Georgetown County Vehicle Impound Guide

Georgetown County has no central impound lot. The Highway Patrol and county Sheriff's deputies dispatch through a blind rotating wrecker rotation, so a vehicle towed after a DUI arrest could end up at any of several yards along the Highway 17 corridor or in Georgetown itself. 888 Tows LLC, at 4724 Highway 17 in Murrells Inlet, is one representative participant in that rotation. The arresting agency is required to give the registered owner the vehicle's location within two business days of the tow, so the fastest way to find a car is to call the arresting agency directly rather than guessing at lots.

Getting the car back runs into a problem before it even reaches the gate: a DUI arrest under implied consent usually means the driver's license was confiscated on the spot, and most lots want a government photo ID plus proof of ownership before releasing a vehicle. A passenger, spouse, or family member with a valid license and the title or registration can retrieve it instead — the owner doesn't have to be present in person, but someone with proper ID does.

Timing matters more than the posted hours suggest. Many of these rotational lots run with limited staff and lock the gate at lunch, so arriving between 9 and 11 a.m. avoids the worst of it. The listed hours might run to 5 p.m., but the actual release process, verifying the DMV record, taking payment, walking the vehicle out, takes real time, and showing up after 4 p.m. routinely gets pushed to the next business day, adding another full day of storage charges.

If someone other than the registered owner is retrieving the vehicle, the lot needs an original, notarized letter of authorization. A faxed copy, an email, or a photo of the letter gets rejected — it has to be the physical original, paired with the authorized person's own valid ID.

There's a 10-day window from the vehicle's redemption date, not the date of the tow itself, to request a hearing disputing the tow or its charges. That request goes to the Georgetown County Magistrate Court with jurisdiction over where the arrest happened, and the filing fee runs $35 to $40.

One provision worth knowing: under South Carolina Senate Bill 535, a tow company that fails to notify the vehicle owner and any lienholders by certified mail within the statutory window forfeits its right to collect storage fees altogether. Special recovery work, like winching a vehicle out of a roadside ditch, has to be itemized separately on the bill; folding it into the standard flat rate isn't allowed.