How To Value Your Vehicle for Bankruptcy Purposes

In the process of bankruptcy filings it is essential to secure valuations for all your assets, belongings and property from independent, trust-worthy and most importantly accredited sources and or valued through popularly accepted means. This works equally well for valuation of your vehicle for bankruptcy purposes. Here is how it is done.

Firstly, seek out a valuation expert who will provide you with a written valuation of your vehicle.  Most of them do this free of cost.

For a valuation as accurate as possible, be completely truthful with details and information provided to the vehicle valuation expert. Some of this information would include, but not be limited to the following [you will be surprised at how much of this is relevant in most cases] - 

• Firstly, give them registration details; date of purchase; purchase cost; insurance policy documents and details of vehicle taxes paid by you.
• Details of mileage clocked, damages to the car both body and interiors, replacements of original equipment, if any; history of damages and repairs, including paint touch-up jobs, body work or any alterations and modifications that may have been done during periodical services.
• List all possible flaws, faults and things that could be wrong with your car; recall the bump on the under-carriage while roughly riding over that rock sometime ago; running into a pole while backing up; minor touch up jobs on paint that you would have done in the early days when you bought your new car; and if you have children riding in it, surely some food spill incidents may have occurred that deserve to be reported.
• Be realistic and brutally honest with the valuation expert. Remember it is their job to value vehicles on a regular basis, and they know exactly what to look for. So, if you have an expectation for the valuation price, it should be near to the market reality.

Other aspects considered by the valuation expert will be general condition of the vehicle, its age, and the state of the tires including the spare in the trunk. Most often, market rate determines cost of the vehicle, no matter what you would have otherwise spent on it.

A good way to cross-check vehicle valuation would be to first pose as a buyer for a similar vehicle and ascertain street price from used car dealerships. Use these quotations while valuing your vehicle for bankruptcy purposes. In the United States, valuations by the National Automobile Dealers Association and by Kelley's Blue Book are widely accepted.

Finally, when you sit down with your attorney to determine the value of your vehicle, there may be some reasons you would not agree with the valuation expert's figures. Point them out to your attorney, and he may be able to secure a higher value for your vehicle if he is convinced of your reasons.