Mom is no longer able to drive but has 2 yrs. left on her car loan. What are the ramifications to voluntary repossession?

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Mom is no longer able to drive but has 2 yrs. left on her car loan. What are the ramifications to voluntary repossession?

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Mom is 75. Beginning of memory loss/dementia. Her husband of 25 years recently passed after a brief illness and didn’t have any life insurance. She has no savings.

Her car payment and insurance are about $650/mo. She owes about $8,500 on the loan. Her $2,100 SS does not leave her any money after rent, utilities, car/ins payments, cell phone. I pay for her groceries and I’m just making ends meet for my immediate family. She won’t drive more than 1 mile to the post office and the grocery store because she’s afraid of getting lost.

She has decided to stop driving.

My question is if she voluntarily has the car repossessed it will affect her credit. At this stage in her life, would there be any reason she would need “good credit” to get into an assisted living/memory care facility? She has no assets at all. She is not going to try for any future loans or credit cards. Reality is that it’s all down hill from here with the memory issues.

Is there any possible reason that ruining her credit with a voluntary repossession would hurt her in the future she has left?

Debt Driving Financial Planning

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How much is the car worth?

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Seems like Blue Book price is the starting place.
Lots of good thought-provoking ideas / advice here.
What a team we are!

(4)

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From what I heard, used cars are going UP in price. Check to see how much you can sell the car for. If more than the loan, then sell it, pay off the loan and keep the rest to spend on your mom.

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Go to the dealer who sold her the car. Maybe they will buy it back and pay off the loan.

If Mom has no assets, she cannot afford an AL or MC. Medicaid usually doesn't cover these. It covers LTC.

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I would sell it, look up the Kelly's Blue Book price and go from there. If you cannot sell it call the finance company and have them pick it up. I wouldn't worry about her credit at this point.

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Yes. And have a strong tall man with you when you meet with potential buyers. Be safe out there.

(4)

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I'd sell the car myself. A dealer will not give you fair market value.

Pay off the loan and don't worry about mom's credit. At her age it isn't an issue anymore.

Having this out of sight, out of mind will ease your mom's worries.

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A dealer will pay dealer value, not private party value. They're two different prices on kbb.com.

They're not necessarily "not paying the value," but they have to make a profit reselling it, and selling to a dealer usually goes hand-in-hand with buying a replacement vehicle, not just a straight sale of the used car.

(2)

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If it is "repossessed" you/she gets nothi8ng, nada, diddly squat for the vehicle. It can be sold and the loan paid off and any remaining goes into her account as an asset that can be used for her care. Chances are pretty good that a car "driven by a little old lady, from Upper Darby PA only on Sundays" might get a better price than the same car driven to and from work every day. Check the "Blue Book" value and see what you get. There are so many ways to sell on line now you do not even have to go anywhere.

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Voluntary repossession will almost certainly result in the car selling for less than the loan balance. So there will be a larger amount due, which the lender will try to collect, then sell to debt collectors, and so on.

Confirm that there is no co-signer since their credit would also be at risk.

Best case scenario: you need to get a feel for the private party value of the car, using kbb.com or similar.
If it is more than the loan balance, you should consider trying to sell the car. You can find out from the lender how to most efficiently pay off the loan and transfer the title to the buyer.

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I myself would not worry about her credit being ruined. Whatever you do, do not make any payments yourself. This can be considered assuming a loan.

Allow them to repossess the car or sell it at profit to Mom if you are POA and able to do so.

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Find value of car in Kelly Blue Book, sell it yourself (not that hard) or maybe to Carvana and pay off the loan. She may have some money left over for herself. Do not repossess, big mistake.

(5)

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With only 8500 owed on the car you could probably sell it for that or more depending on the year and condition if the car. Dont let it get repossessed there is value in selling it.

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Check out what carvanna would offer on it too if you dont want to deal with regular people.

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Yeah. Those regular people are hard to deal with ... (joking).

Is a good idea. Might make things much easier. And frankly, with the way of the world today, perhaps safer.

Gena

(2)

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Just as an example, if this is a 2020 Honda Civic purchased with a $25k loan 3 years ago, the car is still worth about 20k.

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Exactly much easier if it's a Toyota or Honda

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Credit is no longer needed at her age. Is she going to apply for any more loans, credit cards, mortgages? Credit is important when you’re young!

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That is what we thought when we let our father's mobile home be repossessed. The next year he received a statement from the loan company who repossessed it and he had to report $XX income on his tax return. I am guessing they sold it for less than the balance owed and so what was being written off was counted as income for my father. It probably was not that simple, but it was reported to the IRS and ended up costing our father in taxes. So no, credit is no longer important but how the matter is handled may be very important.

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Research car value.
Sell car.
Pay out loan.

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Was able to get a friends help. Caravana says $16k. Just need to find someone good to get that cigarette smell out of the interior then I think there might be a chance of making a few k. Once the car and car insurance is gone she will have about $600 a month for savings. Hoping to be able to sell for a few k to relieve some stress. Fingers crossed. thanks everybody for all of your advice!!

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Excellent news. They have a few products at Lowe's and walmart to get the cigarette odor out of a car. Just Google getting cigarette smell out of car to find the products.

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First, hug your mom for deciding on her own to stop driving. Bravo!

Second, get a loan of your own to pay off her car, and then resell it at a higher price. You might make a profit. Since your mom still has a loan, you can’t sell her car without the title.

Third, hug your mom again.

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You can sell a car with a loan to a dealer, they pay the loan off anc give you the rest. It’s done every day.

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For car odor place a bowl of vinegar in car overnight. Smell should be gone.

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Chances are the car is in excellent condition and has low mileage. It's probably worth a lot more than you think!

Lots of people have recommended Carvana, but there are other car-buying companies. (Carmax.com and wepaythemax.com are two examples, not endorsements.) Make sure you shop around to get the best deal. When they ask you why you are selling the car, don't give them a sob story, they will take even more advantage of you.

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Yes! Used car value has skyrocketed. Dave Ramsey spoke to someone recently who got more on resale than he paid for the car, and Dave was saying that this is one thing he has had to change his story about, because he always talked about the enormous depreciation on new cars, and recommended buying used.

(9)

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Sell the car.See a bankruptcy lawyer then.

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OP, the car we bought my son way back when was owned by one man and had $107k miles on it. He had died and his widow was selling it. It was his back and forth to work car, and he smoked the entire 45 minute ride there and back.

It was a good car for a great price so we bought it and the smell was included lol. We bought a couple of ozone cleaners from Amazon (people are sort of off ozone now so google). You turn the car on, set it off like a roach bomb, close all the doors and windows and let the car run with the ac on for about 15 minutes. Then you air the car out.

IIRC, we had to do 3 or 4 of them over as many days before we put a dent in it. I also bought charcoal sacks to keep in the car for a while.

So in other words, we bought it with the smoke smell knowing we would work on getting the smell out. I think it is probably ok to mention this in an ad so the buyer knows. This is all if you don’t want to be bothered with trying to get the smell out, which for us took a while after we bought it.

Carvana would be easier I’m sure but selling it outright in an old fashioned way would probably get you the most money for a small risk (cashier’s check, verify etc.)

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Sell the car. Plenty of people are looking for good second-hand cars.

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Kendra has updated concerning the car.

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Sell the car for what you and pay any difference to pay it off.

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The car needs to be thoroughly cleaned inside (new cabin filter, carpets and upholstery washed) to get the smoke smell out.

No "bomb" will remove the smell permanently.

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Ours might have been unique because the man smoked in the car 2 hours a day for 10 years. Did changing the air filter, washing down the seats and cleaning the carpets work? 100% no.

The ozone bombs were the only things that worked. And it took multiple of them. Plus the charcoal bags.

(2)

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It sounds like you are wanting the Simplest Route to being rid of the car without damaging your mother's credit in case it would negatively impact her care needs. I don't read any answers to that question in these other comments, so far. Perhaps you could speak to a loan officer at your bank for this advice. These other suggestions are great but require you to invest time and effort and money you may not want to do at this point. Letting the bank/finance company take the car back may not be a bad solution to simplify the situation. You could pose this question to 'money guru' Clark Howard, great website, who will answer directly or have his team answer you. Good luck. I know having one less 'thing' when dealing with the decline of a loved one can be a big relief.

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I work in the auto industry. There is still a shortage of microchips used in vehicle manufacturing, which is why used vehicles are retaining more value at this point (not enough new stock availability). If the car is in good condition, it will likely be quite easy to sell it. You need to figure out the proper way to deal with the loan - I don't know what actions are needed to resolve that.

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I would think it might be helpful if you posted year of vehicle and mileage. There certainly seem to be many here who understand the market of used cars but have limited information from you on those specifics. I know those factors come into play on resale value unless I missed that info.

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Sale the darn car for what is owed and maybe more. Dont donrepo if you can, maybe you can make a little money for her.

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I sold our second carcwhen my husband could no longer drive to the local dealer at a profit.

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Contact the auto insurance company and tell them the car is not being driven. They can reduce the car insurance cost while you are waiting to sell. We did this when my M-I-L stopped driving but was not yet ready to sell the car.

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I tried to skim through but may have missed this information. Are you outside of the area where you are unable to handle the car directly and unload it? Is it worth less than what is owed? Are you just overwhelmed and let come what may it's going? I know that this stuff can be so overwhelming when it all comes at once. I for one cannot see where mom's credit needs to be a concern unless you think she would need to have a credit check to get her into a facility.

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Mom is no longer able to drive but has 2 yrs. left on her car loan. What are the ramifications to voluntary repossession?

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