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DENVER -- Tenants at the Court House Square Apartments, at 14th & Speer, reached out to Contact Denver7 after their cars were towed away.
One of the tenants, Vinson Powell, said his car was towed because he didn't get a new permit.
He said the notice posted on his front door simply said "to obtain a parking permit," for which he needs a valid license, registration and proof of insurance.
Powell said he'd lived there for 12 years and already had a permit, and didn't realize he needed a new one until his car was towed.
"I came out early in the morning and the car was gone. I went to management...she didn't want to talk to me about it. I called the towing company. They said, 'yes we do have your car,' and it cost me $270.00 to retrieve my vehicle."
Powell's neighbor, Kevin Neal, said he'd rented a vehicle because his regular car was was getting repaired.
He said his regular vehicle had a permit, but the rental didn't. It was towed.
Another neighbor, Lydia Montoya, told Contact Denver7 she hasn't been able get a title for her vehicle, and as a result can't get license plates and registration, because of a backlog at the DMV.
Her car was towed too.
"They're not even giving us a chance to get legal," she said. "It cost us $240 to $250."
Vinson told Contact7, "We're all elderly. There are disabled (residents) within the building. I need my vehicle to go back and forth to the doctors, or any other emergency services that I might need."
Neal said the manager should have issued warnings to begin with.
"They could put a note on your windshield saying, 'you're missing a tag,' or 'you need to get this updated, come to the office.' Obviously that didn't happen," he said.
Majestic Towing said some cars were towed because they were parked in the fire lane, or illegally in a handicap parking spot. Some because they didn't have permits.
A company representative said Majestic is just doing what the management company instructed them to do.
Management Company Response
Joyce Walker, the Vice President of Community Development at PK Management, LLC told Denver7 she investigated the claims to parking permit confusion.
She sent this statement via email, Friday morning:
“First and foremost we want to apologize to our valued residents who were impacted by the recent towing activity. Our strict policy is geared to visitors and unauthorized individuals who park in spaces meant for our residents. This has been reiterated to our towing company. While warning notices were sent to our residents, we have reevaluated our policy for towing and it will be more closely regulated by the onsite team and only specific orders to the towing company will be executed.
Management will continue to make multiple attempts to contact our residents regarding violations of our permit policy. Going forward management will personally execute all tows to ensure there is no confusion with the towing service regarding resident vehicles vs unauthorized vehicles. Also, in addition to notices, we will be placing clear warning stickers on cars and changing our resident parking policy to allow them 48 hours to take care of parking issues or remove vehicles. Residents will be notified of these changes in our policy within the next business day.
In the meantime, we will notify those residents whose cars have been towed that we will be reimbursing them for the fines they have paid to the towing company. For those who have not yet paid the fines to have their cars released, the towing company will be notified to release and return those vehicles immediately.
