Is this legal for them to tow our car even if the property manager asked them not to?

On October 15, my wife got home late at around 8:30 pm. She asked me to go down after we ate supper and get the rest her of shopping bags from her car. At about 9 pm, I went down to find her car being hooked up to a tow truck. The driver said the property manager at our apartment said we didn't have our parking permit. I opened the car down and it had fallen onto the floor board. The driver said too bad we will have to get the car out of impound now. We contacted the property manager and explained the tag had fallen from the rear view mirror and she told the tow truck driver to un-hook our car. He refused and said the longer we hold him up the more it will cost us. In the end it cost us over $500 dollars to get the car back.