Dave_P

This is what we did in the end. The buyer came up on saturday morning. Once he had arrived, we did the paperwork but left off the final bit confirming sale had completed. His partner in Oxford did a bank transfer for half the amount, via her phone app. This should have taken a maximum of 2 hours, but it ended up taking 3. Nail biting times. Her bank told her she wouldn't be able to transfer the second half until sunday. I'd promised the buyer I'd travel with him the first couple of days, so we set off early afternoon from Hawne Basin and moored saturday night in Bournville, just before a biblical rainstorm. I left him with the boat but kept the engine starter key. I woke up sunday morning to see the second payment had gone through (transfered at midnight), so went back to Bournville, filled in the final bit of paperwork, and helped him from there to Kingswood Junction. His partner and their dogs arrived last night, and they're now on their own, heading for Oxford. If you see them (green boat, Beau on the side), say hi. They seem really nice and I'm sure Beau is in good hands.

Thanks for the suggestions. We discussed a CHAPS transfer but they were reluctant to do that as they're in Oxford and I'm in Birmingham and I'd get the money without them being here. This is what's happening now: The boat is being bought by a young couple. His transfer limit is £10. Hers is £25k. He's done a CHAPS transfer to her so that all the money is in her account. Her bank (Nationwide) has told her that the £25k limit is for a single transaction but she can do more than one. He's coming up tomorrow and while he's here, she will pay into my account in two installments. Hopefully that will work, otherwise he'll have had a wasted train journey.

I understand that he's talking to his bank now.

I'm selling my boat privately. The sale was due to go through today. The buyer was coming up by train and would do a bank transfer in person once the Bill of Sale etc were all done. He's just told me that his bank puts a maximum on daily bank transfers of £10,000, which is less than a quarter of the sale price. So what do we do now? Any ideas?

I lived aboard through both my Master's degrees. Mature student though.

My advice to the OP is take up this offer. Arbutus helped me on this exact section a few years ago when I had a leg injury and a tight deadline to get my boat to a slipway. Top bloke!

I have to say this is really disappointing and short sighted. Not just because it makes a mockery of the current morring reduction trial period but because of the further impact on the towapth. Back in 2016, the north side towpath was resurfaced from the city centre,, out towards Wolverhampton. At that time I was doing my post-grad thesis on 'towpath conflict' and how changes to the built environment could either increase or decrease it. I spoke at length with A*** M******* who was the project lead for Birmingham City Council and J*** H***** who was the project lead for CRT. As part of these meetings we discussed the towpath 'improvements' on the north side and I was told that the same would be done on the south side at some point. I expressed my concerns about this, my comments being along the lines of "now that one side is done, it has pushed many towpath users to the other, muddier side so they can get away from the cyclists. if you do the other side the dog walkers etc will have nowhere to go". Having 2 towpaths means that 2 different surfaces and approaches can be adopted and everyone can be catered for. It was like talking to a brick wall. Both of them simply couldn't conceive of a reason why a towpath shouldn't be tarmacked if there's money to do it. I was met with blank stares from both of them when I tried to explain the problem. In 2016, the money came from the DfT via a thing called the Cycle City Ambition Grant. I presume another pot of grant money has now been awarded and again CRT and BCC can't think of anything to do with it but to tarmac more towpath. I was told in 2016 that the towpaths were chosen because they were "quick wins". In case you were wondering, yes I found various postive correlations between 'improving' towpaths and various negative outcomes, including more accidents and injuries and towpath users being driven away. It's also worth mentioning that the works done on the towpaths are often in direct contravention of the Trust's own guidelines for towpath design, introduced in 2013 https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/original/6873.pdf?v=cafb81

You first. https://www.lpropertylawyers.co.uk/is-it-a-good-idea-to-raffle-your-house/

When I'm ready to sell, I'll certainly put it on here.

Is this for me? I can see the potential but what if I fail to sell enough tickets? Those house raffle things work because the companies doing it have a big reach and advertising budget. It could be a money-spinner though I suppose? £2 a ticket maybe? I'd like about £45k for my boat so if I sold 23,000 or more tickets, then I'm winning. Are there 23,000 people who would buy a raffle ticket for a boat? I quite like this approach.

What gave you the idea that the mooring is transferable?

The paint is FAR worse than just blistered with rust. Also as said earlier, it's part repainted, but it's also been touched up over the years with various non-matching paints. If it was just blistered with rust, I'd just polish it, definitely. I think so too. Like said earlier, it's a sound boat. Reliable, well equipped, in good nick inside etc. But the first impression of it is bad. I have an experienced amateur painter who is pencilled in to paint it for me in April (I've seen their work and it's a lot better than mine). I've got to get the angle grinder out first though to do the prep.