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Boat appraisals in Oregon for donations, insurance, estate tax, and divorce, prepared in accordance with USPAP and IRS requirements. AppraiseItNow appraises sailboats, motorboats, fishing vessels, pontoon boats, and personal watercraft across Oregon, including Portland, Eugene, and Salem.
DEFENSIBLE, USPAP-COMPLIANT BOAT APPRAISAL REPORTS — QUALIFIED FOR THE IRS, OREGON 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 in Oregon for insurance claims, estates and probate, divorce, charitable gifts, and private sales. Closed sales of comparable hulls carry the figure, read against the published guides rather than taken from any one of them, and the report names what it relied on. Water tells here as much as age does: a boat built for the Rogue or the Deschutes is priced against boats built for the same conditions, not against a lake runabout that happens to measure the same. Salt exposure, bar crossings and the hours behind a working engine all read differently from a season of weekend use, and the comparables are chosen on that basis before any adjustment is made.
Working vessels
Where a vessel is fished rather than enjoyed, earnings and operating cost support the conclusion alongside sales of comparable boats. Gear, electronics and the state of the main engine all sit inside that analysis.
Recreational boats
Engine hours and the service record, the trailer under the boat, the electronics and the state of the gelcoat move a recreational figure much further than the year printed on the registration does.
These three are not interchangeable, and sending the wrong one is how a file comes back. An estate needs the value as of the date of death. A claim needs what the vessel was worth immediately before the loss. A gift to a charity needs fair market value on the day the charity took the boat, supported to the standard a deduction has to meet. We fix which of them is being asked, and as of what day, at the start, because the premise decides what counts as evidence. A sale that closed last spring can be the strongest comparable in one of these files and irrelevant in another.
Insurance claims
The figure belongs to the day before the damage, which matters on a boat whose market moves between March and August. The report fixes that day and prices the vessel to it.
Charitable gifts
A vessel handed to a charity is reported at the fair market value it carried on the day the organization took delivery of it, built from comparable sales rather than from the purchase price or a guide figure.
Oregon puts no assessor between an owner and the value of a recreational boat, which leaves three statutes doing the work that a tax roll does elsewhere: one on fees, one on transfers nobody chose, and one on the cost of walking away.
Registration
In lieu of a tax
is what the Oregon length based boat fee stands in for, so no assessor publishes a value for the hull
ORS 830.790 sets the biennial certificate of number fee for all motorboats, and for sailboats twelve feet in length or more, as a flat amount plus a charge for each foot of length. Subsection (3) is the part that matters to a valuation: apart from the boats the Department of Revenue assesses centrally under ORS 308.505 to 308.674, "the fees provided by this section are in lieu of any other tax or license fee." The practical effect is that nobody in this state publishes an assessed value for a recreational boat. When an estate, a claim, a division or a gift needs one, it has to be built out of the market, because there is no roll anywhere to look it up on.
Transfers
Ten days
of written notice comes before a secured party can take title to an Oregon boat it has repossessed
ORS 830.755 covers transfer by operation of law. Where a boat, boathouse or floating home carries an Oregon certificate of title, the executor, administrator, receiver, trustee, sheriff or other successor in interest signs the reverse of the certificate in place of the person whose interest moved, files notice of the transfer with the State Marine Board, and satisfies it with evidence of every fact entitling that representative or successor to make the transfer. Where a vessel has been repossessed instead, the board wants proof that the security interest holder gave the owner at least ten days notice, by registered or certified mail, of its intention to apply for title. A current value is usually part of what the estate or the creditor is working from when those papers go in.
Abandoned vessels
Net proceeds
of the sale are all that comes off what an Oregon owner owes for salvage, towing, and storage
Under ORS 830.938 the owner of an abandoned or derelict vessel "is liable to an authorized agency for all costs arising out of salvage, towing, storage and disposal" of a vessel seized under ORS 830.908 to 830.948, and anyone other than the owner who caused the vessel to be abandoned can be held liable as well. If the agency sells the vessel, "the liability imposed under this section shall be reduced by the net proceeds of the sale," and a party whose only interest is a security interest is not liable for those costs at all. ORS 830.933 lets an owner reclaim the vessel before the date in the seizure notice by paying the costs and satisfying the agency there is somewhere lawful to keep it; once the seizure happens, title to the vessel and to everything inside it vests in the agency.
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:
The J.D. Power (NADA) Marine guide, the ABOS Marine Blue Book, and BoatWizard's SoldBoats database of closed sales, cross-checked against recent transactions for comparable make, model, year, condition, equipment, and engine hours. Because the guides use different methods and can diverge, we never rely on just one.
Because an open-market value that can withstand challenge is grounded in what similar vessels actually sold for. Replacement cost, owner sentiment, and untested asking prices are the classic sources of inflated numbers; the cost approach is reserved for unusual or heavily modified craft where comparables are thin.
Usually close to the date of trial or settlement. Oregon divides marital property by equitable distribution, not community property, and judges have discretion to pick an earlier or later valuation date when fairness requires, so we confirm the required date before completing a divorce boat appraisal.
Through a salvage or residual analysis: the sum of its salvageable components minus disposal or scrapping costs. Appraisers shift to that premise when restoration would be economically unjustifiable and market comparables for functioning vessels no longer apply, and the report states the changed premise explicitly so the number is not mistaken for a market value.
