towing_and_impound_operations v1.0.0

name: towing_and_impound_operations description: "Run the yard side of a towing and impound business: tow intake records that separate private property, police, and owner request tows because each carries different rules, impound lot inventory with photos at intake, release requirements checked before a vehicle leaves, storage and lien notice timelines set by tow type and state profile, and abandoned vehicle disposition that follows the state process instead of habit. Use when running a tow yard or impound lot, taking a vehicle into storage, building an intake or release checklist, tracking lien notices or an abandoned vehicle, checking a police hold, releasing personal property, or preparing a vehicle for a lien sale or auction."

Towing and Impound Operations

Purpose

Dispatch ends at the drop. The yard work starts there and runs for weeks: a vehicle in a space, a bill growing by the day, notices that have to go to the right people by the right method on a clock set by the tow type and the state, a release that has to go to the right person and nobody else, and a disposition at the end that either follows the state process or creates a wrongful sale problem. Most yards run that second half on paper, memory, and habit. Habit is where the losses sit. A notice sent on the wrong clock, a vehicle released over an open police hold, a lienholder who never got mailed, a car sold on a timeline borrowed from another state.

This skill runs the yard as one system. Intake sorts every vehicle by tow type because private property, police, and owner request tows carry different authority, different notice work, and different release paths. A state profile, built from your own statute, supplies every day count. A tracker computes each vehicle stage from real notice dates and stops cold on holds, bankruptcy notices, and disputes. A release checklist runs in order, hold first, before any vehicle or covered property leaves.

This skill is operations support, not legal advice. It teaches a disciplined process and a deadline method. A yard first lien sale under a new profile, any disposition involving a bankruptcy, a servicemember, a forfeiture hold, or a disputed tow, and any question about what a statute means, goes to a lawyer who practices towing and lien law in that state.

Workflow

1. Build the state profile before tracking any vehicle. Copy references/sample-profile.json, replace every value from the current text of your state towing and storage lien law, cite the statute in the profile, and record the date you checked it. Read references/state-patterns.md first. States differ in structure: Texas uses two notices with a second notice window and disposal 30 days after the second notice, Florida uses one notice within 7 business days and a sale date that runs from storage and splits by vehicle age, California splits its lien sale path by a 4000 dollar value line, and Washington lists who may redeem and regulates the auction itself. If your law has a step the profile has no field for, a value split, an insurer recipient, an opposition or hearing step, an auction publication rule, add it to the profile as a required field or a blocker. Never borrow another state numbers because they look close.

1. Classify the tow at intake, and record the authority with it. Every vehicle gets exactly one tow type in its record: private_property, police, or owner_request. Follow the intake record in references/intake-release-and-records.md. For a private property tow, record the property, the authorizing person, and the circumstance relied on under your state law, because a tow that was never authorized does not get fixed by a notice calendar. For a police tow, record the agency, the officer or unit, the case or rotation number, and the hold status stated at the gate. For an owner request, record who asked, how their authority was checked, and any signed authorization. Never change a tow type later without a dated correction note.

1. Photograph and inventory at intake, the same shift. Take the full photo set in references/intake-release-and-records.md: four sides, plates or the empty bracket, a readable VIN plate, damage close ups, wheels, interior through the glass, and the lot space marker in frame. Write the condition note and the visible property inventory from what you can see. Describe sealed containers as containers and do not open them. Retake any unreadable photo before the shift ends. These photos and notes are what settle damage and missing property claims weeks later, when nobody remembers the night the car arrived.

1. Start charges from the posted schedule only. Record the tow rate and why it applies, any other charge the posted rate schedule allows, the storage start date, and the daily storage rate. A charge that is not on the posted schedule does not go on the bill. Where your law or your agency contract caps a rate, a fee, or the number of storage days a given person can be charged, write the cap into the profile notes and apply it at billing time. Where a notice failure carries a priced consequence in your statute, apply it before the customer has to argue for it.

1. Track every vehicle in the lot with the tool, not with memory. Keep one row per vehicle in a CSV using the columns in references/sample-vehicles.csv and run:

python3 bin/impound_tracker.py vehicles.csv profile.json --as-of YYYY-MM-DD

It prints each vehicle sorted by urgency with its stage, first notice deadline, second notice window, earliest disposition date, blockers, warnings, and next action. Use --format json when another system needs the data. Run it at least weekly for the whole lot, on the day any notice is due to go out, and on the day of any planned disposition. A stage of READY_FOR_DISPOSITION_REVIEW means the profile dates line up. It does not replace the pre-disposition check in step 8.

1. Send each notice as a legal document, on its own clock. Before sending, recheck the owner and lienholder records from the source your state requires, recheck the itemized amount, and confirm the vehicle is still in the lot and not under a hold that pauses the process. Send to every recipient your law lists, which in some states includes the insurer, by a method your law allows, and record the date, method, address used, and mailing proof in the file the same day. A notice date in the tracker with no proof behind it counts as not sent. If a notice went out late or to the wrong recipient, record that honestly, check what your statute does to storage charges and to the deadlines that run from that notice, and restart the step correctly or get counsel direction. Do not paper over a defective notice and keep counting.

1. Respect blockers the moment they appear. Set the matching CSV field the day any of these arrives and hold that one vehicle: a police, court, or forfeiture hold with no written release on file, a bankruptcy filing or notice, or an open dispute, hearing request, or opposition. A hold is a written record, not a phone call. Documented agency practice, for example Saint Paul and Austin policies, is that a call alone does not place a hold and does not lift one, so the yard rule matches it: ask for the written hold if an agency says a vehicle is held, and release nothing held until a written release is delivered and filed. Log every agency call with a name and a time anyway. A blocker on one vehicle stops that vehicle completely. It does not stop the rest of the lot.

1. Run the pre-disposition check for one vehicle at a time. On the day a vehicle reaches disposition readiness, work its file alone: all notices sent to all required recipients with proof filed, lienholder warning cleared, no hold, no bankruptcy signal, no dispute, the bill recomputed under any cap that applies, and the disposition method, sale notice, publication, and viewing steps your state requires lined up with their own dates. Washington, for example, requires auction publication in a newspaper of general circulation in the county not less than 3 days and no more than 10 days before the auction, in daylight on a normal business day, with a public viewing period. Any failed item stops that vehicle disposition. Do not batch approve a row of vehicles because their dates look similar.

1. Release only through the checklist, hold first. Run the release checklist in references/intake-release-and-records.md in order for the person in front of you: hold check, government photo identification, right to redeem under your state list, proof tying that person to this vehicle on the VIN, any written agency release a police tow requires, the recomputed itemized bill, payment by an accepted method, a walk-around against the intake photos and inventory with the customer present, and a completed release record before the vehicle leaves. Update the tracker row to released the same day, so a vehicle that is gone never gets another lien notice.

1. Run personal property release as its own faster track. Property is not the vehicle. In several states the storage lien does not attach to loose personal property at all. California states it directly in Vehicle Code 22851: no lien on personal property in or on the vehicle, released to the registered owner or authorized agent on demand and without charge during normal business hours. Texas regulator guidance and Florida law point the same general way, with their own document and timing rules. Put your state rule in the profile, run property release on identity and ownership proof, list every item taken on a signed receipt, photograph the interior after removal if the vehicle stays, and put medication, identification, home keys, child seats, and work tools at the front of the queue the same day. If a police hold covers the contents, property waits for a written agency release, and the customer hears that plainly with the agency contact route.

1. Reconcile the lot weekly. Walk the lot with the open vehicle list and work the reconciliation in references/intake-release-and-records.md: every listed vehicle physically present or explained by a closing record, every vehicle present on the list, plate and VIN matched, hold flags matched to the paper file, notice dates matched to mailing proofs, and damaged or leaking vehicles photographed and handled the same day. A vehicle in the lot with no record is an intake failure. Build its record that day from the tow paperwork and flag it.

1. Close every file with a record that proves the ending. A released vehicle closes with the release record. A disposed vehicle closes with the disposition record: method, date, sale or disposal proof, proceeds, expenses, amount applied to the bill, and how any surplus or remaining balance was handled under your state law, recorded without improvising a collection plan. A vehicle that ends any other way closes with that outcome in writing. Mark the space empty only after the record is complete.

Output Contract

Each tracker run and yard cycle produces:

• A vehicle table sorted by urgency: vehicle, tow type, intake date, stage, first notice deadline, second notice window, earliest disposition date, and the next action for that vehicle.
• A blockers section naming every hold, bankruptcy, and dispute blocker by vehicle, in plain language, with the written document that would clear it.
• A warnings section naming every vehicle with an unrecorded lienholder notice or an unknown registration state match.
• For any vehicle released, a completed release record with who took it, what proof was checked, what was paid, and the walk-around outcome.
• For any vehicle disposed of, a completed disposition record with method, proof, proceeds, and surplus or balance handling.
• A profile note stating which state law and which checked date the deadlines in the run came from.

Operating Rules

• The state profile is the only source of deadlines. Every day count, notice recipient, notice method, redemption rule, and disposition step comes from the profile, built from current statute text, plus any agency contract terms for police tows. If a number is not in the profile, it does not get used, guessed, or carried over from another state, another yard, or habit.
• Never state a timeline as national. First notice deadlines, second notice windows, abandonment points, storage caps, and sale dates all vary by state, and some states structure the whole process differently, with one notice instead of two, a value split, or a regulated public auction.
• Tow type is a legal fact, not a label. Private property, police, and owner request tows rest on different authority and lead to different notice, hold, and release work. A record with the wrong type sends the whole file down the wrong path.
• No written release, no release over a hold. A phone call from anyone, however senior they sound, does not clear a police, court, or forfeiture hold. The written authorization goes in the file first, matched on VIN and case number, then the gate opens.
• A missed or defective step is not cured by the customer owing the money. If a notice, a recipient, a publication, or a deadline was wrong, stop, record it, and restart that step correctly or get counsel direction. Do not dispose of a vehicle on a file you already know is defective.
• Keep the bill honest and matched to the paper. Charges come from the posted schedule, storage days follow the day count rule in the profile, statutory caps beat the schedule, and the amount on a notice, the amount at the counter, and the amount in the disposition record must agree or carry a written explanation for the difference.
• Keep descriptions honest and matched across documents. The intake condition note, the photos, the notice description, and any sale listing describe the same vehicle in the same terms. Never list property or equipment you did not see, and never open sealed containers to write a better listing.
• Keep personal data in the file to what the process needs: owner and lienholder contact details for notices, identification check records for releases, and disposition records. Do not put full identification numbers, payment card details, or unrelated personal information in the tracking CSV.
• This skill is not legal advice and does not replace the yard lawyer or its state towing association resources. Use it to run a clean process and to know exactly when to stop and ask.