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Boat appraisals in Arkansas for donations, insurance, estate tax, and divorce, prepared in accordance with USPAP and IRS requirements. AppraiseItNow appraises fishing boats, pontoons, sailboats, personal watercraft, and motorboats across Arkansas, including Little Rock, Fort Smith, and Fayetteville.
DEFENSIBLE, USPAP-COMPLIANT BOAT APPRAISAL REPORTS — QUALIFIED FOR THE IRS, ARKANSAS 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 boats, outboard motors and boat trailers in Arkansas for estate and probate filings, divorce, charitable gifts and insurance schedules. Most of it runs online, from photographs, the hull identification number and whatever paper the owner holds, and the report names the sales its figure came from. Inland water sets the market here, so a hull priced off coastal listings has been priced in the wrong room.
Hull, motor, trailer
A boat, the outboard on its transom and the trailer under it trade separately, and the owner who sells the package rarely collects the sum of the three. Each is described and priced on its own line so the total can be followed.
Condition
Transom and stringer soundness, hours on the engine, upholstery, gelcoat and whether a hull sat on a lift or in the water account for most of the distance between two boats of the same model and year.
Sail and small craft
Sailboats, jon boats, canoes and kayaks move in thin markets of their own, where a rig or a trailer can be most of the money. They are priced from the sales that exist rather than from a guide that never listed them.
The reason for the appraisal fixes both the standard and the day the figure speaks to. An executor needs the date of death, a divorce needs the day the court names, a donor needs the day the boat changed hands. That date goes at the top of the report, because a market that moved afterwards is not the market being reported. Where two of those dates fall either side of a repower or a hard winter on the trailer, they are not close to one another.
Estates and divorce
The same boat is worth one thing on the day an owner died and another on the day a court divides property. We write to whichever date the matter needs and say plainly which one it was.
Charitable gifts
A gift figure stands or falls on the sales behind it, so each one is named, dated and matched to the hull it is being used to price.
Three Arkansas rules shape what a boat appraisal can lean on: which hulls the state titles, what a private sale tells anybody afterwards, and who values a boat a creditor has reached.
Titles and registrations
2020 or newer
is the only Arkansas boat the state issues a certificate of title for
Arkansas draws the line at the model year. The Department of Finance and Administration puts it plainly in its motor vehicle answers: if the year of the boat is 2020 or newer, Arkansas will issue a title, and before 2020 there will only be a registration. Every older hull therefore proves its ownership through the certificate of number and the bill of sale, which the state requires to carry a description of the boat including the hull identification number, the year, the make and the horsepower, the amount of the sale, the date and the signatures of buyer and seller. On a boat from the nineties that is the entire documentary record, which is why a report on one describes what the photographs and the number plate show rather than reciting a title history that was never created.
Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, driver services and motor vehicle answers
Private sales
No sales tax
is charged when one Arkansas individual sells a boat to another
The state's boat registration page says it directly: Arkansas does not charge sales tax on casual sales, individual to individual, for boats, while tax on a dealer purchase is collected at the state revenue office. Nothing in a private transfer is therefore filtered through a taxing authority's own view of what the boat was worth. What the transfer does leave behind is the bill of sale and the registration file built around it, which also records that the boat was listed with the county assessor and that the personal property taxes owed on it were paid. Those are the documents a reported private sale price can actually be tested against, and the reason an appraisal asks for them rather than for the number alone.
Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, motor boat registration
Exemption claims
Three appraisers
are appointed and sworn when an Arkansas debtor claims a boat as exempt
When a defendant claims property as exempt from execution, section 16-66-213 of the Arkansas Code has the justice or clerk appoint three disinterested appraisers on the plaintiff's application. The officer levying the writ swears them in, they appraise the property claimed, and they sign a written appraisal that goes back with the writ, a majority governing. Property found to be within the constitutional limit returns to the defendant and the plaintiff pays the costs; property over it loses the supersedeas for the particular items the appraisers identify. A boat is ordinary movable property in that process, so what the boat is worth, rather than how the owner describes it, decides the claim.
Arkansas Code 16-66-213, appraisal of property claimed as exempt
What clients say we are known for
Across 100+ 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 needed an appraisal for Probate Court so I could get the boat and motor title in my name. The AppraiseItNow team was great: quick turnaround, outstanding service. I would definitely use them again.
Boat Appraisal for Probate
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
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:
Multiple guide reports, including J.D. Power Marine and the ABOS Marine Blue Book, reconciled with documented sold-boat data such as BoatWizard's SoldBoats records. Because the guides can diverge materially for the same hull, closed sales carry the most weight in our conclusions.
Yes, as salvage. When restoration would cost more than it returns, appraisers shift to a residual approach: the sum of salvageable components less disposal costs. That figure is legitimate and defensible for insurance and estate purposes.
Annually, as of January 1. Boats and other personal property must be listed with the county assessor between January 1 and May 31, with a 10% penalty for late assessment; Arkansas values items at the usual selling price of similar property.
No. The assessed value placed on the rolls is capped at 20% of true and full market value under A.C.A. §26-26-303, and the county millage rate applies to that assessed portion. A $50,000 boat is therefore taxed on no more than $10,000 of assessed value.
No. The certified-appraiser requirement in A.C.A. §28-51-302 applies only to real property sales by a personal representative. Boats pass through probate as ordinary personal property, though a documented fair market value appraisal still protects the representative when heirs or creditors question the sale price.
