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It's very difficult for people new to boats. When they come on here with tales of woe about problems with boat they've just bought, the first question they're asked is "Did you get it surveyed before you bought it?" And if the answer is no they get duly criticised and chastised. Then when they come on here and tell us about a new boat that was surveyed but that problems emerged afterwards, they get told that surveys are worthless. They can't really win can they...

Here's Tommy who lives and works (ha!) on a fuel boat. His currency is gravy Bones.

WELL DONE! You have found a use for Towpath Talks!

There is ALWAYS something wrong with a boat. Usually due to the fact that it's a rusting tin box sitting permanently in a puddle, being rained on. Factor in another integral tin box that's been full of corrosive human waste products for ten years...

Why don't you advertise a few of them for sale on the forum?

Bile beans might be the solution

In my experience it takes longer to fit/refit a boat than anything in a house, things are not square, there is no space, every time you need to cut a piece of ply its in and out of the boat half a dozen times and there are pipes and wires to fit stuff around. That makes for bigger than expected bills.

Cannot argue with that - unfortunately due to the fact that the inland boating industry is unregulated yours is not an uncommon event - you will find exactly the same level of incompetence when you call out an 'engineer' to fix something (it doesn't matter if it is electrical or mechanical). Even the "AA of the waterways" - a company called RCR offer a very 'mixed' level of service, a common complaint about them is " sucking of teeth, a big intake of breath" and "you need a replacement engine", It just so happens that they have a sister company selling reconditioned engines, you pays your bill, get your nicely painted new engine fitted and away you go, your old engine is repainted and appears 'on their shelf' awaiting the next mug. Don't get me wrong, there are good tradesmen on the canal system but they are hard to find. When you do find one, look after him. You need to be able to get yourselves self sufficient for maintenance and repairs

Lawyers charge the hourly rate for a 25 year experienced professional, plus LadyG's extras. Then mostly have the work done by a trainee articled clerk. N

And, interestingly, 6.1 makes it clear, contrary to some boaters' assumptions, the boat has to continue to comply with BSS not just to hold a valid certificate. Hence, there is a liability to ensure that any modifications (or even breakdowns) are made/repaired to be compliant at any time CaRT care to check.

Courts will usually decide in favour of whoever has the most property, it's what most of law is about. Solicitors are about as useful as surveyors, but rather less competent, more expensive and bone idle. It takes a fortnight for a solicitor to write a letter and only then if you phone up every day. The state the courts are currently in, anyway, it'll be years before you get a case even started, by which time your nerves will be shredded and you won't care any more anyway. It's a shame stuff has gone wrong so soon, but at least it's getting sorted now rather than in a couple of years when you're somewhere in the middle of nowhere with no help to hand.

Yes. I have recollections of having to pick up bits of wood off the lock side to jam into the paddle rack to keep them up. £26 in 1996

I thought of suing a surveyor but found that breeding flying pigs was simpler and more successful.

This is true, but you just never know. I've met several boaters on the Thames who don't even carry an anchor because they came off the canals and never thought about it - or more likely were too tight to buy one. It's a bit like insurance. Most of the time you'll never need it, but the point is as Alan says, when you do need it, you need it and you need it to work.

Well, it only really sank once over 30 years ago when it still had a deep foredeck that drained through a pipe into the engine bilge, I got flu, it rained all December, auto pump failed as they do, the bilge filled up and it sank as far as it could on the mooring, which wasn't really very far. It just sat down on the mud and sulked. I got a phone call Xmas day and by the time I got there a mate had got a pump into the bilge and refloated me. About five years ago it needed resteeling again (it's probably a 1950s or very early 60s boat) and water started coming in through a hole in the engine bay. That was due to a bit of rubbish steeling at the previous rebottoming in the '90s. We stuck a pad and a brick on the hole and chugged down to Stoke Boats who glued a new boat to its lower half, more or less. It never really sank in any dramatic sense, just glugged a bit. Old boats do that sort of thing, you expect it, sort of. Never any water inside the boat itself. I keep thinking I've had it 30 years, but it's 35 now. Bought it in 1988. Seven grand, it cost me. Got it out of Exchange & Mart.

Really? Under protest, when I bought the house I'm in now. He missed the roof problem, the damp in a cupboard, a dangerous electric set up and a woodburner badly and dangerously installed, the uneven floor joists in the upstairs (a dormer bungalow) and a few other things I can't remember, but spent a page condemning the colours the rooms were painted (which we liked), another saying how unsatisfactory the room layout was (one of the reasons we bought the house) and wrote three paragraphs stating that the real problem with the house was the council estate half a mile away the other side of the main road. The guy who did the house before, didn't notice there was no fire break in the loft between me and the next terrace. He did notice the bedroom floor was springy and said the joists were rotten. They were in perfect nick when we looked. He missed the damp in the wall. My wives have always wanted surveys, and then moaned about them, partly because I made them pay for them out of their own pockets, not mine. If your friend is a surveyor, I'm sure he does exactly what he is contracted to do, just as the OP's did. There's no wrongdoing implied, and it's all perfectly straight and he will describe exactly what his experience and expertise tells him he sees. And it's totally , completely, and utterly useless (as you can tell from the OP's story) , a sheer waste of time and money for everyone except for him, because he's making an honest living out of it, and that's how the economy works. We live in an age of consultants, who we mistakenly take for experts. PS I didn't have a survey on my boat, I took a knowledgeable friend. 30 years later, I'm still very happy with it.

I am very sorry for you, and I fear you will get nowhere. Most surveyors have so many get out clauses in their contracts, for you to win a legal case would be very unlikely . Let this be a warning to others, never use a surveyor recommended by a broker or vendor to guard against conflicts of interest.

Is that on one of them really wide 'northern canals' I keep hearing about?

Be aware that this is called CANAL WORLD forum, so is mainly inhabited by inland cruising enthusiasts. Some will have tidal experience, but most don't. That is why I suggested that you would do better on a forum like YBW. https://forums.ybw.com/

Nothing about not opening cupboards in those limitations. It's reasonably standard practice to be aware of what is/what isn't included in a service before commissioning it. And, equally important, if the report springs unagreed limitations you could cry foul, which is why firms usually provide the expected limitations in advance; mine does. In your example, the report relates to basic structural condition. If the instructing party requested the same, it is therefore only to be expected to comprise the same. If, however, a full survey was commissioned, then the instructing party has good reason to expect something more and should demand it It is difficult if the party has no clue as to what it wants or as to what it has received. They could discuss it with the surveyor, of course - but there comes a point in which everyone has to make their own decision. In my experience, to the main problem with survey reports is some people view them as a full money-back guarantee the boat (or property) is 100% perfect for ever. And, as that is what they want to hear, the report and its limitations are not properly read.

Sorting the property boundary out will involve a party wall surveyor, you just have to pay up and trust them. But as a lawyer she will know, you never go to law if you can possibly avoid it.

I am assuming you're from another country, and that the idea is to combine a narrowboat holiday and exploring the UK into one trip. Might I suggest the following: 2 weeks of narrowboat hire, eg from Countrywide Cruisers (Brewood), or Anglo Welsh (Great Haywood) or one of many other locations a day or two from the heart of Birmingham. This would allow you to easily cruise TO Birmingham, then explore its canals, then get back. FOLLOWED BY 2 weeks of Airbnbs around the country, either travelling by train or hiring a car. If you look at the costs in detail, they are pretty much the same for each (train/hire car). I would NOT plan on "seeing the UK" by boat, it would be too slow (and at the £/week of hireboat costs, work out an expensive way of doing it).

Have you actually looked at any hire boats? I have no idea where you get the idea that "normal boats are cramped and uncomfortable". Small ones probably, but you can get 50ft plus narrow hire boats set up for just two people. You can't get away from the narrow beam because it is set by the lock width on narrow canals. I have not heard of a wide bam hire boat on the Grand Union canal and in general wide beam boats can be a bit of a handful on even the broad canals, but there are wide beams hire boats on the Leeds and Liverpool canal. We had a 50ft ex hire boat and it was perfectly comfortable enough to spend several/many weeks aboard during the season. I think that you need to do more research. Plenty of hire boats described online for you to look at.

Not arguing with any of that, the anchor cost difference between a 10kg Kobra and a 20kg Danforth is small, and the Kobra is both more effective and much easier to store/deploy. Anchorplait was a costly luxury but makes it much easier to stow (the whole thing lives in a plastic garden trug) and less likely to tangle or knot when being paid out in a hurry, which is the only time you're likely to need it on the UK canals/rivers... Should I ever have to do this -- which is *very* unlikely, most boaters never have to in an entire lifetime of boating -- then this all gives it a better chance of doing the job, which is why I went for it... 😉

I take the view that a surveyor is basically just paying to have a mate who (potentially) knows more abouts boats than you do, for the day.

I'd say at this point, you did quite well out of having the survey. The issue isn't so much that you were ill-advised by the surveyor, but that you paid "Rolls Royce" prices for fixing an issue on an old boat. Yes, poo is stinky and some people just don't want to go near it so they get someone else to do it, but it sounds like a much more approachable DIY repair would have been to decommission the pump out, clean up as best you can (possibly repaint to give a smooth surface finish so it doesn't attract more dirt etc), then use a porta-potti or install a cassette loo instead.

Playing tag on the Thames.

I know of someone who has tried that. Said it did not work and the juddering of the lock gear was potentially destructive.

Yes! Narrow boats are not like cars or other mass-produced consumer products, built on a production line to a well honed design with teething problems largely resolved in the design, development and initial production runs. Even from the biggest boatbuilders they are individually built, mostly by hand, from steel, timber and other basic raw materials, with bought-in components for the various systems. While a few builders offer off-the-shelf standard designs, most boats have a degree of customisation according to the wishes of each buyer, and so almost no two craft are identical. This can vary from just paint colour and choice of kitchen units right through to a full choice of shell design, internal layout, engine/gearbox (including diesel and hybrid options), heating and cooking options, basic or sophisticated electrical systems, internal and external finishes etc. It is still largely a cottage industry with some companies building from scratch through to the finished boat, others just producing steel shells to sell on, or boat fitters buying in shells and fitting out for sale to the end customer. Most are single individuals or smallish companies, meaning the staff involved each cover several different aspects of the work - someone who is a jack of all trades is not going to be a master of all of them, so inevitably some activities will be better done than others. And thus the final product is usually going to have areas that could have been done better. Sometimes this will matter, sometimes not. But a boat which is a few years old and which has been fairly well looked after will usually have had the teething issues ironed out. Add in the fact that second hand boats are generally cheaper than new, and available almost immediately, and you can see why the usual recommendation on here is to buy second hand for your first boat. New boats are for when you have the experience to know exactly what you do and don't want in a boat, especially if that is something not to be found in mainstream craft.