Accident with brand new VW ID.4, diminished value?

Leased a new ID.4 and got rear ended on the way home, $1400 in damage. Submitted the car for appraisal to Vroom and Carvana and both were at $45k. A month later the accident is now reported to Carfax and Vroom and Carvana are both at $35k.

Other party’s insurance refuses to pay diminished value citing there was “barely any damage”.

Has anyone fought anything similar? I wanted to keep this car for a while and leased it so that i can get the $7500 credit immediately.

I know that the car will never be worth the same as a clean Carfax car and i want their insurance to compensate me for it.

Any advice is appreciated

Is your insurance involved? Guessing not, since it would be their responsibility to ‘make whole’, and then go after the other insurance holder to even it up.

Some debate on this and may vary state to state and insurer to insurer, but as a lessee, generally you are not entitled to DV as you are basically renting it and not the owner. That said, some have had some luck claiming it and getting it. YMMV.

Agree, next place would be to try your carrier and let them subrogate.

Bummer OP.

4 Likes

No just theirs

If their insurance will not pay DV because you lease, that’s it. Nothing to do. I had an accident with the other party at fault. Lease my vehicle. They paid to fix the car. When I called the dept that handles these claims, they said no dice, it’s the leasing co only that can claim DV.

1 Like

Ah, no. OP had the contractual right to purchase the car that was worth $45k before the accident. After the accident, that car is now worth $35k, and thus the contractual right to purchase the car is worth $10k less. This is, clear as day, a quantifiable financial loss that can and should be paid out by the at-fault insurance. It’s not surprising at all that the at-fault insurance would disagree, which is why you should have never dealt with them in the first place. Call YOUR insurance company, pay your deductible (you will get it back after subrogation), file claims for the repairs AND for DV, and they will deal with the other insurance company, as they should.

It’s mind-bending to me that people think DV claims are somehow frivolous or unnecessary. In today’s age of Carvana and Vroom quotes, it couldn’t possibly be easier to prove a diminished value claim.

2 Likes

Very interesting mind gymnastics.

So let’s say I lease a car for 3 years and one year in the car is worth 45k, but 6 months later due to some strange market dynamics it’s now worth 35k (Why I’m appraising the vehicle every 6 months is not addressed in the contract). Do you sue the federal reserve or IMF to get back the difference?

In some states an some areas you can be successful making a DV claim, but it is not a guarantee. I have yet to see a lease contract that protects appraised market values incase of accidents.

OP can try to get an auto lawyer and sue for DV, but not sure if it’ll be worth it after legal fees, especially on a car he can turn back in and not worry about it which is the entire point of the lease contract in the first place.

Edit: Found this link for a DV lawfirm in Florida. Specifically mentions under DV criteria on their front page that the car must not be leased. This makes me think Florida is not one of the states that supports (or maybe just no common law, should OP be the first to take it to court?). Florida Diminished Value Claims | Diminished Value Attorney

1 Like

Case law for all 50 states. In FL, if you are not at fault, current case law states you are allowed to sue for diminished value. Not sure if this applies to leased vehicles, but on a brand new car with 1400 miles on it and a loss in value of $10k, I would sure as hell be talking to a FL-based diminished value attorney about it.

Florida courts have held that “the cost of the repairs made plus the
diminution in value will ordinarily be the proper measure of damages,
with the burden on the plaintiff to prove in addition to the cost of
repairs, that he suffered the additional damage of diminution of value
by the vehicle having been involved in the accident.” McHale v. Farm
Bureau Mut. Ins. Co., 409 So.2d 238, 239 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1982);
Airtech Serv., Inc. v. MacDonald Constr. Co., 150 So.2d 465 (Fla. App.
1963). In McHale, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal describes
Airtech as “not a ‘cost-of-repair’ case, but a ‘total destruction’ case.”
McHale, 409 So.2d at 239. It is not necessary for the vehicle to be sold
before damage for diminished value is realized and can be recovered.
Meakin v. Dreier, 209 So.2d 252 (Fla. App. 1968).

1 Like

The issue isn’t that diminished values aren’t a thing, they very much are and anyone not at fault is entitled. The issue is this is a leased car and all the lease contracts I’ve ever seen have not held provisions to support recouping of lost value due to an accident.

It’s definitely possible for someone to get DV approved on a lease, but far from an entitlement. Many factors at play. I don’t think any bank signs a lease agreement assuming their leasee is going to sell the car before lease maturity to capture the positive equity. Case in point, the majority of captives have limited when a lease can be sold in this current market and to whom.

It’s why private party and third party dealers pay a different pay off than the leasee does. There are entire threads and long discussions on this topic alone.

Why would the lease agreement need to support this, though? The claim is against a third party, not against the lessor. The only thing you have to prove is a financial loss, which is extremely easy to do. There might be relevant case law in FL that limits DV damages when the claimant is the lessee and not the owner, but that would be case law or codified law, not the language of the lease agreement.

This link says not:

Reasonable to conclude that only the owner, i.e. the lessor, has standing to bring a DV case in Florida.

IANAA

I am in FL and I’m telling you, from experience, that Geico, who was the at fault insurance company will not pay DV claim to the person that is leasing the car, does not matter if you plan on buying it or not. I asked and they answered.

1 Like

What the insurance company will voluntarily agree to and what they are legally obligated to pay out are two completely different things.

1 Like

Keep dreaming pal.

The lease contract just guarantees the price the lessee would pay to purchase the underling vehicle. It doesn’t guarantee the value of said vehicle. Lessee’s contractual right to purchase for X price is unchanged by an accident.

I don’t why @savington is still dying on this hill, when a law firm specializing in DV in the state basically said that a lessee has no standing to bring a DV claim.

If there’s any evidence that lessees specifically can bring DV claims in Florida, then PM me to reopen this thread.

1 Like

H/T to @alphawave7 for finding this.

Florida law is clear on the fact that the owner of a vehicle is entitled to bring a claim to recover the diminished value of their vehicle from the insurer of the at fault driver. For those who are leasing their vehicle, bringing a diminished value claim is a more complicated issue.

Based on one law firm refusing to take these cases and another saying it’s complicated, the OP has their work cut out for them to even find a lawyer to take on this case, but GL.

1 Like

The ability to turn in a damaged, but repaired, car has always been one of the huge advantages of leasing.

The bank takes the hit, not the driver.

The OP wants to have both sides of his bread buttered.

Doesn’t quite seem fair.

1 Like