Rental Agreements

[Mrs Mac]

Hello members,

As this is my first post I hope you will be gentle with me!!! My husband and I want to make the move onto a narrowboat/widebeam/barge full time, but at the moment cannot financial justify the purchase cost. With the current economic climate and so many boats for sale we wondered about approaching owners/marinas about renting a vessel for 6months - 1 year while the market improves. I just wondered if anyone has any experience of rental agreements and if this is a common activity? We would obviously pay the mooring fees and boat licence for the duration of the agreement as well as monthly rent. We desperately want to live on the Lancaster Canal and it would be great to hear from anyone who has a boat or knows of anyone willing to consider this option.

Many thanks, Emily

[Guest]

Hello members,

As this is my first post I hope you will be gentle with me!!! My husband and I want to make the move onto a narrowboat/widebeam/barge full time, but at the moment cannot financial justify the purchase cost. With the current economic climate and so many boats for sale we wondered about approaching owners/marinas about renting a vessel for 6months - 1 year while the market improves. I just wondered if anyone has any experience of rental agreements and if this is a common activity? We would obviously pay the mooring fees and boat licence for the duration of the agreement as well as monthly rent. We desperately want to live on the Lancaster Canal and it would be great to hear from anyone who has a boat or knows of anyone willing to consider this option.

Many thanks, Emily

 

Welcome to the forum Emily.

 

You are raising a question on here that has come up a few times and one which often causes a lot of debate.

 

The reason is because renting a boat can be constituted as it being hired out which done properly requires different insurance, different boat safety certificate (MOT for boats) requirements and a different (more expensive) licence.

 

you are therefore unlikely to get anybody agreeing to being interested in this in the public part of the forum

 

People however may wish to contact you by the private message system but you will need five posts in the public forum to be able to use that, so you need to ask a few more things....

 

It might also be worth having a face to face chat with some boaters on the canal in question to see if they know of anybody willing to enter into such an agreement.

 

I'm not being negative or dismissive just making you aware that it is not as straightforward as it might appear.

 

A long term 'hire' from a bona fide hire company/marina is a different matter though the above comments apply only to private owners renting out, it won't be cheap though.

Edited March 4, 2013 by The Dog House

[Mrs Mac]

Welcome to the forum Emily.

 

You are raising a question on here that has come up a few times and one which often causes a lot of debate.

 

The reason is because renting a boat can be constituted as it being hired out which done properly requires different insurance, different boat safety certificate (MOT for boats) requirements and a different (more expensive) licence.

 

you are therefore unlikely to get anybody agreeing to being interested in this in the public part of the forum

 

People however may wish to contact you by the private message system but you will need five posts in the public forum to be able to use that, so you need to ask a few more things....

 

It might also be worth having a face to face chat with some boaters on the canal in question to see if they know of anybody willing to enter into such an agreement.

 

I'm not being negative or dismissive just making you aware that it is not as straightforward as it might appear.

 

A long term hire from a bona fide hire company/marina is a different matter though the above applies to private owners.

 

Thanks very much for your advice Martin - I didn't realise there were different licence and certificate requirements. Very useful to know!!! We have such a limited budget if we were to buy (circa. £25k) that I thought rental might be the way forward. Will certainly keep walking along the Lancaster and see if any boats are for sale! SO desperately want to live aboard!!!

[RichardH]

And if all this is in place then the cost price of licence, insurance and mooring is likely to be nearly £400 pcm

 

Add to this what the person wants from the let.

 

We receive many enquiries of this type and we just cannot do it for the prices folk want to pay.

[Guest]

Thanks very much for your advice Martin - I didn't realise there were different licence and certificate requirements. Very useful to know!!! We have such a limited budget if we were to buy (circa. £25k) that I thought rental might be the way forward. Will certainly keep walking along the Lancaster and see if any boats are for sale! SO desperately want to live aboard!!!

 

Whilst the housing market is still depressed so is the boat buying market so when things start to pick up you may find your £25K may not go as far - now could be a good time to buy....

[RichardH]

Thanks very much for your advice Martin - I didn't realise there were different licence and certificate requirements. Very useful to know!!! We have such a limited budget if we were to buy (circa. £25k) that I thought rental might be the way forward. Will certainly keep walking along the Lancaster and see if any boats are for sale! SO desperately want to live aboard!!!

 

If you are serious about buying look through the brokerages - don't rely on spotting one along the canal.

 

Check out moorings and marinas - CRT online moorings will generally be cheaper but won't have power and are less likely to have easy access to water and loo emptying facilities.

 

This is not a plug but have you hired to find out if you like being aboard.

[Lady Muck]

To the OP - have you considered a marine mortgage? admittedly they're not great value but it's what got us afloat.

You need a mooring for the boat and a deposit 20% (I think) of the boat cost.

 

For us it still worked out way cheaper than renting two rooms in a London shared house.

 

The only other way you can 'rent' a boat out and not invalidate the insurance is for you and the 'landlord' to run it as a share boat - you 'buy' a share in the boat. The only liveaboard 'rental' scheme on the waterways operating in a legit way does this.

 

http://etrr.co.uk/

 

The others, as we've discovered, do not. Which is all fine 'til you get problems. Which in London, hmm, lets see, includes two sinkings a fire and a gas explosion that I personally know about.

 

Just be sure you're not renting from the waterways equivalent of Peter Rachman. The rules are there for a reason.

 

The other popular thing to do is rent to buy - again, not legal, because you're supposed to have a license to sell something hire purchase. There was a situation last year where the 'landlord' of a rent-to-buy boat died and the family sold the boat because it was legally thiers, rendering the tenant homeless. He was powerless to do anything to get the boat back, despite having almost paid off the debt. There was only a verbal agreement, but then again, would any solicitor help you draw up an agreement for something that wasn't legal? I don't know?

 

 

I just want you to be aware of the pitfalls before you jump in there with both feet. If I was you, I'd try to buy outright or with a marine mortgage. As everyone says, it's a buyers market.

Edited March 4, 2013 by Lady Muck

[Alan de Enfield]

Just to get another of the 'negatives' out of the way (then you can start thinking about the 'positives')

 

You cannot just buy a boat and moor it anywhere you want, you will need to buy/rent a mooring, to make matters worse if you intend to liveaboard then you will need a residential mooring (of which they are few and far between)

 

Do you intend to stay permanently on the Lancaster Canal or will you be cruising the network ?

 

If you intend to liveaboard, and, stay on the Lancaster it may be advisable to look at mooring options before commiting to a boat.

 

Good luck

[Mac of Cygnet]

OH, NNO! I'm now going to have to stop referring to the OH as 'Mrs Mac'!

 

Welcome to the forum, nevertheless.

[Mrs Mac]

OH, NNO! I'm now going to have to stop referring to the OH as 'Mrs Mac'!

 

Welcome to the forum, nevertheless.

 

Hello fellow Mac!!!

Our surname is Maclean and I am often called Mrs Mac at home!!! My full user name is macleanmadness so maybe I should use that instead of shortened name!!! Nice to see a fellow Scot on here!!! We were in Aberdeen for many years before moving to Lancashire. Nae canals up north and loving the world of waterways down here in England!!! Just need to find a boat now!!!