Authority to tow a vehicle

We have towed cars in the past, although we try to avoid it by giving warnings first so it rarely comes to the point of actually towing a car.

Our CCRs don't specifically address towing, but they do prohibit street parking except under temporary circumstances and specifically disallow overnight parking. Since the streets are privately owned and the docs give the board authority to enforce the docs, we feel that towing is allowed. Our county recently passed stricter requirements on towing, we have to have a contract with a towing company, a sign with various info posted (provided for free by the towing company), and a board member has to be there when the towing company shows up to tow. There might be other rules, I'm not personally involved in the process.

You say the roads are private, if the car violates any CCR, then towing could be a viable option. Is the registration sticker current? Is it in disrepair? Even if it doesn't violate a CCR, the board might be be able to pass a rule about long term street parking. Your docs probably give the board some leeway on enforcement mechanisms so they might be able to tow based on such a rule.

My suggestion would be to contact a local towing company, they should be able to tell you the local rules and requirements. You could also check with your attorney, but if they don't know off the top of their head, it could cost a lot of money to research.

If the street is common area owned by your HOA, I'd say the Board has the authority to tow it.

If sections of the street are owned by each owner, then they have the authority to tow it.

that's how it is in my HOA. As with Douglas' HOA, we "have to have a contract with a towing company [and] a sign with various info posted on it," e.g. the code that's being broken and how to retrieve the vehicle. We rarely have had to tow either, but did last week when a car in our Visitors Parking areas had stayed too long and was leaking gasoline. Our staff tried to reach the resident, but no answer so it was towed. One of our security officers was there.

I know nothing about this, but can the vehicle owner be traced via the license plate?

We maintain our roads, but when it comes to issues like this, vehicles can only be towed if we have the appropriate signage posted (we do). That being said, our governing documents state that no inoperable or non-registered vehicles may be located on the property. If there is a vehicle that appears to be "abandoned" or hasn't moved in over 2 weeks, the Board posts a letter on the car stating the vehicle needs to be moved within a specific period of time (24-48 hours), otherwise it will be towed. In all the time I've been involved, that was all it took and the vehicle was moved, although there were a few times that the police came out to locate the actual owner which helped to speed up the process.

Bug them some more until they specifically confirm to you that the vehicle is not stolen. I don't know where you are, but the police departments are very lazy when it comes to dealing with such things. If they won't confirm it as not stolen, then assume it is stolen and bug the crap out of them untoil they do their job.

This is not advice, but if it was me I'd break in and look at the registration and see if I could google the owner.

TimB4 - Posting a sign on the vehicle is the next step the Board will probably take.

Our covenants read:

"The Association is expressly authorized to immediately tow, without notice, at the Owner's or Occupant's expense, any
vehicle in violation hereof or which is placed or parked in violation of the Rules and Regulations governing parking as may be adopted by the Board of Directors."

The streets in our neighborhood are the property of the city. The city has a 'no parking' ordinance covering the streets because such might block emergency vehicles. If your streets are private you should be okay towing that vehicle.

That said, we have some parking pads carved out of some of the lots 20 plus years ago and I have personally had two cars towed that were basically abandoned - on the parking pad, not the street. Then I found out that the HOA has no bill of sale or paperwork transferring the parking pads to the HOA. This leads me to believe that we can't tow vehicles from anywhere in our development. Damage a car and we could be sued, it seems to me.

You need to look at your State Laws with regards to towing vehicles. If you do not have items in your CCR's you have not choice but to rely on your State Statutes and/or local statutes to determine your course of action.