And yet I’ve never heard of Walmart or Target requiring shoppers to move their cars so that the parking lot can be plowed.
IME most such big box shopping places, larger strip malls, etc., get done in the wee hours. Where so few cars are parked as to be a non-issue. If they pl0w 100% of the driving areas and 98% of the parking spaces, what gets skipped is immaterial.
Conversely in apartments / condos I’ve dealt with whether in snow country or not, one thing they shared is the parking areas being filled to near 100% capacity every evening through morning. And being 30-60% filled all day depending on how many retirees or stay at homes live there. For sure on a heavy snow day there will be more stay-at-homes than usual.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether the management company has taken an unusually finicky perfectionist approach to clearing their snow or not. They set the rules and all the tenants knew, or should have known, how it works before they moved in.
I for one would prefer quicker, better, more thorough management of snow to less. In fact I’d consider it a feature worth paying for.
Did the lease say that?
I’m not the OP. I’ve not seen the lease myself. In response to your question I just checked the entire thread. The OP didn’t say that it did include the towing-in-snow provision. I thought they had said that. I was wrong. I may have transferred that idea from another poster talking about their lease.
So I’ll amend my point. Thanks for the pushback keeping me honest.
If the lease said it, then yes, that’s my proposed lesson and it fits.
If the lease doesn’t say it, are there other documents given to the tenant which warned them? If so, then yes, that’s my proposed lesson and it fits.
Has this person lived in this apartment through a previous winter where it snowed? If they’d been paying a “reasonable person” level of attention, would they have known towing mis-parked cars after snowfall is part of living there? Were there bulletins in elevators or wherever, emails, bulletins on their website etc.? If so, then yes, that’s my proposed lesson and it fits well enough. Less well than had the towing clause been in the lease, but it still fits.
Has this person lived in snow country before this winter? If so someone who’s both over 18 and not an idiot should have the experience to know that leaving your car for a week includes the chance it’ll get snowed on. Which means dealing with the logical consequences of that, whether it’s putting a snow broom & ice scraper in your car, chains, whatever is relevant to where you live. Including thinking about where you’re leaving it and what whoever owns that area might do after a snowfall.
Adulting might be hard and it might be a total bore, but it’s also expected of folks of adult age.
Eventually the lesson devolves to:
One can choose to be willfully thoughtless and situationally oblivious OR one can choose to be consciously judicious and situationally aware. The former looks easier at first glance but will include a LOT more “surprising” obstacles that others saw and avoided easily. One chooses their path and accepts the consequences.
FYI
I no longer live in snow country, so snow removal is not something in my lease. But …
My lease says my car may be booted if I park in a designated guest parking space even for a few minutes. I’ve seen it done.
Leases for apartments run by big management firms have broken the code that everything needs to be spelled out in detail. My lease ran to 50 pages. For an apartment. For 12 months. The parking part alone was several pages long.
My point in mentioning my lease is simply that if you (any reader) are a homeowner assuming no apartment lease would ever include such detailed or aggressive provisions, well, sad to say your info is obsolete. It surprised me too; my immediately previous apartment lease was signed in 1985ish and my expectations were obsolete to say the least. My new wife, who’d lived in apartments the last 20 years found all this completely ordinary.
Holy cow! We’ve bought four homes with three being financed. I can’t remember any of those contracts being longer than 6 pages.
I have read them completely because it is a legal document and I should know and understand what I am signing. I learned to do this way back when I was young and got ripped off for an apartment security deposit.
According to the single paragraph about snow, if it happens, vehicles must not be parked on the street.
It did snow enough once that snowplows happened. The truck parked on the street didn’t get towed by the county, it got plowed under by the pissed off plow drivers.
Apartment complexes do not have cars towed without having justification spelled out in the lease. Tow/Impound businesses want to see a lease before doing business with the complex.
Along with snow removal, most complexes will tow for a car being in a handicapped spot, being in someone else’s spot, having out of date plates/stickers/inspection, not being operable (flat tire(s), broken glass, etc), parked in a spot marked no-parking, etc
$250 is the minimum harsh lesson. The impound lot also charges a fee for each day the vehicle sits on their lot. Someone living paycheck to paycheck might have to wait a few days for their next paycheck, then they owe another $100 which they can’t afford.
Impound lots send cars to auction when the car isn’t picked up within a certain period of time.
I believe this. When my wife and I began renting properties about 25 years ago our addendum to the lease had about 12 items about lawncare/snow removal, no waterbeds, what can or can not be done to the property, etc.
Now it is a full page and I had to make it a smaller font and reduce the header/footer/side dimensions just to keep it on one page. Every once in awhile we get a tenant that does something that we need to add another item.
You would think that it is common sense and not need to be told to make sure your gas grill is at least 3’ from the vinyl siding on the house or that the front yard is not a designated parking spot. But some people…
When I was in commercial real estate (sales and leasing of shopping centers, office buildings, industrial properties), tenants would quite frequently ask why the lease was so damned long.
My response was always the same:
At one point, it was a handshake deal. Then came a lawsuit. Next, it was a page long. Then came another lawsuit, … Wash. Rinse. Repeat
The other thing I always told people was that a lease doesn’t keep parties out of court. It basically just helps to establish the rough intent of the parties once it does get to court 
The time my car was towed, there was no such lease agreement. True, I was a visitor, parking in the visitor area, but I asked m\y hosts to check, and there was nothing about towing there.
(My PU was the same make and color of one of the tenants who kept parking his PU there. )
Having been on a parking commission once, I can guarantee you that a tow truck driver ain’t gonna ask for to see a lease agreement.
No, the driver isn’t going to ask to see a lease agreement but apartment complexes with parking lots don’t call a different tow company every time* - they have an arrangement with one and I would think the company would make sure at the time that arrangement is made that tenants are notified of circumstances that might result in their car being towed, whether that involves seeing the lease or some other method.
I’m not sure why your car was towed - but I wouldn’t expect a resident’s lease to say anything about a visitor’s car being towed from a visitor lot/area.
* If I want to have a car towed that is parked on my property or blocking the driveway of a single family house , I can call any tow company I want to and I can call a different company in March than I did in February. Parking lots often can’t do that because they are often required to post sign with information about how to redeem a towed vehicle.
Obviously. They are busy driving and towing.
However, IME, the management of the towing/impound business enters into a relationship with the management of the apartment complex, mall, town, etc before ever towing a vehicle. They want to know what’s in the lease or on the signage. None-consensual towing creates angry car owners and the towing/impound people don’t want to deal with people who maybe have a valid argument.
I’m still trying to get him to show me the tease saying they have the right to do what they did.
No to all of these.
Once, at an apartment complex that did not have this requirement.
While looking for a lease with a snow removal policy, I instead found this which does not appear to be part of the lease but includes
If you are going to be away for more than one day or while we may be plowing, please leave your car keys with a neighbor or park in an out of the way location such as the overflow parking areas.
So it might not be in the lease itself - when my son signed his lease, there were a lot of additional documents regarding policies.
The additional documents should still be signed/initialed. Otherwise the tenant could claim to have never seen them.
They may have been - or maybe not. They were mostly of the “this is how to arrange to use the freight elevator for appliance delivery” type - in which case he wouldn’t be able to get the delivery if he didn’t arrange it properly. I certainly don’t have to sign anything when I park in a parking lot with signage saying “Vehicles are subject to towing if their occupants leave the private parking lot or the stores or business establishments served by it for any reason or for any length of time” and the fact that I didn’t sign doesn’t mean that they can’t tow my car if I park there and leave. They must post the rules but I don’t have to sign anything saying I saw them- which actually could have been done in this case as well. The information could have been posted in the hallways and/or elevators.
Ref the back-and-fort about towing company verifying the management company’s right to tow before accepting work.
As condo prez for a few years, we had a contract with a single towing company. By state law, we were required to post signs saying the name of the company and the number to call to get your car back. In my state they are required at every entrance to the lot. These signs are so ubiquitous in every state I’ve lived in that I / we don’t tend to notice them. But they’re almost certainly there.
The towing companies of course also consider the signs as a form of free advertising for anyone needing their own car towed for emergency or whatever reasons or for anyone looking to hire a tow company for their own property. “Hmm, I see Acme Towing signs all around town; I’ll call them” works.
To get the signs and the services they represent the owner or property management company has to have a contract with the towing company. IME that was a simple form requiring zero proof of anything. Name & address of property, management company contacts, and names and phone numbers of persons authorized to tow. That’s it. No questions or concerns about the arrangements the property management outfit had with the people supposedly authorized to use the lot. The contract was renewed annually with just a new roster of authorized people & a new sig of the head honcho.
If I called, the car disappeared; no questions asked. A bit like trespassing (and probably the same legal logic under the hood) the owner / manager of a piece of real property has pretty much a free hand to exclude anyone from their property at any time for any reason. Or to insist, under force of law, that they leave. Now.
Further, lot owner / managers are permitted to authorize towing companies to “rove”. IOW, drive around the lot on their volition and schedule, and tow any vehicle parked in violation of posted signage. My condo complex did not use roving, as we didn’t have much problem and we were pretty laid back. We probably towed 3 cars a year from our 200-ish spaces. There were lots nearby where businesses’ dedicated parking was being abused by drivers as public beach parking. Some such lots have wandering security dudes whose whole job was to wait for the beachgoers to leave the property, then call the tow truck. Who arrived quickly because he was idling nearby protecting several such lots. Another truck would head that way as soon as the first guy was busy w a miscreant’s car. Lather rinse repeat all day long.
Bottom line:
Any enforcement of the parker’s “rights” to unmolested parking under any particular circumstance lies entirely outside the towing company’s purview. The beef, if any, is solely between towed car’s driver / owner and the manager / owner of the parking lot.
Exactly. The towing company just should have a signature on a contract, they do not check any lease agreements, etc.
Unless the two company damages the car or something.
With non-consensual towing, some damage is part of the game. Getting a car that’s in park with the emergency brake on onto the bed of the truck involves dragging it across across asphalt, after all.
True confessions:
I pay a monthly fee for a covered parking space in my apartment complex. Occasionally I find another car parked in it. The sign that says “Unauthorized cars will be towed,” in both English and Spanish, is right above MY space.
My first stop, though, when someone is in my space, is to the leasing office. Almost always, it’s someone looking at apartments who just doesn’t quite get what’s going on, and they’ll be gone before nightfall.
One time it was someone trying to jump-start th car in the adjacent space, and I’m not an asshole. I parked someplace else.
But once it was a big SUV, and I waited 24 hours for the owner to move the damn thing. They didn’t. I had it towed. I’ve lived here 7 years, and it was the only time I had a car in my space towed. I went to the leasing office first to see if they would match the license plate to the owner, knock on his door, and ask him to move it. They said they had better things to do, and no, they would not give me his apartment number, because they don’t release renter’s personal information.
He had a very bad day, I’m sure. But I’ve seen the SUV there again, and it has a resident’s sticker. He (or she) knew better. Or if he didn’t, he’s stupid, because they explain it when you sign your lease, and it’s on signs throughout the damn covered spaces. He knows now.
Honestly, I didn’t feel great about doing that, but aside from issues of carrying stuff inside, and my car not getting hail and snow, it’s very close to the entrance, and I’m a late-middle aged, short woman who gets home after dark a lot. I’m not otherwise guaranteed a close space. I don’t pay for a space because I have money to burn.
I’ve never lived in an apartment complex with assigned parking, but I figure if you are paying for it, it is yours just like your patio is yours.
We once made the mistake of renting a house the street over from a school and had people towed out of our driveway every game night because getting parked into our own garage just wasn’t cool with us.
People can get so entitled about parking when they are in a hurry, or just do not care.