Connecticut lawmakers on Wednesday approved more reforms aimed at reining in towing companies in the state, following reporting by The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica that exposed problems in state law.
The Connecticut Senate passed a bill that would create an online portal so Connecticut drivers can track their towed cars and require towing companies to consider the age of towed vehicles before they’re sold.
Last year, the legislature overhauled the state’s towing laws to end a practice in which towing companies could start the process to sell people’s cars in as little as 15 days if the firm deemed the car to be worth less than $1,500. The window was one of the shortest in the country, CT Mirror and ProPublica found, and meant many people who couldn’t afford to quickly pay the towing fees lost their cars.
The 2025 reform law required 30 days to pass before cars could be sold, and it ordered towing companies to accept credit cards, let people retrieve their belongings from towed cars, and warn owners before towing cars from private property over minor issues.
But CT Mirror and ProPublica continued to hear from residents who said they never received notice that their cars would be sold because their address on file was outdated or because their vehicle was still registered to someone else. The news organizations also performed an analysis that found that many towing companies valued vehicles much lower than their estimated retail values, allowing them to sell the vehicles more quickly.
The Connecticut Senate sought to fix both those issues with the latest bill, in part with the creation of the portal. The legislation, Senate Bill 413, would put new limits on which cars can be sold quickly: Towing companies could only sell vehicles after 30 days if they are at least 15 years old.
The new bill breezed through the Senate, 35-1. The House is expected to vote on it in the next few days.
“There are bad actors,” said Transportation Committee Co-Chair Sen. Christine Cohen, D-Guilford. “We have read about it in the press. It’s what prompted us to take action and really kind of take a look at our towing statutes on the whole.”
She said that legislators wanted to find language that strikes “that necessary balance between protecting consumers from predatory behavior but also supporting the many reputable small businesses that provide these essential services to our communities.”
The bill received bipartisan support. Committee ranking member Sen. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield, urged members to support the measure. He said it builds on last year’s work, which he called “remarkable landmark legislation.”
The measures came partly from a working group created by last year’s towing reform law that spent the past several months studying towing policy and making recommendations.
The working group, composed of towing companies, consumer rights advocates and Department of Motor Vehicles officials, struggled to come to a consensus on policy changes. DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera, who chaired the working group, ultimately issued recommendations that didn’t have support from everyone on the panel.
The new bill would create an advisory council to keep studying towing policies and how owners get their vehicles back. The council would also monitor the portal, which would be set up by the state DMV and allow owners to see where their vehicles have been towed and whether they are up for sale.
The bill also addressed towing fees. Towing companies have frequently complained that the fees they are allowed to charge are too low. The bill says fee rates should be set every three years and that those changes must be based on government measures of inflation.
Guerrera said the portal will make his agency more transparent and will help consumers find their vehicles more quickly.
“You have to be accountable and take things head-on,” Guerrera said. “This portal that we will get running as soon as possible will allow someone to go online and — even without all their information — find where their car is.”
But consumer advocate Raphael Podolsky, who served on the working group, said the portal will mostly help towing companies do away with paperwork and make the system easier for the DMV to monitor. He warned that some drivers might not be able to access the system.
“First of all, everybody doesn’t have a computer, and second of all, everybody who does have a computer would not know to go to a DMV portal, and third, not everybody has internet access, even if they have a computer,” Podolsky said.
Sal Sena, president of the industry association Towing & Recovery Professionals of Connecticut, said he thinks the portal will “make it easier for everyone” and that the state is “on the right track.”
