Abandoned Toyota Pickup

Backstory:
There is a Toyota pickup from the 1990-1994 generation which has been sitting in the back corner of the parking lot of my work. It has been there for over two weeks. Its a big parking lot and from the building it looked freakin' beautiful. The other day I walked over to it, and holy crap, it is beat to hell. It has the classic duct tape wheel wells spray painted to match the paint color. Rust everywhere, no tailgate, torn up interior, random garbage in the bed, missing the lower half of the front bumper, visible front end alignment/suspension issues.

I was bs'ing with my boss the other day and jokingly called dibs on it if it was in fact abandoned. After making that joke I actually started hoping it was abandoned.

Does anyone have experience with potentially abandoned vehicles/salvage? Any steps I can take to actually look into figuring it out. It is technically on private property (my boss's parking lot).

Thanks for any suggestions

 

bump

 

Crawler bait...project waiting to happen. Take it.

 

exactly what I thought. I've already made plans with my co-worker with a 2500HD and car hauler to take it home. Jokingly of course.

A couple more details. There are license plates and a visible VIN on it. The plates registration expired 02/12.

 

You'd have to check this out, but if you have a contact that could tow it then they could have them put a lean on it. If the owner doesn't pay it off, the truck can be sold. Check to see if that's legal in your state.

 

My ex's car got towed once. She left it on impound lot. After several months they filed some sort of lien against title to recoup their towing, storage, and legal/court fees. It was way more than the POS was worth. If no one wanted to pay the bill, they were going to file for a duplicate title and the car was going to be theirs. This is all I know about it as I didn't get involved.

 

Thanks for the info. I did some more research and found out the process. It seems like a long shot. Because it is on private property, it can be towed anytime. The process is as follows.
Call tow company, get towed, notify police department, have tow company file to DMV within 30 days, DMV attempts to contact last registered own via snail mail, if after 21 days no one claims vehicle a salvage title is issued to the tow company. If owner does claim vehicle, they have 21 days to pay all fees associated. If not, salvage title is issued.

Guess I'll pass the info on to my boss and see what he wants to go through the hassle of dealing with this. I know I still do.

 

Just call the cops and give them the VIN. If it comes back stolen proceed with letting the cops deal with it. If she's clean, load her up.
That's what I'd do.

 

you realize you guys are talking about stealing a vehicle right? the thing is registered to someone...... even if its expired

 

There is only a couple people who said anything like that- The OP clearly outlined the legal process for working with abandoned property...Which if this IS- Good for the OP. If it is NOT-Then the DMV will get a reaction and the owner can get his/her truck off of private property.

 

I would bet that the owner of the property where the vehicle is parked, would have to report it to the police as potentially abandonded / stolen and let them look into it first.
I personally wouldn't lay a finger on the vehicle until the police said, "abandonded", the property owner had it towed, and the tow company had a lien and duplicate title and were willing to sell it to you.

If it did die there and you can get the owner's name, he/she may be very willing to give/sell it to you if they think they are going to incur towing and impound fees.

Just my $.02 I am a firm believer that if you have to ask if it's OK to do, it most probably isn't and will probably get your ass into trouble.

 

I'm a building manager for several commercial office buildings and we encounter this every once in a while.

Here in VA we are required to have the property posted with signs indicating that it is private property. If the signs are in place we can call any local towing company and have it towed free of charge (to us). We don't need to know who it belongs to. The towing company notifies the local Police that they have the vehicle. Eventually if no one comes looking for the car the towing company can sell it at one of their auctions. (not sure of the time frame) I assume duplicate titles are involved. I have never had one i was interested in following that far.

Local PD told me the key is the signs. If the property is not posted as private property then having it towed can get messy and ultimately could cost us (the property owner) the towing and storage fees if the vehicle owner puts up a fuss.

If i suspect the vehicle may be one of my tenants I have on occasion asked local PD to stop by when they can and run the plate/VIN. If it is one of my tenants we address it directly with them.

 

^^^ These, although you take the appropriate legal steps, the decent thing to do would be attempt to contact the owner first. They may have been driving by and truck was breaking down so they pull into the first parking lot they find and park to the back to stay out of the way. They may not have much except the truck so they are struggling to find the funds to tow or fix.

Whether you ever found the owner or not, you can feel better knowing you tried.

 

Thanks to those who read my posts and understood them. To the others, damn, a little hostile don't you think? I am not talking about stealing someones truck! In all my post I never said anything about simply taking it. All I've asked for here is some info on how to do it properly. Calling the police with the VIN seems to be the first step.

 

Body off resto. I'm IN! Get donations from vendors and build the "OFFICIAL" TW Truck. My heart swells with pride at the thought. I'll buy a wheel.

 

Good luck. This may end up being a real "steal" for you...
HAH... LMFAO.

 

Yeah. The process for disposing of abandoned vehicles varies from state to state. Make sure you're relying on YOUR state's info.

 

Any updates on the truck from the OP???

 

someone finally picked the pos up.