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For my sanity: am I overreacting?
The apartment complex I’ve been living in for 4 years suddenly changed the parking policy and, one week after sending the email mentioning the change, towed my wife’s car that cost us $300 to get back.
We consider this an overzealous enforcement of an aggressive policy (the garage is never more than half full), and we are extremely pissed, but management is not playing ball with us after we asked for them to give us a credit.
We’re moving out now, so if we short-pay our last month’s rent by the amount of the impound invoice, what are the ways it could bite us in the butt?
We pretty much have zero recourse otherwise.
Does the lease you signed contain anything about parking?
"You may not be guaranteed parking. We may regulate the time, manner, and place of parking of all motorized vehicles and other modes of transportation, including bicycles and scooters, in our Community Policies. In addition to other rights we have to tow or boot vehicles under state law, we also have the right to remove, at the expense of the vehicle owner or operator, any vehicle that is not in compliance with our Community Policies."
Never signed anything agreeing to the current regime of getting towed if I don't supply the correct plate number. A commenter points out below that the manner in which I was informed of the policy change may not have met legal standards.
If you're wondering what the Community Policies are, it's another section in the lease and does not appear to have anything to do with parking. Things like consenting to having my photo taken in common areas and letting them know if I get convicted of a crime.
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Can you elaborate on the policy? Whether you're overreacting or not depends on whether the policy is arbitrary and intended to generate revenue or was implemented for good reason and the consequences are intended to be a heavy-handed enforcement mechanism. If, for example, the new parking policy was intended to provide open space for moving vehicles or delivery in a certain time window, I would consider it reasonable for the complex to start towing people straightaway in order to keep that clear.
I'm actually kind of surprised how many people are jumping straight to, "no, fuck them" without determining why they have this policy in the first place. If you've ever rented property out, you've probably had an experience where you only started doing something like this after a dozen violations of what you thought was a pretty reasonable policy.
Sure. There was no catalyst. New management moved in a year and a half ago, and this is just another change they’re making about how things are run. Parking is in a multi-level parking garage that has never been near capacity, so no problem that’s being solved as far as I can see. They claim increased residency, but I’ve never seen with my eyes as many vacant units as there are now since we’ve moved in.
Old policy: open parking. Residents and guests alike are allowed anywhere that’s not handicapped or a clearly-marked reserved space.
New policy: You must register your car, and if your car plate number is not on the list we give to the tow truck operator (who visits nightly!) he’s going to take it away.
Here’s the thing though, our old management collected our vehicle information anyway, and when I marched in the office and asked a useless rep what the deal was, she showed me in their system my wife’s car make, model, year, and color. Yes, we changed the plate number when reregistering with the county, and it didn’t match, so away it was towed.
As far as I’m concerned the car had every right to be in the space it was taken from. Our sin was not complying with what, as far as I’m concerned, is an internal record-keeping matter for the back office. They’ve pissed off a lot of residents with this, because they’ve been sending increasingly defensive reminders by email lately.
The question is, is this worth your time?
You could escalate this to your local court by launching a claim (or shortpaying rent if the building consortium is your landlord). But is it worth the hours of paperwork and attendance to escalate this issue? There is no guarantee if you escalate this that the building will back down and quickly refund you (or let the shortfall in rent go).
I can't really see a solution that would be less than $300 worth of time here. I'd consider just moving on with your life and being upset for a short time and getting over it, rather than potentially get entangled in a legal dispute for what in hindsight is a small amount of money. If you push this through you may regret it once your emotions have cooled.
As per other comments, don't do anything illegal and try to get your revenge through legal means such as leaving a horrible (truthful) review on the building on various sites.
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@yofuckreddit was almost there:
But just leave the reviews, and forget the misdemeanor stuff. Why risk exposing yourself to liability, when you can hurt them more, legally? Just one vacant apartment that takes them an extra month to fill will cost them more than you could safely do in damage, and "Google 'apartment towing scams'" plus your personal details is the sort of review comment that will turn careful tenants away for a decade. Nobody wants to trust a landlord who gets kickbacks from auto theft.
So that takes care of revenge. As for recourse? Check your local laws. In Texas, for example, there's all sorts of fun bits about "The landlord has the burden of proving that the tenant received a copy of the rule or policy change." (preceding a short list of options that doesn't include email), as well as "may not be effective before the 14th day after the date notice of the change is delivered to the tenant, unless the change is the result of a construction or utility emergency", plus a whole swath of signage requirements, plus a $100 civil penalty on top of the towing fee they'd owe you. This is all small-claims-court/credit-report-level stuff either way you take it, but unless you're about to miss a bill payment for lack of $300 I'd say it's better to be pressing a claim than defending against one.
This is very interesting… I may reply back on top of my email mentioning a few of these details.
Thanks.
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You aren't overreacting. Skipping out on rent and squatting/forcing eviction procedures would be really damaging to them but also to you.
I'd leave nasty reviews across the apartment-review-scape and conduct some careful, impactful vandalism. You could wait to leave the reviews until you're fully prepared to move out but I'd want to let management know it was you who left them and why. They made what... $100 off that $300 tow? Fucking assholes. Landlords are scum.
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I don’t think you’re overreacting, I would be pissed as well. 4 years of the same policy and they tow your car within a week of changing that policy? Yeah. That’s uncharitable to the point of viciousness.
As to your options, if you don’t pay full rent, won’t they just take it out of your deposit? Id be careful trying that.
Maybe you could ask them to split the cost of the tow? Barring some sort of vandalism or a poor Yelp/google review, I’m not sure you have any way to get back at them
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How much do they hold in escrow for your deposit? You should 100% fuck with them one way or another, perhaps cost them damages in excess of $300 that they can’t trace back to you (this is trivial). But you need to own property to avoid this in the future.
I was thinking he could jam up the toilet or cut an electrical line (after tripping the breaker), but he’d have to be careful about not getting blamed for it.
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I don’t know, but as someone who just spent the morning driving across Dallas for a similar reason, I’m pretty pissed, too.
I wouldn’t wish driving across Dallas on anyone. I’m going to be there this weekend.
I'm sorry in advance.
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