Tow yards can assert a storage fee lien only where the towing is requested by the vehicle owner or police. No lien is allowed where the towing is requested by a private lot, store, or apartment complex. Nevertheless, tow yards often claim a lien anyway hoping that lienholder/lessors are fooled into paying their charges. In …
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Lienholders cannot lose their liens in New York, but there is a lot of misinformation that confuses this simple topic. Let’s clear it up. Usually, this problem comes up when the lienholder discovers that someone has obtained a new title and the lienholder’s name and address is no longer showing on the title. This prompts …
Read more “Can an Automotive Lienholder Lose a Lien in New York?“
When a lienholder has perfected its lien in a vehicle, the perfected lien is protected against loss to later claims made against the vehicle. Garage lien claims present a quirky problem because garage lien sales are done by self-help. Self-help means that the garage places the vehicle for sale on its own say-so with no …
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Tow yards in New York cannot charge storage fees after towing a vehicle for police unless they follow the strict set of rules in New York Lien Law 184. Tow yard overcharging is a persistent problem because tow yards see no downside to pushing the envelope, hoping that lienholder/lessors are unaware of the legal limits …
Read more “Appeals Court Rejects Tow Yard Front-loaded Storage Fees”
For many years, the City of Yonkers deployed a strategy designed to make lease/lienholders pay for the costs of its attempt to collect unpaid parking tickets. Yonkers would boot a vehicle and then call in a private towing company to haul away and hold the vehicle hostage. Yonkers would then send the lease/lienholder a letter …
Read more “Federal Court Puts the Brakes on Gouging for Parking Tickets”
For many years, Nassau County has seized cars as a way to make drivers clear up old parking tickets. If the tickets were not paid, the County would dispose of the vehicle. If a lienholder or lessor wished to recover a seized vehicle, Nassau County required payment of not just the tickets on the seized car, …
Read more “Lienholders no longer have to pay for parking tickets in Nassau County”
The NYC police department (NYPD) seizes more vehicles than any other agency in the country. The NYPD has been sued many times over the years and it has used the lessons learned from those lawsuits to refine its seizure and impound practices to the point where the NYPD has very specific and orderly procedures for …
2021 brought many changes in garage impounds Here are the six most important developments that benefit lien/leaseholders… Elimination of abusive storage fee tacticsThe worst abuse, the secret lien for storage, has met its demise. For years garages contended that they had no obligation to send notice of accruing storage fees to lienholders/lessors. Garages would pile up …
Read more “Six most important changes in garage lien laws in 2021”
Are you losing money to garage keeper liens in New Jersey? (You should not be) The law in New Jersey is that lien rights in vehicles are determined on a first in time basis. This means that a garage keeper lien will be valid against an auto finance lien only if the garage keeper lien …
Important new case means better protection for you Does the idea that someone could transfer your car to someone else without your consent seem wrong. For years, that is exactly what lessees have been doing to secure payment for garage repairs; they allow the garage to put a lien on the vehicle, without the knowledge …