The sale must be held within 90 days of repossession. The U.S. Subscribe to our News and Updates to stay in the loop and on the road! When you reinstate your auto loan contract, you must pay the: When you redeem your auto loan contract, you must pay off the entire car loan, in addition to any repossession and storage costs. If your cars been repossessed by your lender, you may be able to get your loan reinstated. Its not only in your best interest to avoid a car repossession, its also what your lender wants. However, keep in mind that an attorney's fees may be outweighed by the fees you would pay to the lender and the repossession lot to get your car back. Under Alabama law, a lender with a security interest may repossess . Requested URL: www.thepennyhoarder.com/debt/car-repossession/, User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 15_4_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/15.4 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. 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. Is this the best electric car money can buy? In most cases, after the auction, there isnt enough money to cover the loan balance after the car repossession costs are paid. Your lender will send you a written notice with the reinstatement quote and the amount of money you must pay to bring your loan current. This article was written by Jennifer Mueller, JD. You might be looking at higher fees, a higher principal, or a higher interest rate. Consult your State Attorney General or local consumer protection agency for car repossession laws in your state. You have a right to these items, and if they've been removed from the car the lot custodian or your lender should be able to tell you how you can retrieve them. This may your best bet if you need a car immediately after your repo. Some states require a lender to notify you about defaults within several weeks, but others allow . Late payments one of the biggest factors in determining credit score. Make sure you have everything listed so you won't run into any problems. If you get too far behind on your car loan, it is in danger of being repossessed. You have 21 days after to sort out the matter to avoid repossession.