Need help on car valuation

[jjsmith]

My parents live with us, and we are currently supporting them. We have 3 cars between the 4 of us, all of which are in my husband's name. We only get 2 car exemptions, and have no problem keeping 2 of the cars. My parents want to keep the other car, but it does have some equity.

So we have one car that we're trying to show has no equity in. The car has quite a bit of body damage, and to sell it would be a joke. My attorney said we can't take the car to a dealership and have them assess what trade in value is. We have to get private party value. Unfortantely KBB doesn't give a value for a car in poor condition.

What do you think about using the KBB fair value of $11,880 & subtracting the estimate I have for body repairs of $2,444 to give the court a value of $9,436. I'm still using fair value on the car because even with the body repairs, the car still needs tires, timing belt, and the interior is bad. Pretty disappointed about the leather wearing so much.

I wish they would just give up the car, but they don't want to, so I'm trying to see if we can help them keep it. There's a chance they might lose it in the end as we will just be doing a ride through.

Do you think the court will be satisfied with my method of valuation?

[LimpDisc]

This site will give you a value using the vehicles VIN and gives 4 different values. Extra clean, clean, average and rough. Not exactly sure what number you will be required to use, but maybe this can give you another value to look at.

http://www.cudlautosmart.com/Research/TradeInValues.aspx?provider=BlackBook&WT.svl=ToolsAndMore

[jjsmith]

Thank you that helps! Looks like Edmunds.com also has a "rough" category as well.

[BobMango]

For what it's worth, our trustee didn't blink an eye at our vehicle valuation. We used KBB low trade-in. I guess it depends on your district and the totality of your case. Our trustee also abandoned about $5K of cattle as well. In our case we're having almost $800K of debt discharged so I'm guessing it wasn't worth the hassle and risk of taking that particular asset when it represented such a small percentage of the total estate.

The problem is that you could draw a trustee that is a real stickler and wants to verify every exemption claimed. I'd go with a good faith estimate based on the online valuations with your adjustments for repairs and see how it goes.

[jjsmith]

It would be nice if they would take the amount of debt into consideration. We're discharging 1.5 million and have 9 secured creditors. It seems like an insult to send each creditor a pittance of a check.

Edmunds.com gave me the value I need, so I hope they will accept that. I've heard of trustees accepting trade-in, but my attorney (who is also a trustee in our county) was adamant about using private party. Luckily the trustee I'm assigned is the most amiable of the 3. Both my attorney and another I interviewed said my trustee was the best trustee to get. I'm soooo glad!

Has your trustee filed his "no asset" report in PACER yet? Seem like many people got that the day after their 341!

[BobMango]

Yes, the report of no distribution was filed the day after our hearing.