Henderson County Vehicle Impound Guide

A vehicle towed under evidentiary seizure in Henderson County eventually gets auctioned through an out-of-state platform, not a local sale, and the proceeds flow directly to the Henderson County Board of Public Education. It's a detail that surprises a lot of people: the financial consequence of losing a seized car in a habitual or high-level DWI case ultimately helps fund local schools, a direct statutory line from asset forfeiture to education funding.

For a standard non-evidentiary tow, the primary lot is A Plus Towing on Pats Place in Hendersonville, though the Sheriff's Office and Hendersonville Police Department both rotate through several other approved companies depending on who responded to the arrest, so the first step is always calling the specific arresting agency to find out which company actually has the car. Storage fees are calculated strictly by calendar day rather than a rolling 24-hour cycle, meaning a car towed at 11:30 p.m. Friday and picked up at 8 a.m. Saturday gets billed for two full days despite sitting in the lot less than nine hours. Arriving after 5 p.m. on top of that triggers an automatic after-hours gate fee. Lunch hours thin out staff too, so timing a release attempt for mid-morning or mid-afternoon, rather than right around noon, avoids an unnecessary wait.

Release requires original documents only, a valid photo ID, original registration, original proof of insurance, and original proof of ownership; photocopies get rejected outright. The genuinely cruel part is that a DWI arrest means an officer has already seized the physical driver's license under the state's civil revocation statute, and the vehicle's registration and insurance paperwork are frequently locked inside the glove compartment of the very car sitting in the impound lot. Getting a secondary photo ID, a passport or permanent resident card, ready immediately upon release from jail is often the only practical way around that particular catch-22.

If the vehicle was towed for straightforward safekeeping rather than seized as evidence, payment alone secures its release. But in a habitual DWI case, a fatality, or a collision involving serious injury, the vehicle gets formally seized as evidence, and the towing company is legally barred from releasing it without a signed court order, regardless of payment. A dismissed charge doesn't automatically trigger release either, a specific Order for Release of Evidence has to be signed by a judge, followed by a scheduled appointment with the Sheriff's Evidence and Property Unit to actually authorize the wrecker to let the car go.

For tows from private property rather than a public roadway, Hendersonville's Non-Consensual Towing Ordinance, in effect since November 2023, offers real protection: towing companies have to answer or return a call within 15 minutes and make the vehicle available within 30 minutes of that contact, must let an owner retrieve personal belongings without paying first if they can't afford the tow fee, and are required to accept cash, debit, and at least two major credit cards, eliminating the cash-only trap entirely for this category of tow.