SPRING HILL, Fla. — Imagine being awakened by the sound of a tow truck hooking up to your vehicle to haul it out of your own driveway for a violation not even visible from the street.
Worse yet, the HOA, which you pay hundreds of dollars a year, gave the tow business the green light.
Outraged neighbors of a Pasco County subdivision tell ABC Action News Investigator Adam Walser that their homeowners’ association and the tow company it contracted to enforce parking laws are going too far.
“My registration was out of date by a month”
Security footage shows a stranger lurking outside Brennan Wells’ home at 2 a.m.
“Someone came up into my driveway," Wells said.
He observed the man take a picture of his license plate and haul it off his property.
The tow truck belongs to A-1 Recovery, Inc., which has a contract with the Lone Star Ranch HOA to enforce parking rules.
“My registration was out of date by a month,” Wells said. “This happened in October, my registration went out in September. “
When Wells woke up that morning, he thought his truck had been stolen. But a tracker he installed on the vehicle showed it had been towed to the A-1 Recovery impound lot in New Port Richey 14 miles away.
His girlfriend drove him to pick it up, but Wells missed a full morning of classes at the National Aviation Academy.
“An hour and a half, two hours roll by and finally someone shows up,” Wells said.
He then had to pay the tow company more than $200 to get his truck back.
“That’s my grocery money for the month,” Wells said.
He’s a U.S. Coast Guard veteran who is currently a full-time student.
“I am employed by the HOA right now”
A similar scene played out in the neighborhood two nights later.
First, the A-1 Recovery driver hooks up a truck parked on a county-maintained road but realizes he’s unable to tow it because it has four-wheel drive.
Neighbors confronted two A-1 Recovery employees, a man and a woman, as they tried to tow a nearby Tesla.
"You’re gonna come out here and harass people who live here?” a neighbor asked the driver.
“You’re harassing us. We are doing our job,” the female employee responded.
“You’re not doing your job. This is in the middle of the night,” Allison Shaw said.
Shaw, who is an ABC Action News photographer, had no role in determining how the story was reported.
It was her family’s Tesla that the tow truck driver hooked up moments earlier. Shaw’s security camera captured video of the driver walking uninvited onto her private property, taking photos of her tag.
He then hooked up her car and was attempting to tow it while it was still plugged into her house.
“You need to drop it,” Shaw told the driver.
"I told you it’ll be a $75 drop fee. We can take card or cash,” the driver said.
When Shaw refused to pay, the A-1 employees threatened to call the police.
They said they were towing cars on orders from the HOA.
“I am employed by the HOA right now,” the driver said.
Attorney Kathleen Reres represents the Lone Star Ranch HOA. She said she believes the HOA has a right to send vendors onto private property to enforce rules outlined in the HOA’s covenants and declarations.
“I think that it does. Whether it’s a good idea is an entirely different issue,” Reres said.
“There’s 31 vehicles that’s expired”
Reres says Lonestar Ranch signed an agreement years ago with A-1 Recovery.
We found this generic A-1 Recovery contract online which allows businesses, apartments and HOAs to check boxes indicating which rules A-1 can enforce.
“The association goes to the vendor. They say, 'Vendor, we need professional help,' and the vendor says, 'Here’s our contract. Take it or leave it,'” Reres said. “There’s a motivation by the vendor in this case to check as many boxes as possible so as many vehicles can be towed as possible.”
A-1 Recovery declined an interview request, but their lawyer said in an email, “My client has a written agreement with the Lone Star Ranch Homeowners Association and at all times, operated under the direction of their president.”
The driver told neighbors he was given a list.
“There's 31 vehicles that’s expired, and I’ve taken 10 of them already,” the driver said.
That’s out of a little more than 250 single-family houses and townhomes.
“I can show you that I'm sending everything to your president,” the driver said, showing neighbors photos he sent to the HOA president.
“It’s an abuse of power for sure," Well said. "I don’t know what their motive is, but we’re just the ant farm. They’ve got the magnifying glass and they’re picking us out."
The driver suddenly dropped Shaw’s Tesla unexpectedly while she sat on the hood of her car with her feet on the towing boom. Shaw is having it checked out to see if it caused any damage.
“You have no authority to be here”
Pasco County Sheriff’s deputies arrived minutes later and wanted to see the company’s authorization.
The driver couldn’t produce it.
“I don’t have to have them on me,” he said.
“When I arrest somebody for a warrant, I have to have a physical copy of the warrant, right?” a deputy counters.
Deputies told the tow truck driver he was overstepping his bounds.
“You have no authority to be here whatsoever. If you hook up to a vehicle and take it, it’s considered vehicle theft. You will be prosecuted,” a deputy told the driver. “The next time you try to take another vehicle, our supervisor said you will be prosecuted for vehicle theft.”
Two days after we interviewed neighbors, the HOA suspended towing by A-1 Recovery.
“Right now the instruction to A-1 from the board president was cease and desist," Reres said. We don’t want you towing from the single-family homes. Do we really want vendors going onto people’s property with flashlights in the middle of the night looking for violations? And I think the board will probably agree that’s probably not what we want."
Reres said the board had tried twice in recent years to change parking rules, but they were unable to get enough residents to attend the meetings to vote on them.
Florida Law says vehicles must be towed to a lot within 10 miles of the site where it is recovered in a county with more than 500,000 people. Pasco County’s population is currently estimated at 642,000. The operator of the impound site must also return within one hour after being called.
