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Boat appraisals in Texas for donations, insurance, estate tax, and divorce, prepared in accordance with USPAP and IRS requirements. AppraiseItNow appraises sailboats, motorboats, yachts, fishing boats, and personal watercraft across Texas, including Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.
DEFENSIBLE, USPAP-COMPLIANT BOAT APPRAISAL REPORTS — QUALIFIED FOR THE IRS, TEXAS 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 center consoles, cruisers, sailboats, bass boats, pontoons and personal watercraft in Texas for divorce, probate, charitable gifts, lending and disputed loss claims. The premise is fixed first: what a vessel would sell for, what it would cost to put back, or what it was worth the moment before the damage.
Divorce and probate
A marital estate and a probate inventory each turn on one effective date, and it is rarely the date anybody asks the question. We fix it at the start and confine the research to sales that closed near it.
Loss claims
Storm, grounding and fire claims all come back to the condition the vessel was in beforehand. Repairs already paid for and equipment already fitted belong in that figure, and those are exactly the items a desk review tends to leave out.
Lending and gifts
Custom hulls, repowered workboats and older production vessels sit outside the marine guides altogether. Their worth comes out of the build record, the repair history and whatever genuinely similar boats have actually sold for, which sometimes means looking at a handful of sales across several states and adjusting each one back.
A hull on the coast and a hull on a reservoir meet different buyers, different seasons and different costs to move. The search widens past the state line when it has to, then adjusts back for transport and for what local demand will carry.
Coastal vessels
Corrosion, blister history and the state of the running gear decide where an offshore boat lands inside a wide range. Survey findings and yard invoices are what support that placement when somebody disputes it.
Inland and trailered
Bass boats, pontoons and ski boats trade quickly and close to home. The hours on the engine, the trailer that comes with the boat and the season it changes hands in each move the figure further than the model year does.
Three Texas rules sit around a vessel regardless of what it is worth: when the tax falls due, where it stops, and what happens when the title cannot be found.
Deadline
45 working days
is what Texas allows to pay use tax on a boat brought into the state
Boat and boat motor use tax falls due within 45 working days after the vessel is delivered to the purchaser or brought into Texas to be used here. A new resident bringing a boat in pays a $15 new resident tax instead of the 6.25 percent use tax. Taxable value takes in accessories attached at or before the sale and transportation costs incurred before it, so the figure the state taxes and the figure a buyer thinks they paid are not always the same.
Ceiling
$18,750
is the most Texas will charge in tax on one taxable boat
The rate is 6.25 percent of taxable value, and since House Bill 4032 took effect on 1 September 2019 the tax imposed on the sale of a taxable boat or motor may not exceed $18,750. A taxable boat for this purpose is one measuring 115 feet or shorter from the tip of the bow to the stern. Outboard motors sold on their own are taxed separately and the ceiling does not reach them. None of it is evidence of what a vessel is worth; it is a limit on what the state collects.
Ownership
30 days
is the wait after notifying a Texas boat's owners of record
Texas has titled boats and outboard motors since 1976. Where the title and the supporting documents cannot be obtained, the state parks and wildlife department will consider a bonded title on a sworn statement of fact, but only once the applicant has pulled the owner and lien holder record, sent a request for release of ownership interest by verified mail to every recorded and unrecorded owner, and allowed at least 30 days for a reply. The bond amount is not the applicant's to propose: the approval letter states it.
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.
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
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
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:
As community property if acquired during the marriage, divided in a just and right manner rather than an automatic equal split. Texas courts generally value the marital estate, including boats, as of the time of trial, so we prepare vessel valuations as of that date unless the court orders a different one.
When the vessel earns money. Charter yachts and commercial craft are valued from projected revenue, operating expenses, and a capitalization rate, following income capitalization practice. Purely recreational boats in Texas are instead valued through comparable sales of similar make, model, year, condition, and engine hours, drawn from broker databases, auction records, and sold-boat data.
Yes, on a salvage or residual-value basis: the value becomes the sum of salvageable components less disposal costs when restoration would be economically unjustifiable. We state that shift in premise explicitly in the report, since market-comparable assumptions no longer hold for a vessel that cannot be returned to service at reasonable cost.
The personal representative must file a verified inventory listing the boat at fair market value on or before the 91st day after qualifying, unless the court grants more time. Texas inventories must also state whether each asset is community or separate property, a classification that shapes who ultimately receives the vessel. A date-of-death valuation gives the executor a defensible figure for that filing.
