Kerr County Vehicle Impound Guide

Kerr County's heavy tourist traffic changes the impound math for anyone from out of state. A storage lot can only charge past the first five days if it sends a written notice to the registered owner, and for an out-of-state vehicle, that means requesting the motor vehicle record from the home state within five days of the tow. Skip that step and the facility loses the right to keep billing beyond the initial five-day window — worth knowing if you're a summer visitor whose car got towed on the Guadalupe.

Finding the vehicle

There's no single county lot. A rotation system spreads non-consent tows across licensed operators, with names like JDS Wrecker Service, Integrity Towing, Jimmy's Towing Service, and Fat Boy Towing all handling calls depending on who's up in the queue when the arrest happens. Call whichever agency made the arrest, Kerrville PD or the Sheriff's Office, with the plate or VIN, and dispatch can tell you which lot has it. Integrity Towing specifically requires an hour's advance notice before it will process a release.

The fee structure

State caps apply: $272 for a light-duty tow, $22.85 a day for storage, and a one-time $50 notification fee. A car towed at 11 p.m. and picked up by 9 a.m. is only 10 hours on the lot, and Texas law caps that at one day's storage even though it crosses midnight into a second calendar date — show up by 11 a.m. the next morning and you're still under the 12-hour line; wait until noon and the second day's charge kicks in legally.

Rules the lot has to follow, whether it wants to or not

A VSF has to accept at least one electronic payment method, and if the card reader is actually broken, storage fees stop accruing from the moment you tried to pay electronically, not when the machine eventually gets fixed. It cannot demand proof of insurance before releasing the car, full stop, regardless of what the attendant says. And it has to let you into the vehicle to grab personal belongings or documents, like a registration in the glovebox, without charging anything, even before any fees are paid.

What counts as proof you can take the car

Beyond a photo ID, valid documents include a notarized power of attorney (out-of-state notarization counts), a certificate of title even if the name on it doesn't match the person presenting it as long as they physically have the original, a tax collector's receipt with a current registration renewal card, or a lease or rental agreement in the driver's name. A Mexican consular ID or foreign passport is explicitly valid identification too.

Challenging the tow

If you think the stop or the tow itself lacked probable cause, the VSF has to hand you a written notice of your Chapter 2308 rights on release, listing every Justice of the Peace in the county. File in the precinct where the tow happened; the deadline and process run through that JP court.