Vestavia Hills, AL Parking Rules: Abandoned Vehicles (2026)

Section 9-137 of the Vestavia Hills Code of Ordinances makes it unlawful to abandon any vehicle within the city or its police jurisdiction, and it creates a 48-hour presumption: any vehicle left in one place on a street or highway for 48 consecutive hours is presumed abandoned. Section 9-138 goes further for public streets specifically, prohibiting anyone from leaving a partially dismantled, non-operating, wrecked or junked vehicle on any street or highway in the city at all, with no grace period. On private property, section 9-139 gives an owner, tenant, occupant or lessee 72 hours to remove a partially dismantled, nonoperating, wrecked, junked or discarded vehicle before it becomes unlawful to let it remain, though the rule carves out vehicles kept inside an enclosed building, vehicles necessary to a lawfully operating business, and vehicles in an authorized city storage depository.

Section 9-140 authorizes the chief of police or a designated officer to remove and impound any vehicle that reasonably appears abandoned, lost, stolen or unclaimed under this division, and the department must keep a permanent record of the vehicle's description, removal date, location found and impound location for each vehicle it tows.