When a Relative's Parked Car Blocks Your Only Exit
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Reviewed & verified by A. Jason Velez, Esq.*
Managing Attorney, 1LAW · Last reviewed January 1, 2026
Legal Inquiry
Consumer Legal Issue
Our driveway only has enough room for one car to pass and my grandma parked behind me and won’t move.
Attorney Answer
Do not have her car towed — that is the one step here that could actually cost you money.
The statute people reach for in this situation is MCL 257.252a, and it is not what they think it is. It is Michigan's abandoned-vehicle procedure. It allows a private property owner to have a vehicle taken into custody as abandoned by contacting a local towing agency, after which the police agency and the Secretary of State must give the titled owner and any secured party statutory notice — including redemption rights, the right to contest, and a warning that the vehicle may be sold after the statutory period. That machinery exists for cars that have been dumped and left.
A relative's car parked behind yours for an afternoon is very unlikely to meet the statutory definition of an abandoned vehicle. Towing a vehicle that does not qualify can leave you responsible for the tow, the storage fees, and any damage done in the process — which is exactly backwards from the outcome you are looking for.
There is also no law that makes the police move a family member's car out of a private driveway. On private property, in a family parking dispute, officers generally will not tow or ticket. This is a family problem with a legal shell around it, and the practical fixes are better than the legal ones.
What you can do
1. Ask her directly, and then ask for a spare key or agree on a place the keys are kept, so either of you can move the other's car. 2. If she will not move it and you have to be at work, get there another way — a ride, a rideshare, transit. Being late is cheaper than a tow bill or a family lawsuit. 3. Change the parking order going forward. Agree on who parks where, or park so you are not the one who gets blocked in. 4. If she does not live at the property and refuses to leave, you can ask her to leave; a repeated pattern by someone with no right to be there is a trespass conversation with the police, not a towing question. 5. If the driveway is shared with a neighbor under a deed or recorded easement, get the deed. Repeated blocking of an easement is something a lawyer can act on — but that is a lawsuit, not a same-morning fix. 6. Before you ever call a tow truck for a car on your own property, call the police non-emergency line and ask whether that vehicle qualifies as abandoned. Get the answer before the truck is dispatched, not after.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What if this keeps happening every week?
A pattern changes what is worth doing, but it does not turn her car into an abandoned vehicle. If she lives there, this is a household rules problem. If she does not, and she has been asked not to park there, the police can address a repeated trespass — that is a different conversation from towing.
Can I call the police to have her ticketed for blocking me in?
Generally no. Parking enforcement addresses public streets and posted restrictions, and the driveway of a private residence is not that. Officers who respond to a family parking dispute on private property usually document it and leave.
What actually counts as an abandoned vehicle?
It is a statutory definition tied to a vehicle being left for a period without the owner's evident intention to retrieve it, and the procedure that follows involves notice from the police agency and the Secretary of State to the titled owner. A relative's car that she plainly intends to drive away is not that, which is why the abandoned-vehicle statute is the wrong tool for a short-term blocking.
