Donate a living quarters horse trailer when the horses are gone

Where these come from

People who stopped showing or stopped riding. A living quarters trailer is bought for a circuit, and when the horses are sold or the health changes, the trailer sits. Storage and insurance keep costing money.

Estates, very often. These trailers are expensive, valuable and hard to divide among heirs, and the living quarters make them awkward to store.

Breeders and outfitters downsizing a string. A four or six-horse trailer with a full mid-tack and a rear ramp becomes the wrong size overnight.

Towed, with the truck it actually needs

Most living quarters trailers are gooseneck, which means a pickup with a bed ball and enough truck behind it. We match the tow vehicle to the trailer and cover it.

Tell us the length, the horse capacity, whether it is aluminum or steel, and whether there is a slide-out. Also tell us the tire age, because these trailers frequently sit for years and the tires time out long before they wear out.

Winterize or tell us it is not winterized, and let us know if the water system has been drained. Leave the appliances and the fit-out. Take the personal property, the tack and the saddles.

What decides what one brings

• Aluminum or steel. Aluminum is the premium and it is most of this market.
• Horse capacity and layout. Two, three, four or six horse, slant or straight load, mid-tack, rear ramp or step-up.
• Living quarters length and build. Short-wall measurement is the number buyers use. A generator, air conditioning, a shower and a slide-out each add.
• Water intrusion. The one thing that ends these trailers. Soft floors, delaminated walls and a leaking roof seam lower the sale sharply.
• Tires and brakes. Age-cracked tires on a heavy gooseneck are both a value and a safety item.

Makes we accept

Buyers name the builder first.

• Premium aluminum: Featherlite, 4-Star, Bloomer, Platinum Coach, Twister, Lakota, Cimarron, Merhow, Sundowner, Exiss.
• Also common: Trails West, Logan Coach, Shadow, Elite, Hart, Adam, Titan, WW, CM.
• Living quarters components buyers ask about: Onan and Cummins generators, Dometic and Coleman air, Suburban water heaters.

Manufacturer names appear here so you can find your own trailer. No manufacturer sponsors, endorses or is affiliated with this program.

The paperwork, and what you can deduct

Trailer titling varies more by state than anything else we accept. Some states title every trailer, some only above a weight threshold, and some issue nothing at all for smaller ones. We will tell you which applies where you are, and the state title rules page covers the process. Where there is no title, a bill of sale plus the VIN or serial plate off the tongue is what we need. A gooseneck of this size and weight is titled in essentially every state.

Giving Center sells the trailer and your deduction is the gross sale proceeds on Form 1098-C. A sound aluminum living quarters trailer clears $5,000 in nearly every case, which means the IRS requires a qualified appraisal and Form 8283 Section B. That appraisal is your expense and your decision, and on a trailer of this value it is worth having done well by someone who knows this market.

Do not rely on what comparable trailers are listed for. Asking prices in this category run well above what units actually sell for, and your deduction is the sale.