Charging Vehicle Storage Fees For A Title

Charging Storage Fees To Get A Title
So how do you—and can you even—charge storage fees for a vehicle in order to get a title? Many times we have clients that come to us and say, “Look, this car has been sitting on my property for 5 years. I’m going to charge $10 a day, so the owner has to give me $50,000, otherwise I’m going to own the car. That’s my rate for storage.” And that sounds like a great idea, but the law typically says otherwise. Now, the good news is there are ways to get a title for a vehicle that’s been sitting on a property that you own.

Storage Fees May Waive Your Rights
If a vehicle has been sitting on your property for a long time, charging storage fees is not the way to do it. If you do it the wrong way, you might actually waive your rights to that vehicle. How does that work? Well, here is a section from the statutes of the state of Illinois about storage fees. And the reason we selected Illinois is because it’s the same as most states, because most states go by the federal UCC, or Uniform Commercial Code, which talks about storage fees and storage liens. So the law says section 770 of the Illinois code states:

Written Notice Requirement
Any person, firm, or private corporation seeking to impose fees in connection with the furnishing of storage for a vehicle in the person’s possession must provide written notice by certified mail prior to the assessment and accrual of fees. What does that mean? That means before you can even start the clock on charging storage fees, you have to give the owner of the vehicle or lien holder notice that you’re going to start charging them storage. You have to give them an opportunity to inspect the vehicle.

Vehicle Access Requirement
The vehicle must be accessible where the vehicle is stored within two days of the request. So if you send out that notice to an owner and lien holder and you tell them you’re going to charge them $10 a day, you have to give them access within two days to be able to inspect the vehicle and take possession of it. What happens if you don’t do that? If you fail to comply with this notification of storage fees, first of all, storage fees shall not be assessed, and the owner or lien holder shall be entitled to injunctive relief for the possession of the vehicle without payment of storage fees.

Legal Consequences Of Non-Compliance
What does that mean? Basically, if you don’t send them notice before you start charging fees right away, you can’t charge fees and they can get the car back. That’s the short answer.

Only For Licensed Facilities
Maybe somebody tells you, “Hey, just start charging storage fees.” It doesn’t work. It’s not how it works. The only time it works is if you are a licensed automotive facility—storage, auto body, repair, towing—and you have a signed contract with the vehicle owner that authorizes you to charge storage, or if you towed it under a legal tow (like the police told you to tow the vehicle), then maybe you can do something. There are also other requirements in this law that can create liability for you. But if you’re a private citizen, even with a self-storage facility that stores people’s personal goods, you can’t generally charge made-up storage fees and just rack up the clock on that. You have to go through a process.

Storage Fee Method Not For Private Citizens
So if the thing you’re trying to do is get a title for a vehicle, that’s fine—you can do that. Don’t try to do it using storage fees. You might think that’s an easy way to go and clever, and “I thought of this great thing.” It’s not going to work. And it’s actually harder, takes longer, and it’s going to result in you losing the vehicle rather than if you do something else to get a vehicle title.

Use Legal Methods To Get A Title
Like a bonded title, magistrate title, VT transfer, prior owner contact—the website will give you the actual valid and successful ways to get a title rather than storage fees. And sometimes people think, “I’m going to use storage fees because I want to try to stick it to the owner” or do something clever, but it’s really not a title method. It’s a method that can be used in last resort scenarios where nothing else has worked, but you first have to try the other things.

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