Charlottesville, VA Parking Rules: Abandoned Vehicles (2026)

Section 15-271 gives police and code enforcement four separate ways to classify a motor vehicle, trailer or semitrailer as abandoned: it is inoperable and left unattended on public property more than forty-eight hours; it has remained illegally on public property more than forty-eight hours; it has sat on private property without the property owner's consent more than forty-eight hours, regardless of how it got there; or it is inoperable and left unattended on a primary highway shoulder within the city. Subsection (5) adds a presumption of abandonment for any vehicle lacking a current license plate or valid state safety inspection sticker that has stayed in one place for four days without moving, shifting the burden onto the registered owner to show otherwise.

Once a vehicle meets the definition, § 15-272 authorizes a police officer to take it into custody and lets the city hire towing, storage or auction contractors to remove it. Section 15-273 requires the chief of police to notify the owner and any lienholders by certified mail within fifteen days, giving them fifteen more days to reclaim the vehicle by paying towing, preservation and storage charges before the city can sell it at public auction under § 15-274, after first reimbursing the city's towing, storage and auction costs from the proceeds.

A vehicle left in a commercial garage more than ten days past the agreed period is separately deemed abandoned under § 15-275, and any inoperable abandoned vehicle worth less than its repair cost can go straight to a demolisher under § 15-276 without the standard notice procedure.