There’s an asset on your balance sheet you’re not using and you plan to sell. Say it’s carrying value is 7,500 and what you aim to get for it is close to it’s carrying value. However, as it turns out, you get serious offers for the asset for 5,000. No doubt you can see that your asset is valued higher you’re likely to get for it once you sell it. 

This 5,000 is something people would say is the asset’s market value, i.e. the price third parties are willing to pay for the asset under the presumption of normal market and sales condition, i.e. you’re not in need of selling it giving an indication you’d be willing to sell it below market value just to get rid of it since you’re for an example in need of money.

So for something that’s with it’s value at 7,500 on your balance sheet you’d get 5,000. As such you’d earn a loss of 2,500. Once the offer is seriuos in the sense that you plan to accept it, regardless of when you actually make the transaction, you should recognize the loss immediately. Why?

Such a loss arising from a future transaction is today an indication that your asset is in fact impaired and carried on the balance sheet with higher value than it’s market value would be. Would you be using the asset, you could argue that the value in use for you is above it’s carrying value and that would be the end of that. No loss should be recognized then. However, once you plan to sell the asset, the value in use is secondary and the selling price becomes far more important.