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Town guide · Massachusetts

Danvers: selling a junk car, or one stuck at a tow lot

A car towed in Danvers and never picked up can end up sold by the garage holding it. Massachusetts law lets a garage give notice once a car has sat unclaimed for 60 days, then sell it 21 days after that. Storage keeps adding up the whole time. If the car isn't worth the bill, we buy whole non-running and junk cars. You sell the whole car as it sits, and pickup is free anywhere in the US.

Updated · 10 sources

Danvers Town Hall, a white Greek Revival building hung with red, white and blue bunting, behind flowering dogwoods and shrubs
Photo: Elizabeth B. Thomsen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Danvers, the short version

Population
29,211 (Census estimate, July 1, 2025)
County
Essex
Land area
13.279 square miles
Town junk-car bylaw
Not found online; state law used here
Police-ordered tow storage cap
$35 a day in a secure lot
Unclaimed car at a garage
Notice after 60 days, sale possible 21 days later
Plates
Stay with the seller

Storage after a police tow

When Danvers police order a passenger car towed, chapter 159B, section 6B sets the storage ceiling. A secure, lit, fenced lot may charge $35 a day, and a plainer lot gets half that. The storage facility holds a lien for those charges.

How a garage gets to sell it

Chapter 255, section 39A lays out the garage's path:

  1. The first step is a registered-mail letter with a return receipt to the registered owner, listing the storage rates.
  2. Sixty days after the car came in, still unclaimed, the garage may serve notice of a sale.
  3. Twenty-one days beyond that, a public or private sale may follow, but only after a notice "published three successive weeks" in a local paper and 5 days' warning to the chief of police.
  4. The garage's bill is paid first out of the sale. Any surplus from a Danvers garage sale is paid to the registered owner, or else to the clerk of the district court.

Selling before step 3 keeps the choice yours. Our towed or impounded guide has more.

Towed from a lot

Under Chapter 266, section 120D, a car may be towed off private property only if police were told and the person running the place had given the driver "direct or posted notice" not to park. Violations carry fines that can reach $100. For removal questions, the Registry's law page points people to local police.

Danvers bylaws

Danvers bylaws did not turn up online, so the rule here is the state's, and local rules may exist too. Chapter 90, section 22C applies to a Danvers car that looks abandoned after sitting "more than 72 hours" on land without the owner's say-so, when scrapping it would run above the car's value.

Paperwork for the sale

On a Danvers title the seller fills in the odometer miles first. Both people then sign, print their names and add the date. The Registry's steps call for no notary, and a bill of sale shows the price when the title has no line for it. Chapter 90D frees a seller from liability for later use once the signed assignment and the car change hands.

Next, cancel online so excise ends, and send your insurer the receipt. You keep the plates. In Danvers, the plates go to recycling, get cut in two, or move onto your next vehicle inside 7 calendar days.

Near Danvers

Straight-line miles: Peabody 2.9, Beverly 5.5, Salem 5.8, Lynn 6.9. Statewide rules live on the Massachusetts page.

Getting an offer

Give us the model year, make, model, odometer, running condition and title status at (877) 421-6008 or online. If a tow yard or repair shop holds the car, name it; our truck can go there or to your home.

Questions people ask

What is the most a Danvers tow yard may charge per day to store my car?
If Danvers police have a passenger car towed, state law limits the lot to $35 a day at a fenced, lit, secure yard, and half of that at any other yard. Until it is paid, the yard holds a lien on the car.
Could a Danvers garage end up selling my car?
Yes, by following the statute. A Danvers garage can send notice once a car goes sixty days unclaimed. Danvers garages wait 21 days to sell. Before that, a paper prints the ad for three weeks in a row, and the chief of police hears 5 days in advance. It keeps its charges from the sale and any surplus goes to the registered owner.
May a Danvers business tow me out of its parking lot?
In Danvers that takes two things: police get told, and the property manager warned you off in person or with a posted sign. Danvers towers who haul a car with no owner consent and no word to police risk a fine as high as $100.

Sources

Every fact on this page comes from one of these. Checked October 11, 2026.

  1. U.S. Census Bureau, city and town population estimates 2020-2025 www2.census.gov
  2. U.S. Census Bureau, 2025 Gazetteer (county subdivisions) www2.census.gov
  3. M.G.L. c. 159B s. 6B, storage charges on police-ordered tows malegislature.gov
  4. M.G.L. c. 255 s. 39A, garage keepers' liens and sale malegislature.gov
  5. M.G.L. c. 266 s. 120D, removal of vehicles from private property malegislature.gov
  6. M.G.L. c. 90 s. 22C, abandoned vehicles malegislature.gov
  7. Mass.gov: Massachusetts law about automobiles mass.gov
  8. Mass.gov: Registration and title for a vehicle bought from an individual mass.gov
  9. Mass.gov: Cancel your vehicle registration and plates mass.gov
  10. Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles mass.gov