Branded title
A permanent mark on a title recording that the vehicle was once written off or badly damaged.
What it means
A brand is a word printed on the title itself — salvage, rebuilt, flood, junk, lemon-law buyback — recording something in the vehicle's history that a buyer would want to know. Once applied it stays with the vehicle rather than with the owner, and it follows the vehicle across state lines when a new title is issued.
The brands are not uniform. What one state calls rebuilt another calls reconstructed or prior salvage, and the threshold at which an insurer's write-off triggers a brand differs from state to state. A vehicle can also carry a brand from a state it has not been registered in for twenty years.
The practical effect is on value and on insurance. A branded vehicle is worth substantially less than the same vehicle unbranded, and some insurers will not write comprehensive cover on one at all.
Why it matters
An estate valuing a vehicle from a guidebook price will overstate it if the title carries a brand, and the overstatement flows into the inventory and into what beneficiaries expect.
It also decides whether the vehicle can be sold normally, which matters when the estate needs the money rather than the car.
When you are likely to meet it
- When reading a title and finding a word beside the vehicle description that is not the make or model.
- When valuing a vehicle for an estate inventory.
- When a buyer's finance or insurance falls through after an inspection.
How this varies by state
Which brands exist, what triggers them, and how another state's brand is carried over on a new title are all set by state law.