The issue of diminution of value to put it in the parlance of our times or in layman’s terms is essentially when your car loses value because you’ve been in an auto accident.
Now typically you’re going to see this in the context of newer vehicles. Maybe you’ve got your model make of 2011, 2012. When you bought it, it was a $30,000 or $35,000 car.
Now granted at this point, some of the money has come off but the blue book value of that car is still going to be pretty high, definitely in the 20s assuming that you paid $31,000 for it.
So the significant thing is, is were you to turn around and try to sell that car, you could ostensibly ask for $20,000, $25,000 and probably get it from a private seller.
If you’re involved in an auto accident, unfortunately, the value of your car is going to automatically drop as soon as it has been involved in a wreck and that is what diminution of value is, when your value is diminished because you’ve been in an auto accident.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound in South Carolina law and what I mean by that is the South Carolina Supreme Court has already written law to say that that’s not something that you can pursue in the State of South Carolina as a value in the context of your auto accident.
What I would recommend in the event that you do decide to push forward with the defendant’s insurance company, because it can be done usually with the aid of a lawyer, what you’re going to need to do is you’re going to go back to the dealership that you bought the car at and you’re going to say, “I need an estimate of what this vehicle is worth the day that it was wrecked 10 minutes beforehand. I need to know what the repairs were, an estimate on what the repairs were and more importantly I need to know what the value of the car is right now.”
So just to make things simple, let’s say your car was worth $25,000 before the wreck. They say that there has been $10,000 worth of repair and it runs now and it’s ready to be back on the road but that $10,000 is coming off the top and now your car is only worth 15 grand. That diminution of value, that really rubs people the wrong way after they’ve been in an auto accident and it’s not their fault.
The easiest thing that you can do is typically with the assistance of a lawyer, you’re really going to have to get after the defendant’s insurance company and what I found is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If you send enough letters, you make enough phone calls, and you talk to enough people in management, eventually they will give.
They may not necessarily give you all of the potential value that you lost but they certainly will give you something and as my grandmother has always said, “Half a loaf is better than none.”
If you have been in an auto accident and you need assistance, contact the Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600.
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