The envelope in your mailbox is the reclaim clock, not a parking ticket. An impound notice is the overnight letter that names your car, the storage yard, and a 20-day window to get it back. In Memphis it usually follows a police tow to Klinke Avenue or a private-property tow off an apartment lot in Hickory Hill, Midtown, or East Memphis.
Confirm which lot sent the notice
Read the letterhead and storage address before you drive. The lot on the notice is the lot that has the car. Quick Tow Memphis doesn’t mail these letters and doesn’t hold vehicles.
Police tows in the city run through one place. Memphis Police, Shelby County Sheriff, and Housing and Community Development tows all process at the MPD Vehicle Storage Lot at 465 Klinke Avenue, Memphis, TN 38127. It’s open seven days, 24 hours. The phone is (901) 636-8200. There’s no online lookup. If the notice names Klinke Avenue, call that line and match the plate or VIN before you go.
For a private-lot tow, call the company on the letterhead for the storage street and whether the car is actually there. An apartment in Hickory Hill, a paid deck downtown, or a center off Poplar will list a different yard, not Klinke.
If no letter has shown up yet, don’t wait on the mailbox. Tennessee requires a one-hour report to the law-enforcement agency with jurisdiction when the owner isn’t present at the tow. For a city police tow, start with (901) 636-8200 and use our guide to finding a towed car in Memphis. A statewide motor-vehicle portal is written into current law, but it isn’t confirmed as live, so the phone remains the working check.
A tow that started in Southaven or West Memphis isn’t a Tennessee notice. Southaven Police non-emergency is (662) 393-8652. Southaven publishes no impound-lot page, so call to locate the car.
A windshield sticker isn’t this letter. A landlord may post a 10-day written notice on an unauthorized vehicle, or remove it at once if it violates a posted permit-parking policy. That’s a pre-tow warning. The impound notice is the overnight mailing after the car is already in storage.
What the notice is supposed to tell you
Tennessee’s current towing law, re-enacted in 2025 Public Chapter 457, sets what the letter must carry. The garagekeeper has three business days to verify ownership, then three more business days to notify the owner and every lienholder. That notice travels by a nationally recognized overnight carrier, not the U.S. Postal Service, with proof of delivery requested.
The letter has to carry the year, make, model, and VIN. It has to name the storage facility’s location. It has to state the right to reclaim the vehicle within 20 days of the notice date, on payment. A garagekeeper that skips the three-day ownership check or the three-day notice may collect no more than six days of storage-related expenses. A notice violation is a Class B misdemeanor.
Treat the date on the notice as the start of the reclaim window, not the date of the tow. If your copy arrived in ordinary first-class mail, still call the facility and confirm they have the car. Ask them to read back the VIN, the storage address, and the notice date they used.
The letter isn’t a bill by itself, and it isn’t a court summons. Your rights after a Memphis tow sit alongside it: written authorization for the tow and for storage, the one-hour report, and the city’s wrecker-complaint path. Those rules don’t replace the 20-day clock. Lienholders should get the same overnight packet, so call the lender the day the letter arrives.
How a notice differs from a police hold
An impound notice tells you where the car is and how long you have to reclaim it. A police hold means law enforcement has frozen release. You can hold a valid notice and still be turned away at the gate.
Criminal-investigation holds on city tows run through the same Klinke Avenue lot. Call (901) 636-8200 and ask about hold status before you drive north with cash and a title. Paying the city’s impound fee doesn’t lift a hold. Storage can still accrue while a hold is on. No storage fee is due for a day the vehicle wasn’t available for release, unless law enforcement placed that hold.
A hold is an agency problem. Only the investigating unit clears it. The storage lot can’t override MPD on a criminal hold. Don’t mix the two clocks. The 20-day window is about auction risk after notice. A hold is about whether the lot may release the car at all. If the clerk says there’s a hold, get the case or report number from the lot phone before you travel.
Quick Tow Memphis matches callers with local operators. We don’t clear holds and we don’t run the city lot.
What to do before the reclaim window runs
You have 20 days from the notice date to reclaim the vehicle by paying what is owed. After that window, unreclaimed cars go to public auction. The buyer takes title free and clear of liens and ownership claims. Surplus sale money is held for 60 days from the sale date, then it goes to a special fund.
A garagekeeper may not charge storage past 21 days without the owner’s or lienholder’s consent, unless you were told the car was ready and you refused to collect it. To charge past 21 days, they must notify the owner and all lienholders at least 10 days before that extra fee starts. Ask the lot for the notice date and the daily storage start date.
Call the facility on the notice. Confirm the car is there, ask about a hold, and get the balance through today. Then follow what to bring for a Memphis impound release. The city lot wants proof of ownership, the plate or VIN, valid photo ID, and a licensed driver, or a tow for an added fee. Non-owners need a notarized owner statement and a copy of the owner’s ID. A rental needs the rental agreement and matching ID.
If the car can’t be driven, arrange the onward tow before you arrive. Personal property and cargo not physically attached to the vehicle must be released to the owner or designee on request at a Memphis impound, unless MPD orders otherwise. Don’t count on pulling items at the original tow scene as a confirmed legal right.
Where to verify fees and documents
At the city lot, the published charges are the city’s, not a referral company’s. The impound fee is $135.00. Storage is $30.00 per day. Winching and other extras sit on top of that. Confirm the running total at (901) 636-8200 the day you go. Cash and credit are accepted.
Tennessee doesn’t set one statewide dollar cap on the tow itself. A garagekeeper may not charge more than the maximum fee approved by the Tennessee Highway Patrol district for the same service. Two statewide limits apply when the car was towed or stored without your written authorization: a release fee above $100 is prohibited, and no gate, access, or release fee may be charged during normal business hours on a day daily storage is also charged. The Memphis-district THP rate sheet wasn’t confirmed for this page, so don’t treat any private-yard figure as a published city rate. Ask that yard for the full total with mileage and storage included before you agree to pay.
If you think the notice is wrong, or the yard skipped overnight delivery, say so on the call and ask for the proof-of-delivery number. Keep the envelope. Memphis wrecker complaints go to the Permits Administrator / Wrecker Coordinator at (901) 636-6735 or permits@memphistn.gov. That path is municipal. It isn’t a statewide administrative hearing.
Bring the documents the lot named. If a VIN on the notice doesn’t match your title, sort it with the lot before you travel.
When to call us
Call a working tow operator when the lot will release the car but it can’t be driven off, or when the truck is still at the original parking spot and a release fee will get it dropped. Quick Tow Memphis is a referral line that matches you with a local operator, and the line takes calls 24/7. Call us at (901) 557-8700.