Whangarei District Council towing fees too high?

The Whangarei District Council is seeking legal advice to determine if it has been overcharging the owners of vehicles it has towed away for parking on clearways.

Until December 23, 2011, the council had been adding a $53 administration fee to the $53 towage fee charged when vehicles were towed away from a clearway.

Owners were also charged a $20 storage fee for every day their vehicle was not retrieved from the tow yard, on top of a $60 infringement fee.

Transport Ministry spokesperson Lesley Reidy said there was no provision under the Transport (Towage Fees) Notice 2004 for councils to charge administration or storage fees.

Under the notice, councils are legally entitled to charge no more than $53.66 to tow a vehicle weighing less than 3500kg between the hours of 7am and 6pm, Monday to Friday.

The legal limit for tow charges is higher for heavier vehicles and tows that occur outside the standard times.

Council spokeswoman Ann Midson said the council's lawyer was trying to ascertain what the relevant legislation was and what the implications would be if it turns out the council has been overcharging.

The council could not say yesterday how long it had been charging the administration and storage fees, nor how many people may have been overcharged.

WDC district living group manager Paul Dell said the council regularly reviewed its bylaws and altered its approach when the opportunity for improvement was seen.

Mr Dell said vehicles towed from clearways in the past were taken to a tow yard and people had to pay up-front to get their cars back.

"We found that quite often this approach was very stressful for car owners, for a number of reasons," he said.

"In a bid to improve the outcome, including removing the vehicles as quickly as possible, we are now making it much simpler for everyone concerned by towing cars to a location closer to the point they were originally left, and applying the same approach to infringement fee collection that we do with all other parking infringement fees."

People who find their car has been towed can now call the council to find out where it has been left.

An infringement notice will be placed under the windscreen wiper and the vehicle owner will be liable to pay a $60 infringement fee and a $53.67 tow charge.

Keeping the clearways clear and towing a vehicle cost about three times as much as the $113.67 charged by the council, Mr Dell said.

For that reason, the council had been charging an administration fee to cover the monitoring, enforcement and administration costs incurred by the contractor.

As of December 23, 2011, those costs would be picked up by the ratepayer, Mr Dell said.