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Write your lien notice and print it for a yard vehicle

Write the wording of your lien notice once, with merge fields, and print it for any vehicle in the yard.

For
OwnerDispatcherService advisor
Hosting
Any hosting
Devices
All devices
Business
Towing

Checked against Pop Street Dispatch 0.1.0

Lien notices differ from state to state. Dispatch gives you a template you write yourself, with merge fields that fill in the vehicle, the owner and the charges. You print exactly the words you saved.

Check your state's rules before you send a notice. Each state sets what a notice must say, who must receive it and when it must go out. Dispatch prints your wording and keeps no legal text of its own. The business owner stays responsible for the wording and the timing.

Before you start #

The owner or a manager saves the template. Dispatchers and advisors print notices from it.

Steps #

  1. Read the template shown to you. Until you save your own, it holds a plain starting text.
  2. Write your wording. Put each merge field in braces where you want the value to appear.
  3. Include the seven required fields: owner_name, vehicle, vin, in_date, storage_total, shop_name and shop_address. A notice without them would leave out the owner, the vehicle or the amount, so saving is refused until they are present.
  4. Add any optional fields you want: plate, color, days, daily_rate, tow_number, today, shop_phone, released_to and release_date.
  5. Save the template. It applies to every notice you print from then on.
  6. Open a yard record and print the lien notice. The page shows the owner, the vehicle, the days in the yard, the charges to date and your wording with every field filled in, then a signature line and a date line.
Technical details
  • GET /tow/templates/lien-notice returns the title, the wording, whether it is still the starting text, the required and optional fields and a reminder to check your state's rules. PATCH /tow/templates/lien-notice saves it (owner and manager). GET /tow/yard/:id/lien-notice.pdf prints a notice.
  • The template lives in the tow_letters table with the kind lien_notice, one row for each business.
  • A field name missing from the lists is refused so a typing slip never prints as raw braces.
  • Storage charges to date use the yard rule: whole days, at least one, less the free days, times the daily rate. A released vehicle shows the charges frozen at release.
  • Saving and printing both add audit log entries.

If something goes wrong #

  • "The wording needs these merge fields": add each listed field in braces, for example {vin}.
  • "These merge fields do not exist": a name in braces has a typing slip. Use the names listed above.
  • The owner name shows as "Vehicle owner": the yard record has no owner name yet. Add it, then print again.