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Do I own my vehicle? What percentage of it do I own?

1 minute read Upsolve is a nonprofit that helps you get out of debt with education and free debt relief tools, like our bankruptcy filing tool. Think TurboTax for bankruptcy. Get free education, customer support, and community. Featured in Forbes 4x and funded by institutions like Harvard University so we'll never ask you for a credit card.  Explore our free tool


In a Nutshell

Whether or not you own your vehicle depends on whether you purchased it using a loan or leased it from a dealer or other agency.

Written by Attorney Andrea Wimmer
Updated November 19, 2020


Whether you own a car you're still making payments on depends on whether you purchased it by taking out a loan or leased it.

If you purchased your vehicle you own 100% of the vehicle. This is true even if you are still paying on the loan. If you have a co-signer for the car loan, check if they're on the title with you. Not all co-signers are co-owners. If you have a co-owner, you may only have a 50% ownership interest in the vehicle, depending on state law. Learn more about the difference between co-signers and co-owners and where to list them on your forms here.

Equity in a car is calculated as follows:

HOMECAR
Value$100,000$12,000
Loan Balance$80,000$9,000
Equity$20,000$3,000

If you have a co-owner, divide the resulting equity by the number of co-owners to determine your share of the equity.

If you're leasing your car, you don't own it. Learn more about leases in bankruptcy here.



Written By:

Attorney Andrea Wimmer

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Andrea practiced exclusively as a bankruptcy attorney in consumer Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 cases for more than 10 years before joining Upsolve, first as a contributing writer and editor and ultimately joining the team as Managing Editor. While in private practice, Andrea handled... read more about Attorney Andrea Wimmer

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