A sobering tale about not trusting surveyors.

[doratheexplorer]

 

[BilgePump]

There's already a thread about it started by Harold here. Like you say, sobering about how much faith to put in a survey, and a horrible thing to happen for the lady in question.

 

[Tracy D'arth]

5 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

 

I've seen it!     Its the weight of anodes dragging it under.

 

How can she complain 3 years after survey?

 

I have never had a survey on any boat I have purchased, its not worth the paper its written on anyway.

[Alan de Enfield]

4 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I have never had a survey on any boat I have purchased, its not worth the paper its written on anyway.

 

 

As the the video (and many others) are finding out to their cost.

[doratheexplorer]

9 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I've seen it!     Its the weight of anodes dragging it under.

 

How can she complain 3 years after survey?

 

I have never had a survey on any boat I have purchased, its not worth the paper its written on anyway.

She can complain because the second surveyor has stated that the first survey wasn't done correctly and that the major problems would have been there 3 years earlier.  Whether that's true is a matter for the courts, I suspect.

[Machpoint005]

Just now, doratheexplorer said:

Whether that's true is a matter for the courts, I suspect.

 

There's only one winner there .. m'learned friends (well, two winners actually, one on each side).

[matty40s]

Blackrose started a thread about it too, who's next.

The surveyor recommended some works to be carried out and blacking, we dont know if the first was completed(she never said what it was anyway), and the blacking wasnt done for 3 years.

[Laurie Booth]

Very sad for the lady, 

 

[MtB]

31 minutes ago, matty40s said:

Blackrose started a thread about it too, who's next.

 

 

 

I think I might start another new one about this tomorrow, as we have one for today already. 

[MarkH2159]

4 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I've seen it!     Its the weight of anodes dragging it under.

 

How can she complain 3 years after survey?

 

I have never had a survey on any boat I have purchased, its not worth the paper its written on anyway.

Spot on as ever 🙂 

I surveyed my own boat whilst it was in the water.

Most of the time was spent going through the extensive history and meticulous documentation that the owner had kept so well. Seeing the maintenance records and a quick look under the floor was basically enough.

Also the fact that it is a Peter Nicholls build told me quite a lot about it.

 

Of course with a different boat, possibly poorly maintained and lacking history, I probably wouldnt have bothered. 

Some of had good results with surveys throwing up issues which the seller has fixed before the money has been handed over, but many have not.

Caveat Emptor and all that. 

[Mad Harold]

6 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

 

 

I have never had a survey on any boat I have purchased, its not worth the paper its written on anyway.

Would you pass on some tips on buying a used boat that's still in the water.?

How do you ascertain the hull condition? (run your hand along the hull under the waterline,or rattle a hammer along listening for change of note?)

Do you take a bit of floor up to check for corrosion?

I would guess that all experienced boaters have their own way of checking,and I think it would be useful if you and other people who buy without a (professional) survey would pass on some tips.

 

[Momac]

6 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I've seen it!     Its the weight of anodes dragging it under.

 

How can she complain 3 years after survey?

 

I have never had a survey on any boat I have purchased, its not worth the paper its written on anyway.

I had the opposite experience with my present boat. 

 

[JoeC]

On 10/12/2021 at 16:08, MarkH2159 said:

 

Hello. I was just taking with you for a couple of hours this afternoon at Buggy about boats! I didn't get your name but saw your boat name. I'm Joe BTW.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

On 10/12/2021 at 12:06, Laurie Booth said:

Very sad for the lady, 

 

It is sad. 
 

 

But she’s up to £7000 on her fundraising. 👍
 

[matty40s]

It needs MtB to do his thread tommorow and she will crack £10k, more than enough to pay for a new baseplate

 

[john.k]

Well,suppose you were inspecting a boat,and gave it a tap under the waterline with the aforesaid knockometer, half the bottom fell out ,and it did a Titanic ......could the owner sue you for sinking his boat?..............

[Alan de Enfield]

9 hours ago, john.k said:

Well,suppose you were inspecting a boat,and gave it a tap under the waterline with the aforesaid knockometer, half the bottom fell out ,and it did a Titanic ......could the owner sue you for sinking his boat?..............

 

There was a thread here (a few years ago) when a company blasted a hull, blacked it, put it back into the water and it sank overnight.

 

Extract from said thread :

 

 

There was a very long thread on the subject.

 

This was part of the story

 

I am the owner who is mentioned here whose boat sank during routine maintenance carried out by a marina. My blog, also mentioned here was to inform other boat owners of the potential to loose everything without really trying, so that they might be more prudent in their own dealings with marinas, boatyards and insurance companies. I know my posts are long and difficult to read, but so was the incident that lasted most of 2014, and still didn't have a satisfactory resolution, where I felt I had no alternative in the end other than to dispose of my boat as salvage due to all the circumstances I have already described. It was never my intention to name and shame, just to make others aware of what can happen, and in full detail, although I am still unable to publish the name of the marina concerned due to ongoing attempts to recoup some of the unfair costs they levied before I could remove my boat from their premises. (The boat sank while they were working on it and in their care, and then they chose to send invoices for storage charges throughout the year while I attempted to sort things out, without any help from them and even before my insurance claim was settled).

• My fully comprehensive insurance was with Craftinsure, underwritten by Navigators & General. I had cover with them without claim from 2006. My claim was passed to the underwriters due to the possible size of the claim.
• They made it clear from the start that I had no recourse to the 3rd party insurer to claim from them if I continued with my claim to my own insurer. It was of no concern to me if N&G chose to reclaim from a 3rd party insurer their payout to me or not. Any claim to Craftinsure would have to be within the terms of my policy with them, which came nowhere near to what was required by my own surveyor. Nothing that had been damaged could be replaced with new. In the end N&G did reclaim their costs from the marina's insurer, but all I got out of it was the refund of my £300 excess payment.
• In the first instance, using the advice of N&G's representative, I wrote to the marina owner requesting details of their insurer so a direct claim could be made to them and perhaps I might have access to a more detailed repair that way. I never received a reply, other than an acknowledgemnt of my request from the marina manager.
• As such, again on the advice of N&G, I arranged to use legal expenses insurance I had with another policy to pursue uninsured losses. My solicitor, after gathering all related information to my case and making an assessment, also wrote to the marina owner on the 10th June requesting the same information. I have a later letter from my solicitor stating that "the marina owner had not yet given him the decency of a reply" and he would write again.
• The long process of obtaining estimates for repair that would satisfy my own insurer went on from there, with many dificulties, as I found other yards did not want to become involved. Eventually, after many months I felt I had no alternative but to accept a settlement of £5000 in lieu of repairs. I had argued black and blue that their repairs were insufficient to provide a reliable future for our boat. This is why we decided to sell it unrepaired. My own surveyor's estimates for satisfactory detailed repairs were around £20,000.
• During this process N&G were informed of the marina's insurer, but by the end of July I had settled with them in full and final payment. The legal process went on, and by now my solicitor also knew the identity of the marina's insurer, and put a claim together for reasonable uninsured losses. This was rejected out of hand by the other insurer, as I had already accepted my claim from N&G. They did however accept full liability, but would only repay N&G's costs, their payout to me.
• Due to the nature of legal expenses insurance (which I now consider to be a waste of time), with no 3rd party insurer to claim from, in their eyes my action now had a less than 51% chance of success. As a consequence legal funding was withdrawn, although I was advised that I still had a viable claim direct with the marina owners. However, this could not be funded by this action, although I was free to make a further claim to use LEI to pursue that. This meant starting from scratch, and with potential costs escalating, (storage charges), I decided I was on a route to nowhere there.

I made enquiries with two specialist marine law companies, who wanted £10,000 to undertake preliminary case assessments, with an estimated £30,000 final cost to gain success at court. Should a court case fail, then costs could double due to having to fund all court costs. This of course was not viable, and that is where we ended up - selling the boat for salvage and adding the £5000 insurance payout to that. That equated to a loss of around £20,000 on what I might have expected to sell our boat for in an unsunken condition. Yes, I threw the towel in, but I was getting nowhere with anybody, and after all those months of worry, I had had enough.

 

My reply has again been long, but if I made every detail known I could probably fill a book. I hope this answers some questions that have been posted on this forum about insurance as well as trusting marinas and boatyards to undertake work on your behalf.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Alan de Enfield

[john.k]

Any repairer is burdened to undertake work with a degree of skill normally exercised in the course of such work,and is not required to exercise an exceptional dgree of skill unless such is a specific requirement of a contract for the work.The repairer must take such precautions against unfavourable outcomes as a reasonable man ,knowledgable in the trade would take......

[IanD]

20 minutes ago, john.k said:

Any repairer is burdened to undertake work with a degree of skill normally exercised in the course of such work,and is not required to exercise an exceptional dgree of skill unless such is a specific requirement of a contract for the work.The repairer must take such precautions against unfavourable outcomes as a reasonable man ,knowledgable in the trade would take......

For a marina or boatyard -- whose entire business involves keeping boats afloat -- doing work on a boat, ensuring it doesn't sink doesn't seem like an unreasonable burden of skill to me...

 

Ignoring culpability and then relying on the victim being unable to afford to pay legal fees needed to sue is what a lot of unscrupulous and disreputable companies do, if they think they can get away with it. Often getting the press involved was the only way to get them to cough up, nowadays shaming on social media serves some of the same purpose -- but of course, this means naming names...

Edited December 14, 2021 by IanD

[john.k]

I d have to charge you 300 quid an hour for an opinion on that!

[ditchcrawler]

46 minutes ago, IanD said:

For a marina or boatyard -- whose entire business involves keeping boats afloat -- doing work on a boat, ensuring it doesn't sink doesn't seem like an unreasonable burden of skill to me...

 

Ignoring culpability and then relying on the victim being unable to afford to pay legal fees needed to sue is what a lot of unscrupulous and disreputable companies do, if they think they can get away with it. Often getting the press involved was the only way to get them to cough up, nowadays shaming on social media serves some of the same purpose -- but of course, this means naming names...

You hear it on the radio all the time, "Since the BBC contacted the  bank they have paid Mr X and apologised for the clerical error" etc

[IanD]

34 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

You hear it on the radio all the time, "Since the BBC contacted the  bank they have paid Mr X and apologised for the clerical error" etc

It's because not paying up saves them money but bad publicity costs them potentially more through lack of custom, so all of a sudden they cough up.

 

It used to be difficult to shame them into paying because only a very few ever make it onto the TV (biggest loss) and newspaper problem pages (big loss), nowadays a lot of companies are aware that their reputation can be trashed online much more easily so pay up if threatened with postings on web pages, review sites, forums and so on.

[Mike Todd]

1 hour ago, john.k said:

I d have to charge you 300 quid an hour for an opinion on that!

Cheapskate!

[LadyG]

I did hear (Radio Four), advice noting that the Legal Cover which many folks have on houses may well provide cover for all sorts of complaints, interesting. 

Some boat insurance have LC, but not all, and may be a box tick. 

[Momac]

3 hours ago, LadyG said:

 

Some boat insurance have LC, but not all, and may be a box tick. 

It is an extra which can  sometimes can be free or if not its very low cost.