Valuations in Bankruptcy

An important aspect of bankruptcy is listing all of your property and assets. This includes items such as: homes, cars, household furnishings, electronics, bank accounts, collectibles, sports/hobby equipment, lawsuits, claims, etc.

One of the most common questions we receive is, “What is the correct value for my clothes or my tv?” Although some assets, like homes and cars, have resources like zillow.com or kbb.com to look up values, may items like clothes, bikes, tv’s, vcrs, exercise equipment, and other personal items really have no resource to consider.

The value of most personal items is placed at a “garage sale” type of value. Essentially, if you had to get rid of it today, what is a dollar amount that you could get for the asset. For things like clothes, you may have actually spent thousands of dollars, over many years accumulating your wardrobe. However, most used clothes do not have much value, if any, in the open market. Your entire wardrobe may only be worth $50.00 or $100.00 or $200.00, when you’ve actually spent $5,000+ over the past 5 years buying the various items.

The same applies to most electronics. Although you may have spent $3,000 on a computer 3 years ago…that same computer may be worth $150 now, assuming that someone would even want to buy it. Or maybe you have a snowboard that you purchased 5 years ago and it cost $1,000.00. It may now be worth less than $100.00.

Valuations are an important aspect of bankruptcy, and can determine whether or not a trustee has a claim against you for un-exempt assets. It is always important to discuss your valuations with your bankruptcy attorney.

If you are looking for bankruptcy lawyer in Santa Clarita, please contact us at (818) 305-6200 and we will happily schedule you for a free consultation with one of our expert bankruptcy attorneys.