Gwinnett County, GA Parking Rules: Abandoned Vehicles (2026)

Chapter 14's definitions section, § 14-258, defines a junk vehicle broadly: any vehicle, automobile, truck, van, trailer, or contrivance or part of one that is wrecked, dismantled, partially dismantled, stripped, partially stripped, inoperative, abandoned, discarded, or kept parked, stored or maintained on any premises or public right-of-way without a current license plate or decal. Section 14-287 then makes it unlawful to keep, permit, park, store or maintain such a vehicle on any premises or public right-of-way in unincorporated Gwinnett, subject to three exceptions: a junk vehicle inside a fully enclosed building on residential property while the owner or occupant is actively reconditioning it for personal use; a junk vehicle on property zoned by the UDO for repairing, reconditioning or remodeling junk vehicles, as long as it is in continual repair rather than being cannibalized for parts; and a junk vehicle on property zoned for a junk or salvage yard.

Separately, Code § 102-89(d), part of the traffic and vehicles chapter's parking restrictions, presumes any vehicle that has been in violation of that article for 24 hours or more to be abandoned, and authorizes the police department to impound it. Because § 14-287 sits in Article VII, Division 2 of Chapter 14, the Property Maintenance Ordinance, the article's own transfer-of-ownership rule at § 14-260 blocks selling, mortgaging or leasing a cited property until the junk vehicle violation is corrected or the new owner formally accepts responsibility in writing.