This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with The Connecticut Mirror. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.
The Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles said Monday the agency would undertake a “comprehensive review” of towing practices in response to an investigation by The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica. The reporting found that some low-income residents were losing their cars because they couldn’t afford the recovery fees and had a short window to pay before towing companies were allowed to sell their vehicles.
The review comes as the 2025 legislative session opens Wednesday. The leader of the state House of Representatives said he will support efforts this session to lengthen the time period that tow truck companies have to wait before requesting the DMV’s permission to sell people’s vehicles.
“This will be a priority,” said House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford. “I mean, we are all pretty shocked by it.”
State law allows tow companies to seek permission from the DMV to sell a vehicle worth $1,500 or less just 15 days after towing it — one of the shortest such periods in the country, CT Mirror and ProPublica found.
The investigation, which was published Sunday, detailed how Connecticut’s laws have come to favor tow companies at the expense of owners. In many cases, people’s cars were towed from their apartment complexes not for violating the law, but because their complex-issued parking sticker had expired or they weren’t properly backed into a space.
As towing and storage charges mount, some towing companies set up additional barriers, like only taking cash. Others won’t release cars until they are registered in the person’s name, even if the driver just bought the vehicle and wasn’t required to register it yet under DMV rules.
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The investigation found that the 15-day window was sometimes less time than it takes to get a DMV registration appointment and less than the time it takes to get a hearing for a complaint challenging a tow.
When presented with the findings, DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera said that the 15-day window “strikes the right balance for consumers and towers.”
But on Monday, Guerrera said in a statement that his agency will propose changes to the Legislature to ensure that policies are updated and clear.
“We will undertake a comprehensive review of the issues highlighted in the article and engage in substantive discussions with legislative advocates,” Guerrera said. “Our proactive approach will involve actively participating in the legislative development of proposals to modernize the regulation of tow companies.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Gov. Ned Lamont said he is “open to reviewing proposed changes to the law.”
Legislative leaders said they are concerned about the impact of the towing law on low-income residents particularly.
Credit:
Yehyun Kim/The Connecticut Mirror
“It’s not a friendly system for people who have probably the least amount of time and resources to navigate a tricky system,” said Ritter. “So it really is a double whammy. It’s an unfair policy, and then the only way to undo it requires an inordinate amount of effort and time and resources that a lot of these individuals don’t have.”
State Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, the upcoming co-chair of the General Law Committee, said he’s already spoken with the DMV, Democratic leadership and the governor’s office about legislation he is drafting that would lengthen the 15-day window before a sale, expand the forms of payment that towing companies are required to take, and prohibit companies from patrolling private parking lots looking for cars to tow. Instead, they would be required to wait for a complaint.
“The tow trucks are just driving around looking for a problem,” he said.
A bill that Lemar proposed in 2023 to require tow companies to accept credit cards, in addition to other measures, passed the legislature’s Transportation Committee. But facing opposition from towing companies and property owners, it wasn’t called on the House floor.
Timothy Vibert, president of the Towing and Recovery Professionals of Connecticut, said towing companies are willing to talk about changes to the laws but that legislators don’t want to address the underlying reason for tows — lots of people driving unregistered and uninsured cars.
“The reason they’re being towed is because they’ve done something wrong,” Vibert said. “Yes, there are some unscrupulous towers out there, and that’s just the way they are, OK? But you can’t change every piece of legislation to push on and make the towers be the fall guy.”
John Souza, president of the Connecticut Coalition of Property Owners, said that 15 days seems like a short window, particularly for some of his tenants who get paid each month through Social Security, but allowing towers to patrol parking lots is helpful for larger apartment buildings. He doesn’t live at the rental properties he owns, he said, so it would be hard for him to call towing companies at all hours of the day.
“As a landlord, I get it,” Souza said. “You have to have rules, and people unfortunately take advantage. If the rules are too slack, people take advantage of them. There’s nothing worse than coming home after a long, hard day and someone’s in your parking space.”
House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, said his office quickly researched the issue following the story’s publication and found there’s a longer window for reclaiming minibikes before sale than there is for some vehicles.
“Fifteen days seems like a very short amount of time for anybody to be able to react and kind of do whatever they have to do to try to secure their vehicle before there’s an opportunity for it to be sold,” Rojas said. “For those reasons, and perhaps others too, it merits a look for sure.”
He said the issue “struck a nerve” with him and others because of how important it is to have reliable access to transportation.
House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said he is willing to consider changes to the state’s towing law.
“I’m concerned about the potentially predatory nature of towing practices in Connecticut,” Candelora said. “A number of years ago, I thought we had addressed this issue by requiring the posting of signs and the cost of towing prior to allowing the towing of vehicles, but obviously there seems to be an issue that still needs to be addressed.”
Leadership in the state Senate said they were interested in exploring the issue. Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said there’s an “issue here about fairness” that should be examined.
