Kansas Towing Rights: Rate Caps Are Local, Storage Fees Need Written Notice

The core of Kansas towing law is a lien, not a rate schedule. Under K.S.A. 8-1103(a)(1), a person providing wrecker or towing service who is lawfully in possession of a vehicle at the direction of a law enforcement officer, the owner, a self-service storage facility operator under K.S.A. 58-817, or as otherwise provided by a city ordinance or county resolution, gets a first and prior lien on the vehicle amounting to the full amount and value of the recovery, transportation, protection, storage or safekeeping performed. Kansas does not tell the operator what that value may be. The rate you are quoted at the counter is not measured against any state ceiling.

The one statewide charge control is procedural and it is worth knowing precisely. K.S.A. 8-1103(b) requires the operator, at the time of providing the service, to give written notice to the driver, if available, that a fee will be charged for storage of the vehicle, and provides that failure to give that written notice invalidates any lien established for the storage fee. K.S.A. 8-1108 extends the idea across the whole article: failure to give any notice required under the act stops the imposition of storage fees until the notice provisions are complied with. Together those two sections mean a Kansas owner whose car was hooked from an occupied lot with no written storage-fee notice, or who never received the ownership notice described below, has a direct statutory argument against the storage portion of the bill even though the tow charge itself stands.

Rate caps in Kansas are delegated, not withheld. K.S.A. 8-1103(c) provides that a city ordinance or county resolution authorizing the towing of vehicles from private property must specify three things: the maximum rate the wrecker or towing service may charge for towing and for storage, that the owner shall have access to personal property in the vehicle for 48 hours after the tow and that the property shall be released, and that the towing service must report the location of the vehicle to local law enforcement within two hours of the tow. So the ceiling on a Wichita or Overland Park private-lot tow is in that city's ordinance, and the statute makes including a ceiling mandatory rather than optional. The practical first step after a private-property tow in Kansas is to pull the local towing ordinance and compare the invoice line by line against the schedule it must contain. The two-hour reporting duty also means the local police or sheriff should be able to tell you where the car went, which is faster than calling companies.

Personal property follows a two-track rule. The general rule in K.S.A. 8-1103(a)(4) is unfavorable: property inside the vehicle need not be released until the reasonable or agreed charges for recovery, transportation or safekeeping have been paid or satisfactory payment arrangements have been made, and property that is never retrieved is sold at the statutory auction. Two exceptions cut against that. Personal medical supplies must be released to the owner on request, without payment. And the subsection is expressly subject to K.S.A. 8-1103(c), so in any city or county that has authorized private-property towing, the 48-hour access right in the ordinance overrides the pay-first rule. The operator is responsible only for the reasonable care of the property held.

Deadlines run against the operator as well. If the owner's name is known to the person holding the vehicle, K.S.A. 8-1103(a)(2) requires notice within 15 days that the vehicle is being held subject to the lien, and a vehicle may be sold to satisfy the charges only after it has remained in the operator's possession for 30 days, following the notices and publication the act requires. Sale is blocked where a court has ordered the vehicle held for a criminal investigation or as trial evidence, and under K.S.A. 8-1103(a)(3) that order must be in writing and the court must assess the storage and safekeeping charges accrued during the hold as costs, so an owner whose car is held as evidence is not left paying for the state's storage. On sale, K.S.A. 8-1103(a)(5) requires the operator to give the buyer a certification of compliance under K.S.A. 8-1109.

Kansas added an out-of-state restriction that a stranded driver should know. Under K.S.A. 8-1103(d), a towing company may not take a vehicle to a location outside Kansas without the consent of the driver or owner, a motor club the driver or owner belongs to, or the insurance company processing a claim on the vehicle or its agent. That provision matters most on the Kansas City and Joplin approaches, where a tow across the state line used to put the vehicle beyond the reach of the Kansas rules entirely. The current version of the section took effect January 1, 2024 (L. 2023, ch. 91, sec. 1).

Who may tow at all is a licensing question. K.S.A. 66-1330 makes it unlawful to provide wrecker or towing service in Kansas without first obtaining a certificate of public service from the State Corporation Commission, and K.S.A. 66-1329(d) defines wrecker or towing service as transporting, towing or recovering a vehicle not owned by the operator for compensation, excluding a private wrecker service moving the operator's own vehicles. A company without a KCC certificate is operating unlawfully, which is a separate complaint route from the fee dispute.

There is no Kansas statute creating a tow-hearing, a refund action, or a penalty payable to the vehicle owner for an overcharge. The leverage the owner has is the lien itself. Because K.S.A. 8-1103(b) says failure to deliver written storage-fee notice invalidates any lien established for that storage fee, and K.S.A. 8-1108 says failure to give any notice required by the act stops the imposition of storage fees until the operator complies, an owner who documents the missing notice is disputing the enforceability of a charge rather than asking a regulator for a favor. Ask for the written notice, the date the 15-day owner notice under K.S.A. 8-1103(a)(2) was sent, and the rate schedule from the authorizing ordinance, in writing, before paying.

Complaints about the operator's right to be in business go to the State Corporation Commission, which issues the certificate of public service required by K.S.A. 66-1330. Complaints about the amount charged after a private-property tow go to the city or county whose ordinance or resolution authorized the tow, because K.S.A. 8-1103(c)(1) makes the maximum rate a required term of that ordinance, and a charge above it is an ordinance violation. If the car was taken from a public street or public property by a public agency, the impoundment and recovery procedure is in K.S.A. 8-1102 rather than this section.

An owner who believes the vehicle was sold improperly is litigating notice. Kansas courts have already put that question in play: in Citifinancial Auto, Inc. v. Mike's Wrecker Service, Inc., 41 Kan. App. 2d 914, 206 P.3d 63 (2009), the Court of Appeals remanded an abandoned-vehicle sale for development of evidence on whether the notice given to the lienholder satisfied due process. The auction and notice mechanics themselves are in K.S.A. 8-1104 and K.S.A. 8-1105.