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buying a brand new narrowboat


MRBear

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6 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

It might be that 55kgf is their standard narrowboat thruster and 95kgf for a broadbeam, in which case the person typing could easily have typed 95 in error.  I am assuming it is a narrowboat we are discussing.

Yes, I guess that’s quite possible. However, having typed ‘95’ did they then also charge for 95?

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hi guys, 

thanks for all your comments

to clarify

it was the show boat, the listed extras were supposedly already installed, I could attach the spec sheets of the listed upgrades but it has the boat company name on so not sure if that's ok. the other extras that they did were F.O.C

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Just now, MRBear said:

hi guys, 

thanks for all your comments

to clarify

it was the show boat, the listed extras were supposedly already installed, I could attach the spec sheets of the listed upgrades but it has the boat company name on so not sure if that's ok. the other extras that they did were F.O.C

So, was it exhibited by Collingwood or by Narrowboats Ltd?

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11 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

 

I'd say this is the behaviour of a company on the skids and within an ace of bankruptcy. Anything to wring a few quid of profit out of your new build. You may turn out to have been lucky to get it even delivered. 

 

Pursue them through the courts and they may well just fold rather than pay up, I reckon. How long was their order book?

 

 

As Mike says ^^^

I would also add, don't hang about thinking about it - or you may find when you get round to it, there is nobody to claim against.dy to claim against.

Edited by Mike Tee
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the problem I have with it being a typo is that they have been in business for over 20 years, I just don't believe that they got to the show without anyone picking up on it if indeed it was a typo, but they then sent me the same spec sheet attached to an email when they corrected me on the price, I would say the company name, but I'm not sure if that would be legal at this point.

my understanding of the word "upgrade" is that the item is a superior version, or in this case, more powerful version of something that was already included.

it is indeed a Collingwood boat but we purchased it from the dealer who showed the boat at Crick, not directly with collingwood

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I'm not sure how well the typo defence would stand up in court. This is a nearly £100k transaction. Surely the vendor can be expected to thoroughly check the contract. If they made a mistake, why should the purchaser pay for it? How far could it be taken? If I pay for a 1.9 ltr car, could the dealer deliver a 1.6 ltr and claim it was an honest mistake? 

 

The problem 'buyer beware' is that there was probably a sizable deposit paid and the buyer may have feared losing this entirely and be back to square one in terms of searching for a boat. I had some issues with being charged extra for things I believed to be included when my shell was being built (different company). I had already paid a large deposit and the first stage payment so felt I couldn't walk away. In the end they forget to charge me for a couple extras I had agreed to so it wasn't so bad. They tried to say near the end of the build that primer and blacking wasn't included. I kicked up a fuss at that and we settled on it being shot-blasted and two-packed for £700 which I thought was ok. 

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I would make the observation that the op said “all for £89,950, or so we thought, we paid our deposit on the day and left excited about our wonderful new boat. how wrong we were.”  

So when they paid their deposit they appear not have in writing an agreed spec and price for what they had ordered.  It appears they went away thinking they had negotiated very well, and the seller feels they agreed a price for the boat, basically ‘as is’ with a host of extras etc to price up.

The seller then presented the revised price which after some negotiations they reduced with a ‘show discount’.

 

so we should be careful about criticism of the seller as we only know one side.

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53 minutes ago, Athy said:

I noticed that, in the list of optional extras on the web site, a bow thruster is mentioned - but it is a 55, not a 95. This looks as if it may have been an honest mistake on the part of someone at the company.

sadly we didn't buy it from the website, we bought it at the show, it was the show boat, all the other extras on the spec sheet are as they should be, but the bow thrusted is tucked away and it is very difficult to actually see the label on the unit, if it wasn't for the handover guy being so thorough and determined then we'd be non the wiser

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It looks rather like a misunderstanding to me. Perhaps @MRBear would care to confirm or correct the way I read the situation below.

 

A demonstrator was displayed by a seller at a show at a base price with a range of individually priced optional extras. The demonstrator happened to have some of the extras fitted. The buyer bought the demonstrator itself and believed they had secured the boat at base price including the extras that were fitted. The seller thinks they are selling it at base price plus extras minus show discount. The bow thruster fitted is the correct one for the boat but not the one listed in the agreed specification. It is unclear whether the OP has paid the correct price for what is fitted.

 

JP

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7 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

It looks rather like a misunderstanding to me. Perhaps @MRBear would care to confirm or correct the way I read the situation below.

 

A demonstrator was displayed by a seller at a show at a base price with a range of individually priced optional extras. The demonstrator happened to have some of the extras fitted. The buyer bought the demonstrator itself and believed they had secured the boat at base price including the extras that were fitted. The seller thinks they are selling it at base price plus extras minus show discount. The bow thruster fitted is the correct one for the boat but not the one listed in the agreed specification. It is unclear whether the OP has paid the correct price for what is fitted.

 

JP

it was the demonstrator at the show, it was sold with all of the listed extras installed, with the "upgraded "95kgf bow thruster priced at £3120. when they corrected me on the price the base price plus the full list of the extras totalled the £99.970. 

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Just now, MRBear said:

it was the demonstrator at the show, it was sold with all of the listed extras installed, with the "upgraded "95kgf bow thruster priced at £3120. when they corrected me on the price the base price plus the full list of the extras totalled the £99.970. 

And did you get written confirmation of the £89,950 total sale price including the extras at the time the sale was made?

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33 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

It looks rather like a misunderstanding to me.

 

JP

I wonder if the boat was exhibited at a "from price", i.e. the displayed price was for a standard model without the extra features. I've seen this done with cars: you see a gleamingly alluring model in a showroom with, in large print on its placard "from £19,999"; in much smaller print it says "this model £26,999" or similar.

4 minutes ago, Nut said:

tbh it looks like they are playing you. get some true advice from trading standards and see them in the courts

I wonder if confrontation might create more problems than it solves.

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So the shell was by Collingwood.

 

Is Collingwood the phoenix firm that rose from the ashes of Liverpool Boats? LB used to play fast and loose with agreed specifications in exactly this way, in my experience when we use to sell them at T&K Marina in Reading. They went bust. 

 

 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

So the shell was by Collingwood.

 

Is Collingwood the phoenix firm that rose from the ashes of Liverpool Boats? LB used to play fast and loose with agreed specifications in exactly this way, in my experience when we use to sell them at T&K Marina in Reading. They went bust. 

 

 

 

 

Yes indeed -named, apparently, after Collingwood Dock in Liddypool where they are based.

 

Whether Liverpool Boats actually went bust is a matter for conjecture. They seemed quietly to disappear, and shortly afterwards Collingwood appeared. I'm not sure if it's all the same people (the McNaughton family ran LB as far as I know) - the boats don't look the same.

 

Regarding specification, there was some evidence that the speed of production had an effect on it: our last boat, fitted by Devizes Narrowboat Builders, had a Liverpool shell and it was only when we came to sell her that the broker noticed that the side deck/gunwale/whatever was an inch wider on one side than on the other.

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1 hour ago, Captain Pegg said:

It looks rather like a misunderstanding to me. Perhaps @MRBear would care to confirm or correct the way I read the situation below.

 

A demonstrator was displayed by a seller at a show at a base price with a range of individually priced optional extras. The demonstrator happened to have some of the extras fitted. The buyer bought the demonstrator itself and believed they had secured the boat at base price including the extras that were fitted. The seller thinks they are selling it at base price plus extras minus show discount. The bow thruster fitted is the correct one for the boat but not the one listed in the agreed specification. It is unclear whether the OP has paid the correct price for what is fitted.

 

JP

That will be the case for the defence, absolutely.

If the show boat was offered at £89K, then it was understandable that the OP would assume he had secured the boat as it stood, else the vendors should have made it clear that the boat was a different price, and that the extras already fitted were to be added to the final invoice

Did the sales board say "price from" £89K? 

I assume the extras shown at the show were the costs to be added to the basic sale price, however, they should have made it clear that the boat they were selling at the show was not the basic price.

Edited by LadyG
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13 minutes ago, Tonka said:

Has there ever been a proper company operate from Wincham Wharf

Do you mean an actual boatbuilder? Well, Colliery Narrowboats used to operate from there, not sure if they were builders or brokers. Later, Harral Narrowboats were there - in fact I bought a boat from them in 2010. Unfortunately Harral's ceased trading about 2011, and I think Narrowboats Ltd. have been thee since then. The site's owner wa sa Mr. Massey, not sue if he is still there. 

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2 minutes ago, Athy said:

Do you mean an actual boatbuilder? Well, Colliery Narrowboats used to operate from there, not sure if they were builders or brokers. Later, Harral Narrowboats were there - in fact I bought a boat from them in 2010. Unfortunately Harral's ceased trading about 2011, and I think Narrowboats Ltd. have been thee since then. The site's owner wa sa Mr. Massey, not sue if he is still there. 

Both. Didn't Harral leave having gone bankrupt and then move to Tattenhal and is now trading as ASH something or other. Wincham Wharf used to build those god awful narrowboats which had like a wheel house on them. My father in law went there once to look at a boat and when he saw that the place was more like a breakers yard he walked away.

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37 minutes ago, LadyG said:

That will be the case for the defence, absolutely.

If the show boat was offered at £89K, then it was understandable that the OP would assume he had secured the boat as it stood, else the vendors should have made it clear that the boat was a different price, and that the extras already fitted were to be added to the final invoice

Did the sales board say "price from" £89K? 

I assume the extras shown at the show were the costs to be added to the basic sale price, however, they should have made it clear that the boat they were selling at the show was not the basic price.

hi

the tent board did say from £89,950, this is why they corrected me via email, the already installed upgrades took the price to £99,970, sorry, I thought I had made that clear, 1 of these already installed upgrades was the 95kgf bow thruster priced at £3120

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3 minutes ago, MRBear said:

hi

the tent board did say from £89,950, this is why they corrected me via email, the already installed upgrades took the price to £99,970, sorry, I thought I had made that clear, 1 of these already installed upgrades was the 95kgf bow thruster priced at £3120

 

Thanks for clarifying. 

 

So the dispute has two facets. 

 

1) You thought you were buying a £99,970 boat for £89,950, and 

2) The bow thruster supposedly fitted and taking the price up to £99,970 was not in fact, fitted?

 

 One further point still to clarify, is the £3,120 price the totql cost of supplying and fitting the 95kg bow thruster as an extra? Or is it the difference in cost between the bow thruster you have and the bow thruster you expected to get?

 

 

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1 hour ago, Chewbacka said:

I would make the observation that the op said “all for £89,950, or so we thought, we paid our deposit on the day and left excited about our wonderful new boat. how wrong we were.”  

So when they paid their deposit they appear not have in writing an agreed spec and price for what they had ordered.  It appears they went away thinking they had negotiated very well, and the seller feels they agreed a price for the boat, basically ‘as is’ with a host of extras etc to price up.

The seller then presented the revised price which after some negotiations they reduced with a ‘show discount’.

 

so we should be careful about criticism of the seller as we only know one side.

the revised/corrected price was the base plus all the installed upgrades as stated on the advertising at the show and which was later used to reinforce the actual price we had to pay, the total we paid is not the issue, the issue is that we paid for the declared already installed upgraded 95kgf bow thruster which they priced at £3120, we do not have a 95kgf bow thruster, we have a 55kgf bow thruster. my argument is that the literature both at the show and emailed to us declared the bow thruster to be an upgraded 95kgf.

 

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1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Thanks for clarifying. 

 

So the dispute has two facets. 

 

1) You thought you were buying a £99,970 boat for £89,950, and 

2) The bow thruster supposedly fitted and taking the price up to £99,970 was not in fact, fitted?

 

 One further point still to clarify, is the £3,120 price the totql cost of supplying and fitting the 95kg bow thruster as an extra? Or is it the difference in cost between the bow thruster you have and the bow thruster you expected to get?

 

 

the £3120 is the price on the advertising , it says, upgraded 95kgf bow thruster....£3120

this is the text

 

60’ Shearwater    £89,950                                                        
Long cruiser with seats either side £1,200                              
42hp Engine upgrade     £1,560                                               
95 kgf Bow thruster   £3,120                                                   
3 kva Victron combi inverter charger upgrade   £1,800         
Stern seat cushions     £660                                                     
Off white interior cabin sides  £960                                         
Off white interior ceiling £720

Total £99,970 inc VAT

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1 minute ago, MRBear said:

the £3120 is the price on the advertising , it says, upgraded 95kgf bow thruster....£3120

this is the text

 

60’ Shearwater    £89,950                                                        
Long cruiser with seats either side £1,200                              
42hp Engine upgrade     £1,560                                               
95 kgf Bow thruster   £3,120                                                   
3 kva Victron combi inverter charger upgrade   £1,800         
Stern seat cushions     £660                                                     
Off white interior cabin sides  £960                                         
Off white interior ceiling £720

Total £99,970 inc VAT

 

But here it doesn't say "upgraded", it just says "95 kgf Bow thruster   £3,120". 

 

I'd suggest the dispute is that you have a 55kg bow thruster costing perhaps £2,500, instead of the claimed £95kg bow thruster so your 'loss', might be seen by a court as less than £3,210.

 

 

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