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DEFENSIBLE, USPAP-COMPLIANT AUTO APPRAISAL REPORTS — QUALIFIED FOR THE IRS, AUDITORS, AND THE COURTS.
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Owner & CEO
Joe founded AppraiseItNow to make a certified, USPAP-compliant appraisal as simple to order as anything else online. A former Bain & Company strategy consultant, Joe leads the entire team and specializes in strategy, growth, and the firm's tech capabilities.
Machinery & Equipment Appraiser
Third-generation auctioneer and CAGA Certified Appraiser with more than 20 years valuing machinery, equipment, vehicles, business assets, and estates for banks, attorneys, and trustees across the Carolinas.
Vehicle Appraiser
CAGA Certified Appraiser since 2014, covering vehicles, boats, equipment, fine art, and collectibles. A classic-car restoration background informs her vehicle work, with reports prepared for insurance, divorce, and charitable contributions.
Client Success Manager
Manages each engagement from the first enquiry to the delivered report, and keeps you posted at every step along the way.
Certified Appraisers Guild of AmericaCertified Appraiser
The Appraisal FoundationAuthorized by Congress as the source of appraisal standardsThis is the standard people mean when they say a bankruptcy car is valued at replacement value, and it is narrower than it sounds: personal property, securing an allowed claim, an individual debtor, Chapter 7 or Chapter 13. Inside those limits it is precise, and getting it wrong is the most common reason a scheduled collateral value is challenged.
The three figures
Retail is what a merchant would charge a buyer. Trade-in is what a dealer would allow to acquire the car. Private party sits between them. The statute names the first, and a secured claim built on either of the others understates the collateral by a margin a lender will notice.
No sale costs
Replacement value under § 506(a)(2) is taken without deduction for the costs of sale or marketing, which is what separates it from a liquidation figure and from what a trustee would net on an actual sale. It is deliberately the higher measure, and the report says so on its face.
Local presumptions
A number of districts work from a starting presumption, such as a midpoint between published wholesale and retail figures. A presumption is a default in the absence of evidence. An appraisal with named comparables and documented condition is the evidence that displaces it.
Debtors and their counsel often ask for one number for the car. The Code asks four questions about it, each with its own standard, and a report that answers one of them is not evidence on the others. We settle which question is live before the analysis starts.
The secured claim
This is the figure behind a Chapter 7 redemption, where the debtor keeps the car by paying the allowed secured claim in a lump sum, and behind the secured balance a Chapter 13 plan has to pay. Where the loan is well above the car's replacement value, the gap between the two is the whole benefit.
The exemption
Section 522 defines value for exemption purposes as fair market value as of the petition date, which is a different measure from the replacement figure the lender's claim takes. This is the number that sits against the motor vehicle exemption cap and, with the lien deducted, tells the trustee whether there is equity worth pursuing.
Chapter 11 and surrendered collateral
Outside an individual Chapter 7 or 13, and wherever the collateral is being given back rather than kept, the Code asks what the property is worth given the purpose of the valuation and what is actually going to happen to it. That is the ground the Supreme Court covered in Rash, and it is why a surrender case and a retention case do not take the same number.
The 910-day rule
A Chapter 13 plan can generally reduce a secured claim to the value of the collateral. Not on a purchase-money security interest in a motor vehicle acquired for the debtor's personal use within 910 days of filing: § 506 does not apply to that claim, so it cannot be bifurcated whatever the car is worth. The purchase date decides whether a valuation is worth commissioning.
Most cars on a schedule need no appraisal at all: an ordinary late-model vehicle has a published market anyone can read. These are the ones that do.
Where the guide struggles
A guide value assumes a standard car in standard condition. The further a vehicle sits from that assumption, the further the guide sits from the truth, in either direction.
Where the arithmetic is contested
A lender facing a cramdown, a trustee weighing an equity sale, and a debtor near an exemption ceiling all want the number to move, and they are not all arguing about the same number. That is exactly where a documented figure on a named standard earns its place.
What clients say we are known for
Across 80+ published AppraiseItNow reviews the picture is consistent: every one is from a client who paid us for an appraisal, and the three things they raise most often are that they would hire us again, how quickly we answer, and how much research is visible in the report.
I was in dire need of an appraisal for my father's mobile home, which he needed for Medicaid approval. I couldn’t find anyone to do it for a long time, but then I found this company online and decided to give them a try. I’m so glad I did. They were wonderful to work with. I sent the pictures, and within just a few days I received the appraisal. They are absolutely worth the money.
Mobile Home Appraisal
From the start they were very responsive, price competitive, and had a quick turn around time. Thank you so much to Joe who was very sweet in responding to my emails; I am looking forward to utilizing AppraiseItNow for many years to come.
Very thorough and professional — great communication and outstanding service. Highly impressed with their work!
Both, for different purposes in the same case. Where the vehicle secures an allowed claim and the debtor is an individual in Chapter 7 or Chapter 13, 11 U.S.C. § 506(a)(2) sets the lender's collateral at replacement value as of the petition date, with no deduction for costs of sale. The exemption is governed by § 522(a)(2), which defines value as fair market value as of the petition date. Anyone quoting a single standard for the whole case is quoting one of the two.
Not for the lender's collateral. Section 506(a)(2) asks what a retail merchant would charge, not what a dealer would pay to acquire the car, and only for property acquired for personal, family, or household purposes. Some districts soften the gap with a local presumption, such as a midpoint between published wholesale and retail figures, but a presumption only holds where neither side puts evidence in front of it.
No. Most are completed from photographs, the VIN, service and repair records, and a vehicle history report, which is usually enough to document the condition a value adjustment rests on. An onsite inspection earns its place where mechanical condition is the disputed point, where the vehicle is a collector car, or where the amount in issue justifies it.
Often, yes. Where a creditor holds a purchase-money security interest in a motor vehicle the debtor acquired for personal use within 910 days before filing, § 506 does not apply to that claim in a Chapter 13, so the claim cannot be reduced to the value of the car and a cramdown valuation has nothing to do. Check the purchase date before commissioning an appraisal for that purpose. The exemption analysis still needs a fair market value.
