Missouri Private-Lot Towing: Owner Must Be Present, Sign Must Post Max Fee

Missouri's private-property towing rules sit in section 304.157, which is separate from the abandoned-vehicle machinery for public roads. Subsection 4 is the one a driver in a shopping center or apartment lot needs. It permits the owner of the real property, a lessee in lawful possession, or the property or security manager to authorize a tow with no law enforcement involvement only when that person is present, and it defines a property or security manager as a full-time employee of a business entity. A roving contractor paid per hook, or a manager phoning in an authorization from another site, is outside the statute.

Even with the right person present, one of three circumstances must exist. The first is a posted lot: a sign displayed in plain view at all entrances, not less than seventeen by twenty-two inches, with lettering not less than one inch in height, prohibiting public parking, stating that unauthorized property or property in a restricted or assigned area will be removed at the owner's expense, disclosing the maximum fee for all charges related to towing and storage, and giving the telephone number of the local traffic law enforcement agency or a twenty-four-hour staffed emergency information number the owner can call to locate the vehicle. The maximum-fee disclosure is Missouri's substitute for a rate cap: the state does not set the number, but the lot has to publish it before it can tow you at it.

The second and third circumstances are waiting periods for unposted lots. On owner-occupied residential property with four residential units or fewer, the owner or agent must notify the appropriate law enforcement agency and ten hours must elapse. On other private property with no sign, the notification must be made and ninety-six hours, a full four days, must elapse. Where a law enforcement officer authorizes the tow instead, subsection 1 allows it after the property has been left unattended more than forty-eight hours, or immediately if the officer judges it a safety hazard or an unreasonable interference with the owner's use of the land.

Every non-police tow generates paperwork that becomes evidence. Subsection 5 requires the person requesting the tow to complete an abandoned property report at that time, and makes the report a legal declaration subject to criminal penalty under section 575.060. It must carry the year, model, make and identification number, a description of any damage noted, the plate and state, the physical location and the reason for the tow, the requester's printed name, address and phone number, the towing company name and address, the tow operator's signature, and the requester's signature attesting the property was abandoned for the required time. Under subsection 6 the towing company delivers a copy to the local law enforcement agency within two hours if the tow came from a signed location, and otherwise within twenty-four hours. Subsection 7 requires that agency to run the vehicle through the National Crime Information Center and the statewide Missouri law enforcement computer system for a stolen report, sign the report, and give the towing company a signed copy.

Getting the car and your belongings back runs through section 304.154. A towing company operating under section 304.153, 304.155 or 304.157 must keep a fenced, secure and lighted lot or an enclosed secure building, and must be open or available to a customer at least ten hours per day, Monday through Friday, fifty-two weeks a year excluding federal holidays, so the owner, an authorized agent or an insurance adjuster can view or retrieve items from the vehicle with no additional fees charged, or retrieve the vehicle at the posted rate. It may not assess a storage fee for any day it was not open during those hours. It must be reachable twenty-four hours a day by a person, must tell an owner where the vehicle is within twenty-four hours of being contacted, must carry at least five hundred thousand dollars of liability coverage per incident, and must post at its place of business and hand over on request a rate sheet listing all current rates. The initial tow must stay inside Missouri unless the owner or the owner's motor club authorizes otherwise, and the vehicle cannot be moved to a different lot without twenty-four hours' advance notice to the owner stating the new address and all costs of the move.

Read the exemption before relying on any of that. Section 304.154.3 provides that a towing company located in a county of the second, third, or fourth classification is exempt from the provisions of that section, and also lets counties adopt towing standards above the statutory minimum. Section 304.154.6 separately withdraws subdivisions (3), (4), (6) and (10) of subsection 1, subsections 2, 4 and 5, and the street-visible address requirement from counties of the third or fourth classification. Missouri classifies counties by assessed valuation under section 48.020: first classification at nine hundred million dollars and above, second at six hundred million up to the first-classification line, third below that, with those thresholds rising annually by the change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. The practical effect is that the ten-hour access rule, the free property retrieval, the posted rate sheet and the twenty-four-hour transfer notice bind companies in Missouri's most populous counties and not elsewhere.

Storage charges have a benchmark rather than a cap. Section 304.156.2 permits only reasonable storage charges for property towed without the owner's consent, provides that reasonable storage charges shall not exceed the charges for vehicles towed with the consent of the owner on a negotiated basis, and allows storage charges only for the time during which the towing company complies with the procedural requirements of sections 304.155 to 304.158. A company that misses a notice deadline is not entitled to charge storage for that period.

Notice to the owner is a chain with fixed deadlines. Within five working days of receiving the abandoned property report, the director of revenue searches the department's records, or queries another state where the evidence points there, and within fifteen working days notifies the towing company of the owner and lienholder. The towing company must then notify the title owner and every lienholder of record within ten business days of the mailing date shown on the department's notice, by certified mail, return receipt requested. Section 304.156.1 dictates the contents: the storage facility's name, address and telephone number; the date, reason and place of removal; a statement that towing, storage and administrative costs are the owner's responsibility and keep accruing until redemption; a statement of the possessory lien; a statement that the owner or a valid secured party may retake the property during business hours by proving ownership and paying all towing and storage charges; a statement of the right to request a hearing to contest the propriety of the tow; a statement that title transfers free of prior liens if the property is unclaimed thirty days from the date of mailing; and a statement that any charges above the property's value remain the owner's liability.

The owner's remedy is a court petition, not a complaint to a regulator. Missouri licenses no towing board and gives the Department of Revenue only the title and records role described in sections 304.156 and 304.157. Under section 304.156.5(1) the owner, or a lienholder other than the towing company, has ten days after receiving the towing company's notice to file a petition in the associate circuit court in the county where the property is stored, asking the court to determine whether the property was wrongfully taken or withheld. The towing company must be named as a defendant, and the petition may also name the agency that ordered the tow or the owner, lessee or agent of the real property the vehicle came from. The director of revenue is not a party but must be served, and will not issue title while the petition is pending.

You do not have to leave the car sitting while the case runs. Section 304.156.5(2) lets the owner or lienholder post a cash or surety bond, or other adequate security, equal to the towing and storage charges, after which the court orders the towing company to release the property. At release the owner should give the towing company a receipt reciting any claim of loss or damage to the vehicle or its contents, because that receipt is the statute's built-in record of condition. Under subsection 5(3) the court's final order provides for immediate payment in full of recovery, towing and storage fees by whichever side loses, which can be the property owner who ordered the tow rather than the driver.

The clock against the owner is thirty days. Section 304.156.7 lets the lienholder in possession apply to the director of revenue for a certificate of title thirty days after the notice was mailed if the property is unredeemed, no arrangement for continued storage has been made, and no hearing has been requested. The application requires affidavits of possession and of no hearing request, a copy of the abandoned property report, and a copy of the certified mail receipt. Miss the window and the vehicle is gone and, per the notice language in section 304.156.1(8), any charges above its value remain a personal liability.

On the other side, a person who knowingly authorizes removal of property in violation of section 304.157 is guilty of a class C misdemeanor under subsection 9, and the abandoned property report itself is a legal declaration subject to criminal penalty under section 575.060, so a false statement about how long a car sat is a prosecutable act rather than a paperwork error.