Rules and Regs vs. Civil Code

Thomas,

The answer is it depends on the wording of the civil code and of the Associations governing documents.

For you specific example, without the benefit of reading the law or the documents, it sounds like the civil code and your regulations are working together. Per your posting, the code says that cars can be towed after 96 hrs. The word can or may indicates that it's an option. Again, based on your posting, you indicate that your governing documents has an established enforcement procedure which requires a hearing for any infraction.

Therefore, the law gives the Association the authority to tow, if they choose. However, the governing documents requires a specific enforcement process prior to the Association exercising the authority granted to it by the city.

There is no trumping of one over the other. Both must be followed.

Again, this is based on what you posted.

Tim

Are those cars you referred to visitors' cars or owners' cars? If owners' cars, that would mean that a resident could never go on vacation, get sick or just leave their car parked for a week when they didn't have anywhere to go.

I understand that sometimes restrictive rules like that are written to prevent situations like cars being abandoned, but this seems like one that was written with no thought as to the consequences.

What it seems to be in a rule that gives them the right to remove a car, but not the obligation to remove a car. In any event, it's one worth taking off the books because enforcement will be quite selective and a potential legal nightmare.