you’d think she would be in the clear. But if the sale doesn’t cover every penny, they go after the (previous) owner for the remaining balance. They may even turn it over to collections immediately instead of sending a bill or asking nicely. Her storage fees must have been $1,000 plus whatever the car sold for. I would verify that the fees were $1000+ before paying. Maybe they made a mistake and had $1k fees and sold it for $900 and she really only owes $100. But assuming the numbers are right, she probably does owe it.
If they sold the car, and it covered the costs of the fines and fees, she should get any money remaining. I’d assume a 17 year old didn’t save enough money to buy an expensive car, and it probably was sold for under $1000 at auction, leaving hefty impound fees unpaid.
A dealership won’t sell a car to an 17 year old though. Her contractual debts can be terminated upon reaching majority age. And a minor is not bound by the terms of a sale, she could return the car at any time for a full refund. It’s always risky to sell things of real value to a minor. I think her parents may be responsible for any fees and fines imposed by the government though.
Okay I’m going to reveal how naive I am, because I don’t understand. What exactly did she do wrong? What does “before she got it legal” mean? Before she registered it?
The OP probably already knows the answer to the question of who he should be talking to - a lawyer.
But my guess is that it’s not going to do much good. I’m guessing the City of Philadelphia had a lawyer on staff when they wrote the appropriate laws to cover this situation and nothing illegal occurred. I don’t think you’re going to get much traction in claiming that it’s unconstitutional or anything either.
As to how they get away with this, it’s simple - most people don’t care. Did the OP care a year ago how much the city was charging people for storage fees? Most people who haven’t experienced those fees are not going to be concerned about them. If anything, they’d probably approve of the city collecting the money if they thought about it at all. Better than getting money from income or property or sales taxes would be the consensus.
How can you but a car and have it “got legal?”
Yeah, I don’t get it either. You buy the car, it’s yours. Sure, you might not have gotten a license, but that just results in the police officer pulling you over and telling you to go get it registered, with maybe a ticket thrown in. You either take it right then, or you immediately go home, and don’t drive it again until you’ve got the license.
The only other thing I can think you mean is that she doesn’t have a license yet. But, again, I’ve never seen a cop actually impound the car because of that. You just are required to get someone else out there to drive it. Or, in my sister’s case, the cop follows you back to the parking lot she started from (she was practicing driving in the parking lot, and wanted to go a little ways.) Sure, she got a ticket, and the cop tried to scare her to death, but nothing more.
Is this atypical, or, as I suspect, is the story a bit more complicated?
Could have been before it was registered, although with a private sale they go on and do that before they’ll swap the title over, at least here in Kentucky. But as other people have said, getting pulled over for no/outdated registration gets you a ticket, not your car impounded.
What I’m thinking is that Pennsylvania has vehicle inspection laws, and the car in question needed some type of work done to pass inspection or be “street legal.” If the OP’s daughter were foolish enough to drive the car before being able to get that work done, the cops couldn’t let someone else come pick up the car because it’s considered unsafe to be on the road. Thus the towing/impound, and most likely a really low sale price because nobody’s going to pay very much for a car that you can’t even drive without putting some money into.
Not once, but twice, my car got towed by the police because the registration had lapsed. It was a big pain and inconvenience, having to pay the fine plus the registration plus a day or two of storage. But I really can’t complain, because registration is sort of the state’s way of keeping tabs of who the owner is, and if it’s not registered, then (officially, at least) it could be an unreported stolen vehicle, so I can’t blame them for impounding it. This was in New Jersey.
My guess is that the car was not registered and/or inspected. Not just lapsed but never done. And maybe the daughter was driving without a license and/or insurance.
The cop might give you a ticket and let you drive it home. But your car is liable for being seized if it’s not legal to drive.
I am assuming she did not have insurance or registration on the car, which would account for $800 worth of fines.
IIRC, the city impound lots charge $250 for the towing and $25/day “storage fee”. So the city had the car in storage for 30 days ($25 X 30 days = $750) before it was auctioned off.
Did she try and make the car legal and get the car out of the impound lot before it was sold?
That’s horrid. Here in Texas, we have both county-based registration and state mandated safety inspection.
If you let them lapse, the drill is to get pulled over, get your tickets, get your car inspected and registered, and go to the courthouse and get the tickets waived for a $20 fine each.
At no point do they impound your car or anything draconian like that.