Almost everything people believe about towing in Minnesota is a guess about time. How many hours does a car have to sit before it can be hooked? How long before the lot can sell it? How long do I have?
The time questions have answers, and they’re in Minnesota Statutes chapter 168B. But the more useful point is how the chapter is built: the vehicle and the contents of the vehicle are governed by two different rules. The car is collateral. A lot that towed at police request holds a statutory lien and can keep the car until the lien is discharged. The contents aren’t collateral in the same way. For a defined group of owners, and for a short list of items that applies to every owner, the contents must be released whether or not a dollar has been paid.
The Legislature substantially rewrote that distinction in 2023, and the contents right now carries its own private cause of action with statutory damages and fee-shifting. Most people standing at an impound lot window don’t know it exists. Neither, in our experience, do all of the people on the other side of the window.
How long does a car have to sit before it can be towed in Minnesota?
On single-family or duplex residential property, and on any other residential property that’s properly posted: zero. Not four hours, not 24. Immediately.
Section 168B.04, subdivision 2, sets the waiting periods. On private property it draws five categories:
(2) on private property:
(i) that is single-family or duplex residential property, immediately;
(ii) that is private, nonresidential property, properly posted, immediately;
(iii) that is private, nonresidential property, not posted, 24 hours;
(iv) that is private, nonresidential property of an operator of an establishment for the servicing, repair, or maintenance of motor vehicles, five business days after notifying the vehicle owner by certified mail, return receipt requested, of the property owner’s intention to have the vehicle removed from the property; or
(v) that is any residential property, properly posted, immediately.
— Minn. Stat. § 168B.04, subd. 2(b)(2) (emphasis added)
Read those five clauses against each other and the structure is plain. Posting buys the property owner the right to tow on sight. The 24-hour period exists only for unposted, nonresidential property. Single-family and duplex residential property gets immediate towing with no posting requirement at all. That’s why the neighbor who parks in your driveway isn’t entitled to any grace period, and why apartment-complex tows in properly signed lots happen within minutes.
On public property the numbers change again: a vehicle left on a highway and properly tagged by a peace officer, four hours; a vehicle that a peace officer determines constitutes an accident or traffic hazard, immediately; a properly posted government parking facility, four hours. § 168B.04, subd. 2(b)(1).
Here’s the gap nobody advertises: chapter 168B never defines “properly posted.” That phrase carries a huge load. It’s the difference between a 24-hour wait and an instant tow. And a full-text search of the chapter turns up no definition of sign size, placement, height, wording, or number. Whatever standard applies comes from a local ordinance, and units of government may adopt ordinances on this subject “so long as the ordinances and regulations are not less stringent than” chapter 168B. § 168B.09, subd. 2. If you’re contesting a private-lot tow, the posting is the first place to look, and the local ordinance is the yardstick.
Can the impound lot refuse to give me my belongings until I pay?
For some owners, no. And for certain items, never.
Two separate provisions do the work. The narrower one, § 168B.07, subdivision 3a, applies to every registered owner, no qualifications:
An impound lot operator must allow any registered vehicle owner to retrieve, or must retrieve for the vehicle owner, the following from the impounded vehicle: proof of identification; prescription medicine; and durable medical equipment, including but not limited to wheelchairs, prosthetics, canes, crutches, walkers, and external braces.
— Minn. Stat. § 168B.07, subd. 3a
No income test, no paperwork requirement, no payment condition. If a lot is holding a wheelchair or a prescription hostage to a towing bill, it’s violating this subdivision on the plain text.
The broader right, in subdivision 3(c), depends on status and proof. A registered owner who supplies photographic identification plus documentation from a government or nonprofit agency or legal aid office that the owner is homeless, receives relief based on need, or is eligible for legal aid services —
has the unencumbered right to retrieve any and all contents without charge and regardless of whether the registered owner pays incurred charges or fees, transfers title, or reclaims the vehicle. A refusal by the impound lot operator to allow the registered owner to retrieve the vehicle contents after the owner provides valid documentation is a violation of this paragraph.
— Minn. Stat. § 168B.07, subd. 3(c)
“Relief based on need” is defined broadly, and the list isn’t exclusive: MFIP, medical assistance, general assistance, emergency general assistance, Minnesota supplemental aid, MSA-emergency assistance, MinnesotaCare, Supplemental Security Income, energy assistance, emergency assistance, SNAP benefits, earned income tax credit, or the Minnesota working family tax credit. § 168B.07, subd. 3(a)(2). The list says “includes, but is not limited to.”
“Contents” excludes permanently affixed mechanical or nonmechanical automobile parts, body parts, and accessories including audio or video players. § 168B.07, subd. 3(a)(1). A car seat, a laptop, a toolbox, a uniform, a child’s medication: those are contents. The stereo bolted into the dash isn’t.
Two details matter at the counter. The operator may copy the documents you present, but “must return all of the original documents to the registered owner immediately after copying them.” § 168B.07, subd. 3(d). And the retrieval right runs “[a]t any time before the expiration of the waiting periods provided in section 168B.051” — so it’s on a clock, and failing to use it is treated as a waiver of all right, title, and interest in the contents. § 168B.07, subds. 3(c), 4.
What happens if the lot says no anyway?
Two things, both added in 2023, and both aimed squarely at nonpublic lots.
A written statement of reasons, at the moment of refusal. An operator who denies a retrieval request after the owner presents subdivision 3(c) documentation “must, at the time of denial, provide the registered owner with a written statement that identifies the specific reasons for the denial.” § 168B.07, subd. 3b(b). That paper is evidence. Ask for it. If the lot won’t produce it, write down that it refused. The duty to produce it is itself in the statute.
A private cause of action with two tracks. Subdivision 3d creates the remedy:
- If the contents are still there — injunctive relief to retrieve them, “as well as reasonable attorney fees and costs.” § 168B.07, subd. 3d(c).
- If the contents are gone — “an aggrieved registered vehicle owner is entitled to statutory damages in an amount of $1,000 and reasonable attorney fees and costs.” § 168B.07, subd. 3d(d).
That second track carries a hard deadline: “An action brought pursuant to this paragraph must be brought within 12 months of when the vehicle was impounded.” § 168B.07, subd. 3d(d). Watch the trigger. Not from the denial, not from the sale, not from when you found out. From the date of impoundment. A client who spends nine months trying to sort things out informally has burned most of the window.
Subdivisions 3b, 3c, and 3d each apply to an operator who runs a nonpublic impound lot, or with which a unit of government “exclusively contracts to operate an impound lot solely for public use under section 168B.09.” § 168B.07, subds. 3b(a), 3c(a), 3d(a). The contents-retrieval right in subdivision 3 itself reaches further. It binds “[a] unit of government or impound lot operator.” § 168B.07, subd. 3(b).
These provisions came in as Laws 2023, chapter 52, article 19, sections 5 through 9. Chapter 52 is an act with appropriation items, so absent a specified date it took effect July 1, 2023 under Minn. Stat. § 645.02. Subdivision 3 was touched again by Laws 2023, chapter 70, article 10, section 14, effective March 1, 2026, which took the Diversionary Work Program off the “relief based on need” list.
There’s also a posting requirement aimed right at the information gap this article is about. Section 168B.07, subdivision 3c(b), requires a conspicuous notice at the lot’s place of operation, in a form the statute writes out word for word, beginning: “If you receive government benefits, are currently homeless, or are eligible for legal aid services, you have the right to get the contents out of your car free of charge IF you provide: (1) a photo ID …”. If that sign isn’t up, that’s a fact worth writing down.
How much can a towing company charge?
Chapter 168B doesn’t say. There’s no rate cap, no maximum, no fee schedule anywhere in the chapter.
The chapter uses “reasonable” as a limit in two narrow places. In the freeway quick-clearance context, “[t]owing charges accrued by the owner or owners of the vehicle must be reasonable for the type of vehicle removed and the circumstances surrounding its removal.” § 168B.035, subd. 4(e). And a nonpublic lot’s post-sale deficiency claim is for “the reasonable costs of services provided in the towing, storage, and inspection of the vehicle minus the proceeds of the sale or auction.” § 168B.087, subd. 1(a).
Everything else is local. The city sets rates at municipal impound lots. The lot sets rates at private lots, subject to whatever the applicable ordinance and any contract with the local authority impose. If a charge looks made up, the questions are ordinance compliance and, where the conduct crosses into deceptive practice, the Minnesota consumer fraud statutes with their private-remedy hook in Minn. Stat. § 8.31, subd. 3a, which allows “damages, together with costs and disbursements, including costs of investigation and reasonable attorney’s fees.”
What notice am I entitled to, and how fast?
Five days, not counting weekends and holidays:
When an impounded vehicle is taken into custody, the unit of government or impound lot operator taking it into custody shall give written notice of the taking within five days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays, to the registered vehicle owner and any lienholders.
— Minn. Stat. § 168B.06, subd. 1(a)
The notice must state the date and place of the taking; the year, make, model, and serial number, if reasonably obtainable, plus where the vehicle is being held; the right to reclaim under § 168B.07; and what happens if you don’t reclaim, which is waiver of all right, title, and interest in the vehicle and, separately, waiver as to the contents. § 168B.06, subd. 1(b)(1)–(4). Since 2023 the notice also has to state the free-contents-retrieval right for owners who supply the qualifying documentation. § 168B.06, subd. 1(b)(5).
Notice goes by mail to the registered owner and all readily identifiable lienholders of record. The Department of Public Safety makes owner information available to impound lot operators for that purpose. If the owner and all lienholders can’t be identified with reasonable certainty, notice is published once in a newspaper of general circulation in the area the vehicle was towed from or abandoned. § 168B.06, subd. 2. If an unauthorized vehicle is still unclaimed 30 days after the first notice was sent, a second notice has to go out by certified mail, return receipt requested. § 168B.06, subd. 3.
When can the lot sell the car?
It depends on how the vehicle is classified, and the classifications are defined terms, not adjectives.
An abandoned vehicle under § 168B.011, subd. 2, requires two things at once: it has to have sat illegally for the stated period and it must lack vital component parts or be inoperable “such that it has no substantial potential for further use consistent with its usual functions.” A running car that was parked wrong isn’t an abandoned vehicle. A junk vehicle under subd. 3 requires all five of: three years old or older, extensively damaged, apparently inoperable, no valid current registration plate, and a fair market value equal only to the value of its scrap. An unauthorized vehicle under subd. 4 is the catch-all: subject to removal under § 168B.035 or § 168B.04, subd. 2, but neither junk nor abandoned. Most towed cars that people actually care about are unauthorized vehicles.
The waiting periods in § 168B.051 track those categories:
- Junk or abandoned vehicles — eligible for disposal or sale 15 days after notice to the owner. § 168B.051, subd. 1.
- Unauthorized vehicles, outside Minneapolis and St. Paul — eligible the earlier of 45 days after notice, or the date the registered owner voluntarily transfers title in writing to the operator. § 168B.051, subd. 2(a). That written title transfer “constitutes a waiver by the registered owner of any right, title, and interest in the vehicle.” § 168B.051, subd. 2(b). Signing the title over at the counter to stop the storage clock ends the story.
- Unauthorized vehicles impounded by Minneapolis or St. Paul — eligible 15 days after notice sent by certified mail, return receipt requested. But if, before that 15 days runs, the owner or lienholder of record delivers a written statement of intent to reclaim, sale is pushed to 45 days after the notice of taking. § 168B.051, subd. 1a.
For a Minneapolis or St. Paul client, that last provision is the most useful single line in the chapter. A short written statement, delivered to the impound lot operator, triples the time you have to come up with money, transportation, or counsel. It costs nothing and doesn’t take a lawyer.
Who keeps the money from the sale?
This is where the public/nonpublic distinction gets expensive. It’s the sharpest divide in the chapter.
Public lot or unit of government. Proceeds reimburse the government for towing, preserving, and storing the vehicle plus administrative, notice, and publication costs. “Any remainder from the proceeds of a sale shall be held for the owner of the vehicle or entitled lienholder for 90 days and then shall be deposited in the treasury of the unit of government.” § 168B.08, subd. 3. Surplus belongs to the owner, and there’s a 90-day window to claim it.
Nonpublic impound lot. No surplus accounting at all:
The operator of a nonpublic impound lot may retain any proceeds derived from a sale conducted under the authority of subdivision 1. The operator may retain all proceeds from sale of any personal belongings and contents in the vehicle that were not claimed by the owner or the owner’s agent before the sale, except that any suspected contraband or other items that likely would be subject to forfeiture in a criminal trial must be turned over to the appropriate law enforcement agency.
— Minn. Stat. § 168B.08, subd. 4
A private lot that tows a $9,000 car over a $600 bill and sells it keeps the full $9,000. That’s the statute. It’s also why the contents-retrieval right in subdivision 3 is worth more than it looks: anything left behind at sale is the lot’s to sell and keep.
The two rules run in opposite directions from the same sale, and it helps to keep them apart. Section 168B.08, subd. 4, covers what happens when the sale brings in more than the lot is owed: the lot keeps the surplus. When the sale brings in less, selling the car doesn’t necessarily end the debt. Under § 168B.087, subd. 1(a), a nonpublic lot has a deficiency claim against the registered owner for the reasonable costs of towing, storage, and inspection minus the sale proceeds. The storage piece of that claim is capped: it “may not exceed the costs of” 25 days’ storage for a junk or abandoned vehicle, and 55 days’ storage for an unauthorized vehicle outside Minneapolis and St. Paul. § 168B.087, subd. 1(b). If a deficiency demand or a collection letter bills more storage days than that, the excess isn’t recoverable under the statute. That’s a defense worth raising before you pay.
Are there tows Minnesota flatly prohibits?
Yes, on public property. Section 168B.035, subd. 3(a), bars a towing authority from towing because the vehicle displays registration validation stickers expired less than 90 days, because the vehicle is at an expired parking meter, or because the vehicle is identified in conjunction with a citation for a violation under § 169.06, subd. 10, or § 169.14, subd. 13.
Those prohibitions then yield to seventeen enumerated exceptions in paragraph (b), which include snow-emergency violations, rush-hour restricted parking, blocking a driveway, alley, or fire hydrant, bus lanes and stops during prohibited hours, parking within 30 feet of a stop sign and visually blocking it, unauthorized use of a disability space, posted temporary restricted parking, controlled-access highway right-of-way, emergency-vehicle zones, MAC property at MSP, probable cause that the vehicle is stolen or contains evidence, impoundment for safekeeping when the person in control is taken into custody, probable cause of five or more unanswered parking or traffic citations, taxicab zones, blocking egress of a lawfully parked vehicle, school zones on school days, and junk/abandoned/unauthorized vehicles subject to immediate removal.
Break that section, and there’s a statutory damages floor most people never use:
The owner or driver of a motor vehicle towed in violation of this section is entitled to recover from the towing authority the greater of $100 or two times the actual damages sustained as a result of the violation. Damages recoverable under this subdivision include but are not limited to costs of recovering the vehicle, including time spent and transportation costs.
— Minn. Stat. § 168B.035, subd. 6
Read the scope carefully. It’s narrower than the headline suggests, and this is where a lot of confusion lives. The remedy runs against a “towing authority,” which § 168B.035, subd. 1, defines as a local authority authorized by § 169.04 to enforce traffic laws and a private towing company authorized by a local authority, or an authorized MnDOT freeway service patrol employee in the eight-county metro district. And it reaches violations “of this section” — the public-property towing rules. It doesn’t create a damages remedy for a private-property tow. Section 168B.035, subd. 5, says so in so many words: “This section does not restrict the authority of the owner of private property to authorize under chapter 168B the towing of a motor vehicle unlawfully parked on the private property.”
So the chapter has two separate statutory damages provisions, and they fix different problems: § 168B.035, subd. 6, for an unlawful tow from public property, and § 168B.07, subd. 3d, for an unlawful refusal to release contents. Neither one covers a wrongful private-lot tow of the car itself. For that, you’re in common-law territory.
Does a police-ordered tow give the towing company a lien?
Usually. With one carve-out most drivers would never guess.
A person who tows and stores a motor vehicle at the request of a law enforcement officer must have a lien on the motor vehicle for the value of the towing and recovery of the vehicle and cargo, storage of the vehicle and cargo, and accident site cleanup, and must have the right to retain possession of the motor vehicle and cargo, subject to the right to retrieve contents under section 168B.07, subdivision 3, until the lien is lawfully discharged. This section does not apply to tows of vehicles parked in violation of snow emergency regulations.
— Minn. Stat. § 168B.045 (emphasis added)
Two things to notice. The lien is expressly made “subject to the right to retrieve contents under section 168B.07, subdivision 3” — the Legislature put the tow lien below the contents right in 2023 (Laws 2023, ch. 68, art. 5, § 21). The lien is on the vehicle and cargo. It doesn’t defeat the retrieval right. And a snow-emergency tow doesn’t create a § 168B.045 lien at all. Snow-emergency towing is authorized by § 168B.035, subd. 3(b)(1), but the possessory lien this section grants is switched off for it. Where a snow-emergency tow runs through a municipal impound lot, the city’s authority to collect its own fees comes from somewhere else.
Separately, § 168B.07, subd. 2, preserves garagekeeper liens: nothing in §§ 168B.01 to 168B.101 impairs a garagekeeper’s lien “or the right of a lienholder to foreclose.” A “garagekeeper” for that purpose is an operator of a parking place or establishment, a motor vehicle storage facility, or an establishment for servicing, repairing, or maintaining motor vehicles.
What if they sold the car and I never really got notice?
Then you may have a conversion claim, and whether the notice was good enough is generally a jury question. It isn’t something a lot can win on a motion by waving one returned certified letter.
In Kampsen v. County of Kandiyohi, 441 N.W.2d 103 (Minn. 1989), a sheriff’s department impounded a pickup in connection with a felony arrest and had a private towing company store it. Charges reached $491.50. The towing company sent a certified letter to the address on the impoundment slip and on the motor vehicle department records. It came back “moved — left no forward.” The company sold the truck for junk for $200 and went after the $291.50 balance. The owner sued for conversion.
The Minnesota Supreme Court started from first principles: one may be liable for conversion “when he or she without justification exercises dominion over the property inconsistent with the owner’s rights.” Id. at 105. The question was when a lawful impoundment stops being lawful. The Court held that the possessory-lien statutes and the abandoned-vehicle statutes together express a public policy, and it drew a common-law duty from them:
A review of the cases as well as examination of the notification provisions in the various statutes cited in this opinion indicate that, at a minimum, the possessor must take timely steps reasonably designed to furnish notification to the owner of the nature and amount of the possessor’s claim, the owner’s right to redeem the property being retained as security for the claim, and that failure of the owner to redeem within the allotted time will, at its expiration, result in sale to satisfy the debt.
— Kampsen, 441 N.W.2d at 106
And on who decides:
When the possessor’s duty is so defined, it clearly appears that, except in those rare circumstances when reasonable minds, as a matter of law, could only conclude the detainer has complied with the duty, the sufficiency of the notification remains for resolution by the factfinder — usually the jury.
— Kampsen, 441 N.W.2d at 106
The Court affirmed vacating summary judgment for the towing company and sent the case back for trial. It did that even though the owner’s own efforts to find his truck were, in the Court’s description, limited to driving around the sheriff’s office twice, a record the trial court had thought made the claim meritless.
Two caveats on using Kampsen. It was decided in May 1989, and the current chapter 168B notice scheme was substantially recodified in 1995. The Court expressly noted that no statute then specifically governed a police-ordered tow of this kind. And the events predated the statutory tow lien now at § 168B.045. What survives is the common-law backstop: statutory compliance is the floor, the sufficiency of actual notification is a fact question, and a possessor who sells without reasonable efforts to notify risks conversion liability. Where the sale looks less like a lien foreclosure and more like a taking, conversion and the civil-theft statute at Minn. Stat. § 604.14 are the tools. Where the car is still on the lot and the fight is about possession, replevin is the faster road.
Does an unlawful impound matter outside the civil case?
It can decide a criminal case. In State v. Gauster, 752 N.W.2d 496 (Minn. 2008), an officer stopped a driver, learned his license was revoked and the vehicle was uninsured, and had the car towed from the shoulder of a rural county road. Then he inventoried it and found contraband. The district court found the vehicle’s location created no safety hazard. Applying the four-hour tagging requirement then codified in § 168B.04, subd. 2(b)(1), and two companion provisions since repealed, the Supreme Court held:
Because of the 4-hour required waiting period, at the time of the impoundment Wagner was not authorized to impound Gauster’s vehicle, nor did he have a legitimate state interest in impounding Gauster’s vehicle, based on the vehicle’s location on the side of the road.
— Gauster, 752 N.W.2d at 505
Because the driver wasn’t arrested, never gave up control of the car, and was available and able to make his own arrangements, the Court concluded “the police had no legitimate ‘caretaking’ purpose that justified impounding Gauster’s vehicle,” and upheld the district court’s finding that “there were no circumstances then existing which justified seizure of [Gauster’s] vehicle.” Id. at 506. The evidence was suppressed.
Gauster has been cited well over a hundred times, and it’s the reason the towing statutes get litigated as often in criminal motions as in consumer cases. Two of the statutes it relied on, § 169.041, subds. 3 and 4, have since been repealed. The operative provisions now live in § 168B.035, subd. 3, and § 168B.04, subd. 2. If you’re briefing this today, run the current sections, not the ones in the 2008 opinion.
Impoundment under chapter 168B is also different from forfeiture. If the car was seized in connection with an impaired-driving offense, a different statute and a different clock apply. See our discussion of DWI vehicle forfeiture. And if the vehicle came back damaged or was sold below value, valuation follows the same principles that govern total-loss and diminished-value auto claims.
The first 72 hours: what to do, and what to calendar
- Get the contents out. If you receive any need-based benefit on the § 168B.07, subd. 3(a)(2), list, are homeless, or are eligible for legal aid, bring a photo ID plus agency documentation and demand release under subd. 3(c). Whatever your income, demand ID, prescription medicine, and durable medical equipment under subd. 3a. If they refuse, demand the written statement of reasons required by subd. 3b(b) before you leave.
- Photograph the signage at the lot you were towed from, including the approach a driver would actually see. “Properly posted” is undefined in the statute and gets measured against local ordinance.
- In Minneapolis or St. Paul, deliver a written statement of intent to reclaim to the impound lot operator inside the 15-day window. It moves the sale date to 45 days after the notice of taking. § 168B.051, subd. 1a.
- Don’t sign a title transfer to stop storage charges unless you understand that it waives all right, title, and interest in the vehicle and makes it immediately eligible for sale. § 168B.051, subd. 2.
- Keep the notice. Check it against the five content requirements in § 168B.06, subd. 1(b). A notice missing the contents-retrieval advisory in clause (5) isn’t a compliant notice.
- Calendar 12 months from the impound date if contents were denied and later sold. That’s the outside limit on the subd. 3d(d) claim, and it runs from impoundment.
- Check the storage days on any deficiency bill against the 25-day and 55-day caps in § 168B.087, subd. 1(b).
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota consumers in disputes with towing companies, impound lots, and collection agencies chasing towing and storage deficiencies. That includes claims under Minn. Stat. § 168B.07, subd. 3d, for denied contents retrieval, conversion and civil-theft claims over vehicles sold without adequate notice, replevin actions to recover a vehicle still being held, and defense of deficiency collection suits that bill storage beyond the statutory cap. If your car or your belongings are sitting behind a fence, the clocks in chapter 168B are already running. Call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 168B.011, subds. 2 (abandoned vehicle — two-part definition), 3 (junk vehicle — five elements), 4 (unauthorized vehicle), 11–12 (nonpublic and public impound lot), 13 (unit of government); § 168B.035, subd. 1 (definition of towing authority), subd. 3(a) (prohibited tows), subd. 3(b) (seventeen exceptions), subd. 4(e) (reasonable charges, quick clearance), subd. 5 (private property authority preserved), subd. 6 (greater of $100 or twice actual damages); § 168B.04, subd. 2(b)(1) (public-property waiting periods), subd. 2(b)(2)(i)–(v) (private-property waiting periods); § 168B.045 (tow lien; subject to contents retrieval; snow-emergency exclusion); § 168B.051, subds. 1 (15 days, junk/abandoned), 1a (Minneapolis and St. Paul; written statement of intent to reclaim extends to 45 days), 2 (45 days or voluntary title transfer); § 168B.06, subd. 1(a) (five-day notice excluding weekends and holidays), subd. 1(b)(1)–(5) (required contents of notice), subd. 2 (mail and publication), subd. 3 (30-day second notice for unauthorized vehicles); § 168B.07, subd. 1 (right to reclaim on payment), subd. 2 (garagekeeper liens preserved), subd. 3(a)(1) (definition of contents), subd. 3(a)(2) (relief based on need), subd. 3(b) (reasonable procedures), subd. 3(c) (unencumbered right to retrieve; refusal is a violation), subd. 3(d) (copies; return of originals), subd. 3a (ID, prescription medicine, durable medical equipment), subd. 3b (written statement of reasons for denial), subd. 3c (required posted notice text), subd. 3d(c)–(d) (injunctive relief and fees; $1,000 statutory damages; 12-month limit from impoundment), subd. 4 (waiver); § 168B.08, subd. 1 (auction or sale), subd. 3 (public sale proceeds; 90-day hold of remainder), subd. 4 (nonpublic lot retains proceeds and unclaimed contents); § 168B.087, subd. 1(a)–(b) (deficiency claim; 25-day and 55-day storage caps); § 168B.09, subd. 2 (local ordinances not less stringent); § 168B.10 (agency contracts); § 8.31, subd. 3a (private remedies; damages, costs, and attorney’s fees); § 604.14, subd. 1 (civil liability for theft); § 645.02 (effective dates; July 1 for acts with appropriation items). Session laws: Laws 2023, ch. 52, art. 19, §§ 5–9 (adding subds. 3a–3d and amending subd. 3); Laws 2023, ch. 68, art. 5, § 21 (§ 168B.045 subordinated to contents retrieval); Laws 2023, ch. 70, art. 10, § 14 (amending subd. 3(a)(2), effective March 1, 2026). Cases: Kampsen v. County of Kandiyohi, 441 N.W.2d 103, 105–06 (Minn. 1989) (conversion; common-law notification duty; sufficiency of notice is a jury question); State v. Gauster, 752 N.W.2d 496, 505–06 (Minn. 2008) (impoundment unauthorized where four-hour period had not run and no caretaking purpose existed). Chapter 168B contains no definition of “properly posted” and no cap on towing or storage rates. This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no particular outcome is promised or implied.