IanD

Wrong place -- you do know that PLUTO = PipeLine Under The Ocean? 🙂

It's possible that given the high demand for boats recently and the number of newbies looking for a cheap new lifestyle afloat but with no real clue (see posts on CWDF...), ABNB were finding themselves swamped with clueless newbies desperate to get a boat and firing off "I wanna look at/buy this" requests to all and sundry -- but most of them turned out to be timewasters, who nevertheless took time and effort to deal with, which meant they couldn't give as good a service to genuine enquiries. The "non-refundable deposit" change to T&C could well be to try and discourage such timewasters... ...which ABNB T&C suggest could be a valid reason for refunding the deposit, if agreement between seller and buyer (e.g. lower price) can't be reached as a result.

I don't think it's only "yoofs"... 😉

But nevertheless you though they (and the boat) were sufficiently attractive to go with them... 😉 So it didn't put you off or cost you anything, but probably discouraged the gongoozlers and tirekickers so you got the boat you wanted more quickly and with less apparent competition. Isn't that a good thing? 🙂

You can't set your own personal T&C and impose them on the broker, they're the ones with a contract (and a boat!) offering to do business with you so it's up to them to set the T&C. If you don't agree to their T&C then they won't do business with you, there are plenty more fish in the sea*** so you have no power over them... *** at least that's the position now in a buyer's market -- if they've had a boat hanging round for ages like a bad smell and you're the first fish to bite in months they might entertain a T&C change...

They need to sort out their website then, they can't both be correct... (the links from their main page only show the new version, the old one seems to be still there in the pdfs area but not linked to any more)

Just like estate agents -- they're not your friend, they're a business. Nevertheless some brokers seem to be rated much more highly than others in terms of honesty and keeping customers informed, and ABNB is one of the ones often recommended which suggests others are worse... 😉

I assume if you do buy a boat this is credited against the cost? It's basically a way to weed out timewasters and tirekickers, and pay the brokerage for staff time spent supporting you if you later walk away -- though £1000 seems a bit high for a brokerage, ABNB do seem to have a good reputation from what I've seen on here.

Consumer rights are different for brand new goods -- assumed to be "perfect" and which must meet all points of the specification and description -- and secondhand goods which are not assumed to be "perfect" and may have minor faults, but must still be "as described". If the seller/broker says that everything functions perfectly and they don't then you have rights to a full refund. But this pretty much never happens with secondhand boats, they're sold "subject to survey" -- and even then if the surveyor misses something, good luck with getting your money back. The legal position is also different if you're buying from a company that owns something -- who is then responsible for the accuracy of the description -- and a broker who is selling something on behalf of the owner, and to a large extent relies on what the owner tells them together with whatever checks they can do. Your consumer rights buying from a private individual (directly or via a broker) are much reduced compared to buying from a company who owns the boat, that's just the way the law works.

The B2B data sheet says that the negatives are bonded together, they're just two terminals onto a single internal busbar. The positives are obviously separate...

Most of those right apply to new goods -- including a new boat! -- where the specification is clear; if it doesn't do what is claimed by the seller, you're entitled to a full refund. It doesn't apply in the same way to secondhand goods like boats sold through brokers which will inevitably not be "perfect", and may well have issues that neither seller or broker is aware of. A deposit on a boat is a way to form an initial contract between a buyer and seller, in exchange for which the seller may do things like taking the boat off the market. If significant unexpected faults are found then the deposit is usually refundable, if not -- for example, the buyer just doesn't like it, or changes their mind -- then part or all of the deposit can be kept by the broker, so long as this is made clear in their T&Cs. This stops unscrupulous buyers with plenty of money putting deposits down on a whole raft of boats they fancy the look of to get them pulled off the market, then asking for all of them to be refunded, then repeating -- which would put less deep-pocketed or ethical buyers at a severe disadvantage, as well as screwing the brokers. There's always a balance to be made between the rights of buyers and sellers, and deposits are a way to try and balance out both. If you don't like the terms of a particular broker, don't use them... 😉

If it takes power to pump the water uphill, you could get some of that back with water turbines where it goes downhill... Not just capex -- which is investment in infrastructure, which this government is famously averse to -- but also finding a route to dig and lay a pipeline through prime NIMBY-land... 😞

Every business has T&Cs regarding things like return (or not) of deposits, and unless they're bound by law to do it there's nothing that says they all have to be the same -- but they do need to make them clear, not hide them at the bottom of page 97 of small print. There's nothing unethical about not refunding deposits so long as you made it clear that's what you do -- things like taking a boat off the market and then having the sale fall through and having to repost it does cost a business money, and if the deposit is fully refundable under all circumstances there's nothing to stop buyers messing multiple brokers around by putting down deposits on multiple boats in the knowledge they're only going to buy one (or none).

If you actually read the article, it says that Brum has a surplus of treated waste water which could indeed be useful Dahn Sarf... 😉