By Byrhonda Lyons | CalMatters

After a Lamborghini Murciélago Roadster got towed in 2023, no one claimed it. The iconic sports car sat at a Torrance tow yard for five months, long enough that the towing company had the right to sell it.

The sale allowed the company to recoup its costs for the tow, storage and lien sale, $11,332. But there was plenty left over: $99,668, which went to the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The owner has to claim the funds by 2027, when the money is permanently in the DMV’s coffers.

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The DMV doesn’t notify owners of proceeds from the sale and, it says, it doesn’t have to, according to state law. By law, towing companies, storage yards and car repair shops can sell your car to recoup their costs if you don’t settle your debts and pick up your vehicle. It’s known as a lien sale.

From the beginning of 2016 through fall 2024, the DMV collected more than $8 million from nearly 5,300 cars sold at auction, according to a CalMatters analysis of DMV data. In 2016, the DMV recorded $760,000 from the sales. That number rose by about 76% to $1.33 million in 2023, the data shows.

Most of the cars aren’t nearly as luxurious as the Lambo.

A 2013 Kia, for example, brought in $165 to the DMV. A 2014 Chrysler 300 sold for $1,368 more than its bill. Plenty of other vehicles reaped healthy profits still sitting with the DMV: A 2015 Lexus coupe netted an excess of $24,676. A 2016 Ford F-150 brought in an extra $14,232, and a 2019 Honda HR-V had $5,475 left. None of the owners have claimed the money, according to DMV records.

For poor Californians, the tows and compounding fees are often a trap. Police can tow your car for things like expired registration. You might not be able to renew your registration because you have unpaid fees and fines from things like traffic and parking tickets. If you’re towed and can’t pay the costs to get your vehicle back, you can lose your only means of transportation — and sometimes the place where you sleep.

Owners have up to three years to claim the lien sale profits after the state receives the money, and after that the law says the DMV keeps it. Most lien sales end in a loss. For those that result in a profit, it’s likely many owners have no idea their property was sold in the first place — and that they have a right to that money.

Shayla Myers is a senior attorney for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. She often works with people with low incomes who’ve lost their vehicles to lien sales. She said she wasn’t familiar with how people would get their money from a profitable lien sale.

“If there are excess funds, but people don’t know how to get them, they’re as good as vanished,” Myers said.

Joan McAllister’s vehicle racked up $1,113 in parking tickets in San Francisco in 2022. Her brother Stephen McAllister said she’d been hospitalized after someone found her “wandering the streets.”

Eventually, the vehicle was towed and accumulated over $8,300 in storage fees.

Stephen tried to intervene, but he didn’t have the legal authority. By the time he was appointed as her conservator, the towing yard sold her car, he said.

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“In the year that the court system took to appoint me as her conservator, the car was booted, towed, stored and auctioned off,” he said.

He did not know that the car sold for $5,475 more than what his sister owed until CalMatters told him. “Nothing surprises me at this point,” he said. “The whole process from start to finish seems to be a money-making scheme.”

He has a few months to claim the money. However, that may not happen within the DMV’s three-year window. His sister died on Dec. 4, 2023. She had just turned 74, he said.

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He hasn’t been able to locate a title for the vehicle; he said his sister’s possessions are locked in storage in Oakland “awaiting the end of probate of her estate.”

On average, about 620 vehicles each year yielded excess sales money for the DMV between 2016 and 2023. Excess money from lien sales brought in about $1,600 per vehicle.

On the DMV’s website, there’s a step-by-step guide on how towing companies can conduct a lien sale, including rules for notifying the owner of the sale and sending any excess proceeds from the sale to the agency. The guide does not include information about how vehicle owners can request their money back.

The lien sale profits go into the motor vehicle account in the state’s transportation fund, which supports the California Highway Patrol and other departments.

DMV spokesperson Ronald Ongtoaboc declined an interview request. He responded to questions via email instead.

The DMV said people with claims have to fill out a refund form on its website. The agency also suggested that people read the FAQ page regarding lien sales and call about things not addressed there.

“Advocates who have concerns about the impacts of current laws should reach out and convey their concerns to the Legislature,” Ongtoaboc said.

We asked the agency for more detailed information about the sales from 2016 to late 2024, including how many owners asked for their money and how much owners received, but the DMV denied the public records request, citing the limitations of its systems. An attorney for the agency said it wouldn’t give us the records, because compiling refund claims and payments would have to be done manually and would be “overly burdensome.”

“Because the Department does not prepare, own, use, or retain a record that compiles lien sale excess fee refund claims and claim payments, there is no existing record responsive to your request and the department is not required to create such a document,” DMV attorney Matthew Christy wrote.

In response, CalMatters requested and received detailed records from a random selection of 13 profitable lien sales. None of the 13 owners asked for their money back from the DMV, records show.

Bruffy’s Del Rey Tow, one of over a dozen tow operators that handle towing for the city of Los Angeles, gave the DMV the most in excess fees, handing over roughly $1.1 million from 2016 to fall 2024, according to the CalMatters analysis.

These so-called police garages in Los Angeles typically charge a $195 towing fee, plus a $115 city release fee and a 10% city parking tax. The daily storage fee is $60. A week of storage plus towing fees and parking tax for a standard vehicle costs at least $700. A month can easily cost more than $2,000. The Los Angeles Police Commission sets the towing fees.

Bruffy’s declined to comment for this story.

The city of Long Beach was the fifth-largest contributor of excess fees, sending the state about $446,000 for nearly 350 vehicles. Long Beach’s towing and lien sales superintendent, Robert Givens, said the city averages about 200 auction sales each month. A basic tow costs $417, according to the city website. The daily storage fee is $78. After a month, a basic tow, including fees and storage, can cost more than $2,500.

Givens said in an email that the city doesn’t “directly reach out to owners” to let them know whether the auction yielded a profit. “If they ask, we will provide them with that information and direct them to the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) Lien Sales in Sacramento,” he said.

For most unclaimed property, people in California can go to the controller’s website and search their name and address to find how much of their money the state is holding.

“I’m not sure exactly what the justification is … as to why would a car be different from any other property that you would have that you wouldn’t be automatically entitled to the excess proceeds as opposed to having to ask for it,” said Rebecca Miller, a senior attorney for the Western Center on Law and Poverty.

Have you had a bad towing experience? Share your story with us and help inform our reporting.

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