This website and the documents it makes are not a substitute for the advice of an attorney.
Audits, reports, rules and contracts about towing in Houston, each with a short summary in plain words and a link to the agency's own copy.
These are government documents. We link to the official copies. Summaries are ours; read the record itself before you rely on it.
The contract every storage lot signs to receive Houston police tows. It requires at least 1.25 acres (older small lots excepted), release within one hour at any hour, a recorded message with HPD's complaint number, reporting each car within two hours, no demand for a signed card authorization, and listing abandoned cars for auction within 30 days or losing storage fees past 45 days.
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Says the county's maximum nonconsent tow rates had not changed since 2011 ($145.50 for a light-duty police tow) while Houston adjusted yearly, explains the state limits on local tow fees, and lays out options for a one-time reset and a method for future changes. Commissioners Court passed a motion to update the rates on July 9, 2026.
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We have not found an order with the new amounts (checked Legistar through September 2026).
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The county's permit rules for tow trucks, drivers and storage lots that handle law-enforcement tows in unincorporated Harris County. Storage lots must mail the owner notice within five days, take cash, debit and credit cards, let owners remove personal property before paying, and collect a $7 law-enforcement administrative fee. Tow charges themselves are set by a separate Commissioners Court order.
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The adoption date of this edition is not printed in the document.
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HPD's one-page summary for drivers: the 2026 tow rate and mileage charge, accepted payment, the right to choose where the car goes at the same rate, the police storage-lot option, the findmytowedcar.com lookup, tow hearings and where to send complaints.
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The flyer says the $4.64-a-mile charge applies after 20 miles to any police tow; City Code sec. 8-117(d)(3) allows mileage only when the car goes to a place the owner chose.
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The City's yearly letters to tow operators setting the nonconsent tow and heavy-duty rates for the next year, with the index change behind each one. They also repeat that a private-property tow may not cost more than the lower of the state maximum or the City rate.
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Notices for 2015 to 2020 are scanned images without searchable text.
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The City's towing law: driver licenses, the police tow agreements, Tow and Go freeway towing, the rate-setting formula in section 8-123, and the storage-lot rules rewritten in 2022. It says the stricter of the City and state rules applies.
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Municode is the City's official code publisher; the City Secretary keeps the signed ordinances.
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The only cost-of-service review of Houston tow rates we found. With an outside consultant, the City surveyed tow companies' costs, compared rates in 10 other Texas cities and recommended raising the regular rate from $174 to $190 and the heavy-duty rate from $264.50 to $289 an hour. It includes a rate history for 2015-2020.
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Tow and boot hearing requests in Harris County go to the justice courts in Precincts 2, 3, 6 or 8, with a $54 filing fee, and must be delivered before the 14th day after the tow, not counting weekends and legal holidays. The page lists each court's address and phone.
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The agreements a tow company signs to do police-ordered tows in Houston, by tow zone, and the separate heavy-duty version. HPD's 2021 changes required workers' compensation insurance, raised cargo insurance to $100,000 and allowed only the tow company's name on the truck door. The heavy-duty form says there are no regulated fees for recovery or scene clean-up.
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How the City handles abandoned-vehicle complaints, which it said were more than half of its roughly 9,000 parking service requests a year, and how the 2021 state law H.B. 914 lets parking officers order some tows without a police officer.
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HPD's explanation of the 2021 towing ordinance update, the first major one in over 10 years. It reported 214 active police tow agreements, 56 private-property tow companies and 891 wrecker drivers, and described the new definition of 'lawfully hooked up' used for the half-price drop fee and background checks for tow company owners. Council adopted the changes as Ord. No. 2021-753 on September 1, 2021.
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The adoption date and ordinance number come from the Code's history notes, not from this presentation.
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The third tow-industry lawsuit against SafeClear. The court held the claims were already decided in earlier suits and upheld the program. The opinion is also an official history: Ord. No. 2004-497 created SafeClear, a 2005 ruling struck the parts covering consent tows, and Ord. No. 2011-324 made owners pay $50 for shoulder tows the City had paid for.
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We are reviewing these before we post them: