CT Towing Companies Ignoring Law Protecting Low-Income Residents
Some Connecticut towing companies are flouting a new state law meant to protect low-income residents from predatory towing practices at apartment complexes.
Elias Natal left for work one evening last December and found his Buick gone. Towed from his spot at Sunset Ridge Apartments in New Haven by Lombard Motors, which had a list of apparent violations ready. The problem: Natal had photos proving his parking permit sticker was right there on the windshield, exactly where his apartment manager told him to put it.
What followed cost him nearly $500 in cash and two days of running around to retrieve a car that probably shouldn’t have been towed in the first place.
This isn’t just a story about one bad experience. It’s a pattern that Connecticut’s General Assembly tried to fix, and that some towing companies are now choosing to ignore.
What the Law Was Supposed to Do
The state overhauled its towing statutes last year, with the new rules taking effect in October. The legislation targeted practices that had hammered low-income residents for years, people who’d lose their cars over minor infractions like a missing parking permit sticker, often at apartment complexes where many tenants receive state or federal rental assistance.
The law now requires notice before a tow for minor violations, including parking in the wrong space or failing to display a permit. Companies must stay reachable after hours so owners can get their vehicles back immediately. They’re required to accept credit cards and hand over change when paid in cash. Apartment complexes have to post towing warning signs.
Straightforward stuff. Except Sunset Ridge had no signs posted, according to interviews with tenants and on-site visits. Lombard was closed when Natal and his partner, Jasmin Flores, showed up to retrieve the Buick, which meant the car sat and storage fees climbed. When they finally paid in cash, getting their change back required an argument.
“Especially after the copious amounts of money that they asked of us, to then not give us back like our minuscule change is just, it’s dehumanizing,” Natal said.
The Broader Problem
Natal’s case isn’t isolated. Residents at low-income and public housing complexes across the state say towing companies have kept up their old habits: patrolling lots, pulling cars for technical violations, and creating financial traps that are nearly impossible to escape quickly. The new law requires most involuntary tows from apartment properties to be triggered by a specific complaint. But that rule isn’t being enforced uniformly, and the companies doing the most towing seem to know it.
Reporting from CT Mirror and ProPublica, who have investigated Connecticut’s towing industry for the past year and a half in partnership through the Local Reporting Network, found that the statutes passed before this reform consistently favored towing operators. The new law was a direct result of that reporting. That it’s already being flouted this early is, frankly, not a great sign.
Why It Matters Beyond New Haven
For Gold Coast commuters or West Hartford homeowners, towing reform might sound like someone else’s issue. It isn’t.
The same loosely regulated industry that preys on Sunset Ridge residents operates in suburban apartment complexes, train station lots, and commercial parking facilities across Fairfield County and the Connecticut River Valley. Anyone who’s ever returned to an empty parking spot knows the sick-stomach feeling. The difference is that someone earning $150,000 a year can absorb a $500 tow bill. Someone on housing assistance cannot.
Connecticut’s new law was designed to close that gap. The mechanics are there: mandatory signs, after-hours access, credit card acceptance, required change. What’s missing is enforcement with teeth.
What to Watch
The General Assembly will need to decide whether to give the relevant state agencies more authority and resources to actually penalize companies that break the rules, or whether this reform ends up as another statute that looks good on paper and does little on the ground. Regulators have not yet signaled publicly how many complaints they’ve received since October or whether any companies have faced penalties.
Natal got his car back. He and Flores paid nearly $500 in cash they shouldn’t have had to spend, for a tow that shouldn’t have happened, from a company that seemingly ignored rules that took effect two months earlier.
The law exists. Enforcement is the question now.