Paying a premium for mooring

[Mark O'Connor]

Hello all,

 

Interested in people's views on paying a premium for a boat with a mooring in London. I've found one with a secure mooring close to Kings Cross, but the asking price is around £30,000 more than the value of the boat. I understand this is to be expected, but how high is the risk of loosing money on this? I'm thinking mainly in terms of the mooring changing hands and loosing the mooring. 

 

At the moment it's the most practical option for me as I can't move a boat frequently enough with my work, but love the lifestyle and living on land doesn't appeal to me. 

 

Thanks!

[Guest]

In that area that is a bargain! Depending on the length of the boat the mooring could be worth a lot more than that. (And, if it is Leo it is a really rather lovely boat too - I know one or two others around there too so feel free to ask...).

What you need to check is that it is one of the historic transferable moorings rather than a 'normal' CRT one which goes into an auction when it changes hands. It could be a private/co-operative one and those, although potentially transferable, may or may not be as secure as a CRT one where if you follow the rules you should be fine.

 

PS Boaters are very friendly, helpful and welcoming - it will be fun!

Edited December 8, 2019 by TheMenagerieAfloat

[Alan de Enfield]

The big thing to remember is that there is NO SECURITY OF TENURE with a mooring. You could (legally) be evicted or given notice on the day you move in. It is not like renting a house where you have the law behind you and loads of security.

The land owner could double your mooring fees, he could sell the land for development etc etc etc. You have no come-back.

 

Do not spend more than you can afford to lose.

 

Have a read of this :

 

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/aug/29/no-real-security-why-dont-houseboat-residents-get-rights-like-other-tenants

 

 

..........................   It is a situation faced by most houseboat communities, who may own their boats but not the moorings, and therefore have no legal right to stay. Unlike owners of houses or apartments, houseboat owners have no security of tenure: although they pay council tax, energy, water and insurance bills, they do not have the same statutory rights as other tenants. As a result, they have little redress when the owners of moorings propose to increase fees or develop the site.

“Over many years, layers of statutory regulation have protected residential tenants from what would otherwise be a very unequal relationship by granting them rights against their landlord or by limiting the landlord’s rights as owners of the home,” explains Amanda Burge, head of dispute resolution at international law firm Hamlins. “The legal relationship when a boat owner moors a boat at a mooring is usually a completely different one and so the statutory regulation simply does not apply.

“The situation faced by houseboat owners is not dissimilar to the one faced by mobile home residents – but while there is legislation designed to provide some protections to them, there is nothing at all that is designed to apply to residential houseboats.”

[Mark O'Connor]

Thank you! It isn't Leo although she does look like a really beautiful boat. It's a privately owned one, they obviously rent from CRT but I was slightly worried about it not being as secure as CRT because of being privately owned.

 

I've pretty much decided that it's for me and am really excited, just getting last minute nerves because it seems like such a lot of money for something potentially not very secure! 

 

And also, yes, very excited to join the boating world!

Alan, this is what I was worried about! And am willing to take the risk, I'm just trying to work out exactly how much of a risk it is. Does eviction happen often? 

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, Mark O'Connor said:

It's a privately owned one, they obviously rent from CRT but I was slightly worried about it not being as secure as CRT because of being privately owned.

Is the mooring owned by C&RT ?

C&RT moorings are rarely (if ever) transferable. You may be paying £30,000 and getting nothing.

Speak with C&RT and ask them if the mooring is transferable and what are the annual fees - and get the answer in writing from them

[Guest]

All the boats will be privately owned. If the current boat owners rent the mooring from CRT you need to check if it is transferable or not. There are some of each.

[Mark O'Connor]

The mooring isn't owned by CRT. It's privately owned by a property development company

[Guest]

Ah, (more towards Camden - the Kings Cross itself ones are generally CRT except for the co-op type arrangements...?), for that, yes, you're right to be more cautious. Check paperwork v thoroughly...

 

Edited to add: also facilities/hook-ups etc - the CRT and co-op style ones are good. Less familiar with the others...

Edited December 8, 2019 by TheMenagerieAfloat

[Mark O'Connor]

It's in Haggerston, I'll be sure to check the paperwork really thoroughly. It has electric hookup, water and pumpout, which makes me want to think evicting boats would be a waste of money for them, but of course can't really know. There aren't many boats on the mooring either which is potentially a worry, just because an eviction would affect so few people it would be hard to argue against 

[Guest]

Ah... Haggerston is quite different to Kings Cross! (Some would say in a good way). Not at all sure how much moorings there are worth... There is a fair amount of cultural stuff in/around the canal there but it sounds a bit more like house share "looking for someone to become a full part of the community" - is there an interview (there are for some places)? Could effect resale value (possibly in either direction).

 

Edited to add: I'm not familiar with widebeam pricing but a quick search indicates your premium may be more along the lines of 100k.

e.g. this one is a couple of yrs newer and 99k cheaper (than the one I assume you're thinking of)

https://www.apolloduck.com/boat/elton-moss-boatbuilders-55-widebeam/621018

 

Which is more like Kings Cross prices, although you don't get many wide beam berths there so you could argue it is only half of KC prices if you look at square footage rather than length of mooring.

Edited December 8, 2019 by TheMenagerieAfloat

[Tim Lewis]

8 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The big thing to remember is that there is NO SECURITY OF TENURE with a mooring. You could (legally) be evicted or given notice on the day you move in. It is not like renting a house where you have the law behind you and loads of security.

The land owner could double your mooring fees, he could sell the land for development etc etc etc. You have no come-back.

 

<Snip>

There are leasehold moorings in Kings Cross with security of Tenure)

 

 

[MtB]

9 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Is the mooring owned by C&RT ?

C&RT moorings are rarely (if ever) transferable.

 

It happened here on the K&A. A widebeam on a regular CRT leisure mooring here changed hands about two years ago and remains today on the same (better than mine) CRT mooring. The mooring never came up for auction as I was watching closely and planned to bid on it but I never got the chance. The new widebeam owners just stepped into the shoes of the sellers, with the boat staying on the same mooring. 

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

Just now, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

It happened here on the K&A. A widebeam on a regular CRT leisure mooring here changed hands about two years ago and remains today on the same (better than mine) CRT mooring. The mooring never came up for auction as I was watching closely and planned to bid on it but I never got the chance. The new widebeam owners just stepped into the shoes of the sellers, with the boat staying on the same mooring. 

 

 

I have heard of similar 'arrangements' and what had happened was that the boat was sold and the buyer placed a condition on the seller (or the seller offered) that the mooring would remain in the 'sellers' name, the 'buyer' would pay the seller the annual mooring fee, and then the 'seller' would pay C&RT.

 

Boaters are very resourceful people and can find a way around most 'problems'.

There are some very deceitful people about !

[MtB]

9 hours ago, TheMenagerieAfloat said:

Edited to add: I'm not familiar with widebeam pricing but a quick search indicates your premium may be more along the lines of 100k.

 

In which case the fact that the OP's premium is "only" £30k leads me to smell a rat and worry there is a very good reason for it being only £30k. 

 

Some digging to establish why the premium is so low is necessary I suggest. Rumours of re-development of the site for example, would be a good reason for someone to aim to get out before the plans are confirmed and the premium value drops to zero. 

 

Check the council for planning applications on the site I suggest.

 

 

Looking on the bright side, it might take 5 or 10 years for development plans to come to fruition and all the boats chucked off. In which case the £30k premium (instead of £100k) looks a good deal if the OP only plans to stay for 5 years and can live with uncertainty.

 

 

 

 

[doratheexplorer]

I assume this mooring is in Kingsland Basin?  As far as I know, the moorings there are extremely sought after as the basin is run as a social enterprise and therefore the mooring fees are well below the London average.  You really should get in touch with http://chug.org.uk/

directly to make sure they agree to this exchange.  If all goes well, you'll end up with a lovely mooring in a nice part of London.

[Guest]

If this is the boat I think it is it is a transferable mooring on the non-towpath side with fees of just less than 10k/yr. Which is fractionally cheaper than Kings Cross and also for a medium length wide beam rather than narrowboats only.

 

If it is that boat then the premium appears to be closer to 100k (based on a quick search for similar boats without moorings) which is more in-line with what you'd expect. I'm not familiar with the paperwork for those ones though so unsure how much security your transferability gets you. I suspect the original poster has just slightly over-estimated the the value of the boat/underestimated the value of the mooring when they've divided up the total.

[Up-Side-Down]

18 hours ago, Mark O'Connor said:

It's in Haggerston, I'll be sure to check the paperwork really thoroughly. It has electric hookup, water and pumpout, which makes me want to think evicting boats would be a waste of money for them, but of course can't really know. There aren't many boats on the mooring either which is potentially a worry, just because an eviction would affect so few people it would be hard to argue against 

Better still, run it past a solicitor. At that sort of money legal fees will appear relatively small!