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Boat appraisals in Louisiana for donations, insurance, estate tax, and divorce, prepared in accordance with USPAP and IRS requirements. AppraiseItNow appraises fishing boats, sailboats, pontoon boats, speedboats, and houseboats across Louisiana, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport.
DEFENSIBLE, USPAP-COMPLIANT BOAT APPRAISAL REPORTS — QUALIFIED FOR THE IRS, LOUISIANA COURTS, LENDERS, INSURERS, AND MORE.
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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.
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 standardsAppraiseItNow appraises bass boats, pontoons, center consoles, sailboats, houseboats, and working shrimp and oyster boats in Louisiana for successions, divorce, insurance, donations, and lending. The registration, the survey, and the repair invoices carry most files, and an appraiser goes to the slip when a hull's condition is the thing being fought over.
Successions
A Louisiana succession carries a fair market value for the vessel as of the date of death, and that value is written backwards, from sales that closed around that date rather than today's. Heirs seldom have the paperwork in one place, so the file is usually rebuilt from the registration, the insurance declarations, and whatever the owner happened to keep.
Insurance
Where an insurer's figure and the local market disagree, actual cash value is rebuilt from comparable sales, with repairs, electronics, and a repowered engine counted rather than averaged away. An offer built on a national average can miss the local market completely, and in Louisiana the local market is the one that sets the price.
Lenders and donations
Homemade skiffs, heavily modified bay boats, and older working vessels are not in the books, so the conclusion is assembled from closed sales of similar hulls and from the boat's own build and repair record. A hull that has been lengthened, repowered, or rigged for one particular fishery is effectively unique, and the report has to say so rather than pretend a model average reaches it.
Two things separate a Louisiana boat file from a lookup in a price book. Both of them decide which sales are worth anything at all to the conclusion.
Storm history
A hull repaired after a named storm should not be marked down again for damage already put right. The repair record sets the condition the next claim is measured against. Two hulls of the same model and year can sit a long way apart on that history alone.
Salvage and rebuilds
Gulf salvage moves through auction in volume, so comparables get screened for sinking, structural repair, and corrosion before any of them reach the conclusion. Engines and yard machinery sit on our Louisiana equipment appraisal page. A rebuilt boat is not worthless, but it is not the same boat as one that never went under, and the report has to be explicit about which of the two it is valuing.
Three Louisiana rules put a number on a vessel: the appraisers a succession inventory has to use, the day a parish measures it, and the certificate that takes a working boat out of the tax altogether.
Successions
Two appraisers
sworn in by the notary for a public inventory
When a court orders an inventory of succession property, the notary takes it in the presence of at least two competent witnesses and is assisted by two competent appraisers appointed and sworn by the notary. Neither the witnesses nor the appraisers need live in the parish. The notary's proces verbal then has to describe each item and give the fair market value the appraisers estimated, and close with a recapitulation of the aggregate value of all movable property, which is where a boat lands.
Parish assessment
January 1
the day that fixes where a vessel is taxed
Watercraft other than those employed in interstate commerce are valued and assessed by parish assessors, taxed where they sit on January 1, and fair market value is the standard. The assessor estimates that value using the cost figures an owner reports on LAT Form 11, the watercraft reporting form, which makes reported cost the starting point any market opinion has to be measured against.
Commercial fishing
50% of income
the threshold for a vessel exemption certificate
A Louisiana resident who holds the necessary commercial fishing licenses, owns a vessel operated primarily for commercial fishing, and whose catch is for human consumption is exempt from sales, use, lease, and services taxes on the vessel and on its repairs, supplies, and fuel. The certificate is issued for one named vessel at a time and requires a notarized statement that the owner derives, or intends to derive, not less than fifty percent of income from commercial fishing. Holding a fishing license on its own does not settle the question.
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 love the online appraisal format to give me a good idea of what my boat is worth without showing the boat. The appraisal fee is more than reasonable, and I love your professional service!
Boat Appraisal for Charitable Donation
We recently used AppraiseItNow for one of our clients and couldn’t be happier with the experience. The customer service was excellent, and Joe was quick to respond to all of our questions. He provided everything we needed promptly and made the process smooth from start to finish. Thank you!
Boat Appraisal for Insurance Coverage
AppraiseItNow delivered a fair, well-supported appraisal that met all required standards. Their team was professional, responsive, and fast throughout the process. I would gladly use them again.
Boat Appraisal for Charitable Donation
AppraiseItNow helped us appraise a very unique set of propulsion boats. Service was top notch and provided incredible value for the cost!
Boat Appraisal for Loan Collateral
AppraiseItNow was excellent to work with. They delivered exactly what I needed and were incredibly responsive throughout the process. I’d definitely recommend them!
Boat Appraisal for Insurance Claim
Very straightforward and efficient way to gain a quality certified boat appraisal. I will suggest AppraiseItNow to all my boating friends!
Boat Appraisal for Loan Collateral
Given the USPAP-compliant nature of AppraiseItNow’s appraisal reports, we prepare our deliverables for major legal, tax, and financial reporting purposes for individual and commercial clients.
Popular uses of our appraisal reports include:
The three standard references are the J.D. Power (formerly NADA) Marine guide, the ABOS Marine Blue Book from Price Digests, and sold-boat data such as BoatWizard's SoldBoats database. We treat these as starting points and confirm against documented sales of comparable vessels before concluding a value.
Engine hours, condition, equipment, upgrades, location, and usage history. Appraisers research recent sales of similar make, model, and year vessels through broker databases and auction records, then adjust for those differences, which is why two outwardly identical hulls can appraise thousands of dollars apart.
Yes, vessels belong on the succession's inventory or descriptive list along with the estate's other property. A supporting appraisal gives the succession representative a defensible fair market value to sign off on, which matters because Louisiana uses these filed lists rather than a probate referee system.
Yes. Effective July 1, 2025, Act 11 caps combined state and local sales and use tax at $20,000 on a boat that will be registered in Louisiana, provided the tax is paid within 90 days of purchase, with credit for tax properly paid elsewhere. The cap was adopted to keep high-value vessel transactions competitive with neighboring boating states.
Proof that sales or use tax has been paid, certified on Form R-1331, before the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries will issue a registration certificate. For a vessel brought into Louisiana, the tax is computed on the lower of the boat’s original cost or its fair market value when it entered the state, which makes a documented valuation directly relevant to registration.
