One of my friends and I lease a garage in williamsville. The garage is behind a house which is split up into two apartments which are also rented out by the same guy that leases us the garage. The garage faces an alleyway which is not shared by the house. There are parking for two or three parking spots in front for the people who rent the house to park in. Since the garage faces the alley we can come and go as we please without disturbing anyone in the house.
At some point someone started parking their red cavalier right in front of the garage door so we couldn’t get any cars in or out. This first started about 2 weeks ago so we figured it just might be someone visiting or something. It would be there some times and other times it would be gone.
This sunday we show up to use the garage and the cavalier is back in front of the door. So we are sorta pissed but decide we can do what we need to do another time. We leave a note on sunday saying “please don’t park here we can’t get into the garage” and figure that it will get the point across. We wait 2 days and show up on tuesday and the car is still there untouched. Now we are really pretty pissed off and call the cops.
The cop comes and is very helpful, we explain how we leased the garage and the cars been here and we can’t use the garage. He runs the plates and it comes back to some random address a couple blocks away. He also gets the phone number of the owner and dispatch tries to call it and says its disconnected. So the cop says that he will leave it a ticket and that we should call a towing company if its still here in later that night. So he leaves a ticket on the windshield on tuesday and we figure we will give them a day or two before we call and have it towed.
So thursday rolls around and the car is still sitting untouched 5 days later with both the note and the ticket on the windshield. We call a towing company and they have it towed away.
Now today saturday comes around and the people finally get to realizing that their car isn’t there. We get a call from the amherst police asking if we had the vehicle towed. We tell them yes and they take our number and tell us that someone is trying to report it stolen.
Now the people who own the cavalier call us and are telling us that we stole their car, although the police told them its a civil matter not a criminal matter. As it turns out they live in the house in front in one of the apartments. They keep asking why didn’t we ring the doorbell when and that we are going to have to pay for all the towing and storage fees. We really had no idea whos car it was and I think we made every reasonable effort to find out. So basically my question is if this does go to court will we end up having to pay?
If you lease/own the garage and they are parking in front of it, I think you have a legal right to have it towed.
If the police gave them a ticket, that means the incident has been documented that the car was parked there illegally. If it goes to small claims, bring any documentation you can from the police, you will most likely win. The towing and storage charges are not your responsibility as it is not your vehicle.
Edit: it is not your problem someone left their car there for 5 days straight and never noticed they had a ticket or the note. Ignorance is not an excuse.
Pretty much you are clear, is there a no parking sign above the garage? If not, invest in one and let your landlord know whats going on.
When my car was recently hit, I pulled into a driveway of a garage that is rented to take a closer look, since I didn’t want to do it in the unlevel, unplowed street. The landlord who I didn’t know was at the house visiting, called the police on me without even asking me to move. I was right there. Coincidentally, the cop who hit my car responded and said for future reference he would have ticketed me since I ignored the sign, but since he fucked my holidays up good, he let me off with a warning. Nice fellow.
TL;DR= If there is a sign, the car there gets fucked. End of Story.
your in the clear 100%. i had some guy last year park his car infront of my driveway. never seen the car b4 and no idea where the guy went. called the cops tryed to get ahold of the guy no luck so the car was towed away.
You as the legal leasee have the legal right to use the property as the owner, within the limits of the lease. Those provisions keep landlords from entering the property to use it, inspect, or do anything else while your there. It also allows you to do as the owner would, such as maintain, protect, and in this case, tow vehicles parked on the property. These people knew they didn’t lease that garage, but still jsut parked it there. They are the fucking idiots, and yes, they will have to pay to get it back, and then the parking ticket. Its no different than if in suburbia you parked in your next door neighbors driveway, just because you wanted to.
Their only recourse would be to take you to small claims, which they won’t, and if they did, they would be laughed out of the courtroom. You have proof of when the car was there (ticket date and time) and when it was still there (tow date). There is no reason to just leave a car on someone elses property, blocking a door to a garage, just because you didn’t want to move your car for plows, or cause your welfare check didn’t show up. your totally good.
That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. This shit has just been pissing me off all day long. The people called us saying “I thought this was supposed to be the city of good neighbors” which made me feel bad but I really feel I did everything within reason to find out who they were.
Yeah we aren’t to worried about it, our lease is ending next month and they can’t open the garage door so we should be ok.
These crazy people called asking why we stole their car and then wouldn’t even let us speak. The woman kept saying “why didn’t you just ring the doorbell” as if we knew that it was their car which had been sitting there for almost a week. Then she put her husband on the phone who was asking “why aren’t you telling us where the car is” when she wouldn’t even give us a chance too. I’m gonna start pulling my hair out.
But thanks for the advice everyone, it makes me feel a whole lot better. Everyone I have told about this seems to agree with us.
From my understanding you had no idea who the car belonged to and exhausted every method in trying to find out. The cop told you to have it towed, you have been more than patient as to waiting for them to move their car. The car was towed and is no longer your problem it’s the owners. Fuck em in the ass and tea bag them profusely.