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Is this legal?


Dave_P

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I've been having some work done on my boat which is due to be completed today. It relates to an insurance claim I made back in April so obviously it's taken a while to get sorted.

 

I was told by the boatyard owner last week that the work would be finished this week so I made arrangements to leave this coming weekend 21st/22nd which is a lot later than I'd originally hoped to leave.

 

I was chatting to the yard owner last night when, out of the blue, he said that I wouldn't be able to move my boat until he had been fully paid.

 

Now he's seen confirmation from my insurance that they've approved my claim, but the insurance have said that they will only raise a cheque for payment once the boatyard has raised the invoice for the work. I've told the boatyard owner that he will need to email me that invoice asap so I can forward it to the insurance company. I'm going to talk to the insurance company today to see how quickly they can get the cheque out but the boatyard owner is saying I should try to arrange for them to pay him direct by BACS transfer.

 

Either way, there's a good chance he won't have his money by Friday afternoon, although I should be able to provide him with confirmation that his payment has been approved and is on its way.

 

My question is; does he have any legal right to stop me moving my boat on Friday afternoon?

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It almost certainly depends on who instructed the boatyard to do the work - it would either have been you, or the insurance company (almost certainly you, as insurers don't usually get involved in that aspect). The repair contract is therefore between the boatyard and either you or the insurers - but it cannot be with all three of you, as contract law doesn't work that way.

 

It seems entirely reasonable under normal commercial contract arrangements not to release the boat until payment is made, unless you (or the insurers) specifically agreed otherwise when you set up the arrangement.

 

Looking at it from the boatyard point of view, the only thing that they have to cover the charges is the boat, until the charges are paid.

 

Best to chase the insurers to pay!

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Just like your car, a garage rarely lets you take your motor until payment is made unless you have an account or other arrangement or understanding.

 

We won't even undertake a removal unless payment in full is received and cleared to our account 3 days prior, and we certainly wouldn't release goods in storage until payment is made in full.

 

I would say though that a written conformation from an insurance company would satisfy me that payment would be received and release goods & services, we quite often do work for insurers and the deal is sometimes directly with the insurer and not through the customer.

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We've just had our rudder repaired through our insurers (Towergate Mardon), they agreed to pay to have Freyja dry-docked and to pay for the repair.

We used Clive at Willy Watt Marina's floating drydock and, once repaired, were allowed to leave and had to nag Clive for the invoice, which was more than the insurers had agreed to, due to the rudder being too badly damaged to be able to straighten.

Towergate approved the revised price in a blink and sent us a discharge form.

I have returned it asking them to pay Clive directly.

So we had a very trouble free and positive result which means that I would not hesitate to recommend Towergate Mardon for narrowboat insurance or Clive for his drydock, service and quality of repairs.

But he does have two of our boats on his other marina, I guess if you do not normally moor near this boatyard then it is not unreasonable for the boatyard owner to want some security that he will be paid, and certainly not illegal. You wouldn't be able to drive off with a repaired car or pick up your repaired computer without first settling the bill.

Good luck, I hope you can find an amical solution (i.e. pay him by credit card, then get the insurer to pay you directly next week so that you can repay your credit card bill before it accrues any interest)

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I've been having some work done on my boat which is due to be completed today. It relates to an insurance claim I made back in April so obviously it's taken a while to get sorted.

 

I was told by the boatyard owner last week that the work would be finished this week so I made arrangements to leave this coming weekend 21st/22nd which is a lot later than I'd originally hoped to leave.

 

I was chatting to the yard owner last night when, out of the blue, he said that I wouldn't be able to move my boat until he had been fully paid.

 

Now he's seen confirmation from my insurance that they've approved my claim, but the insurance have said that they will only raise a cheque for payment once the boatyard has raised the invoice for the work. I've told the boatyard owner that he will need to email me that invoice asap so I can forward it to the insurance company. I'm going to talk to the insurance company today to see how quickly they can get the cheque out but the boatyard owner is saying I should try to arrange for them to pay him direct by BACS transfer.

 

Either way, there's a good chance he won't have his money by Friday afternoon, although I should be able to provide him with confirmation that his payment has been approved and is on its way.

 

My question is; does he have any legal right to stop me moving my boat on Friday afternoon?

Be very careful. I have known cases where people have "recovered" their car from a garage in similar circumstances and have been charged with theft (or TWOC).

 

George ex nb Alton retired

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People get some very strange ideas about insurance. The fact that you have come to an arrangement for another party (your insurance co) to indemnify you the cost of repairs is no concern of the boatyard. They still expect to be paid before releasing the boat. As Rufford says they have a lien on it.

 

It's up to you to make sure the insurance co pays the money by the time you want to collect the boat IMO, or pay the bill yourself and get it back from the Ins co.

 

Or maybe it's me who had the strange ideas about insurance. Happy to be corrected if so!

 

 

MtB

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I've been having some work done on my boat which is due to be completed today. It relates to an insurance claim I made back in April so obviously it's taken a while to get sorted.

 

I was told by the boatyard owner last week that the work would be finished this week so I made arrangements to leave this coming weekend 21st/22nd which is a lot later than I'd originally hoped to leave.

 

I was chatting to the yard owner last night when, out of the blue, he said that I wouldn't be able to move my boat until he had been fully paid.

 

Now he's seen confirmation from my insurance that they've approved my claim, but the insurance have said that they will only raise a cheque for payment once the boatyard has raised the invoice for the work. I've told the boatyard owner that he will need to email me that invoice asap so I can forward it to the insurance company. I'm going to talk to the insurance company today to see how quickly they can get the cheque out but the boatyard owner is saying I should try to arrange for them to pay him direct by BACS transfer.

 

Either way, there's a good chance he won't have his money by Friday afternoon, although I should be able to provide him with confirmation that his payment has been approved and is on its way.

 

My question is; does he have any legal right to stop me moving my boat on Friday afternoon?

http://www.insolvencydirect.bis.gov.uk/technicalmanual/Ch1-12/Chapter9/part5/part_5.htm

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Thanks for the answers guys. I have spoken again to the insurers and the boatyard this morning and I'm hopeful that something can be sorted before I leave on friday.

 

I'd never heard of a lien so that was interesting reading.

 

I can understand the comparisons to a car, and if I didn't live on my boat, it would seem quite appropriate. But for a boatyard to tell me they have the right to control my home in this way just feels wrong. i could make a comparison with a builder doing insurance repairs on a house and then pitching a tent in the living room and refusing to leave until he's been paid.

 

(My dad was a builder and often had to wait months for insurance companies to pay out. In fact that was a large contributor to the collapse of his business 20 odd years ago).

 

Chop! - what's a credit card? ;)

 

Mike - pay it myself? I could tip out my piggy bank but I suspect I may come up a thousand or two short.

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I think it's distracting to talk about Liens, this is a very complex area of law that few people fully understand and as the old cliche goes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

 

I'd just say what were the terms of your "contract" with the boatyard? As someone pointed out, very often when you take your car to the garage you don't expect to drive it away until you have paid, but you will also find somewhere a big notice on the premises to that effect. Also quite often you will see on the bottom of an invoice that goods remain the property of the vendor until paid in full.

But if the boatyard didn't make it clear to you that they expected to be paid before you took the boat away, I think you are within your rights to argue this wasn't part of the contract.

 

Anyone who has ever done insurance work, and I have done a lot, pretty much expects to wait some time before they get paid. I used to do flood damage work and it was often six months before the account was settled. But obviously what you do is add on an appropriate amount to the bill to compensate you for the inconvenience, and then offer a discount if settled "early".

 

I think the yard owner is being extremely unreasonable and depending on how this works out you might like to tell us all who it is?

 

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I think the yard owner is being extremely unreasonable and depending on how this works out you might like to tell us all who it is?

 

 

I disagree. I think he is being perfectly reasonable and behaving as the shrewd businessman you would expect. I fhe was in the habit of allowing boats on which he had carried out £ks of work to sail off into the distance whilst hoping one day to be paid, I doubt he would still be in business in the first place.

 

I also suspect that the OP living aboard has a lot to do with it. If the OP was a houseowner he would have a fixed address at which he could be served a summons should his insurance company wriggle out of paying, and ultimately sale of the house could be forced to pay the debt. As the OP is a liveaboard, chances of finding him and collecting the money might appear slim to the boatyard should the insurance company fail to stump up.

 

 

MtB

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I think the yard owner is being extremely unreasonable and depending on how this works out you might like to tell us all who it is?

 

 

I think urging the OP, or anyone else for that matter, to positively identify a party he's in dispute with is a tad out of order. Fair enough if it's proven that that party actually has behaved illegally, but until then they have to be considered innocent & naming them could leave the namer wide open to libel action.

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I think urging the OP, or anyone else for that matter, to positively identify a party he's in dispute with is a tad out of order. Fair enough if it's proven that that party actually has behaved illegally, but until then they have to be considered innocent & naming them could leave the namer wide open to libel action.

Particularly as what they are doing is normal practice for the industry.

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i could make a comparison with a builder doing insurance repairs on a house and then pitching a tent in the living room and refusing to leave until he's been paid.

 

 

I did read a while ago of a builder who had added an external porch to a house. There was some sort of dispute and the client refused to pay. So the builder turned up one day and dismantled the porch and took the materials away! A bit harder for a boatyard to do that with your boat.

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I don't feel the boat yard is being unreasonable, but hard to tell without knowing who the works contract is between...yard and insurer or yard and OP. Also without knowing what wording is within the agreement.

However, if it were me, I would expect to be paid for the work before releasing the boat in those circumstances. It's simple protection of your business. Unlike a house builder where you always know where that house is, you could disappear into the sunset, unless the contract is with the insurer.

A direct transfer should be able to be made to the boatyard in minutes.

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1. I am a liveaboard but I also have a fixed address. I'm not a cc'er either.

2. I took my boat there because my friend works there so the boatyard owner 'knows' me in a roundabout way.

3. I wouldn't say I'm in dispute with anyone. In fact I posted this to try and avoid getting into a dispute. I just wanted to know where I stood, legally.

4. I won't be naming the boatyard, although I think the quality of the work is good (my friend works there after all).

5. Just because something is normal practice, doesn't make it right. Or legal.

 

Thanks again to everyone and special thanks to Neil2 for his common-sense answer. I have some knowledge of consumer rights and his answer makes the most sense to me. Essentially, the contract I had with the boatyard never touched on whether payment would be needed before my boat could leave. I have not seen any written conditions or discussed this with the owner until yesterday. Maybe i liked that answe best because it's what I wanted to hear though...

 

Hopefully, it will all turn out fine and I can have a lovely weekend cruising on my boat (it's forecast to be sunny!)

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1. I am a liveaboard but I also have a fixed address. I'm not a cc'er either.

2. I took my boat there because my friend works there so the boatyard owner 'knows' me in a roundabout way.

3. I wouldn't say I'm in dispute with anyone. In fact I posted this to try and avoid getting into a dispute. I just wanted to know where I stood, legally.

4. I won't be naming the boatyard, although I think the quality of the work is good (my friend works there after all).

5. Just because something is normal practice, doesn't make it right. Or legal.

 

Thanks again to everyone and special thanks to Neil2 for his common-sense answer. I have some knowledge of consumer rights and his answer makes the most sense to me.

 

 

Just because Neil's was the reply that suggested that you might be allowed to do what you want to doesn't actually make it Common Sense, and your point 5 is incorrect!

 

It is the fact that retaining posession of a boat until repairs are paid for IS normal practice that makes exercise of a lien legal regardless of whether it is a contractual term.

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The boatyard has every right to exercise a lien on the boat regardless of whether it is normal practise or not. The position is even stronger than with the car-repairer analogy, because maritime law can be invoked, whereby the debt is actually against the boat itself – the boat could literally be placed under arrest once sufficient time had elapsed with the bill unpaid [or perhaps very promptly indeed, if taken out of the boatyard's possession illegally]. If the boat was sufficiently valuable to make the exercise worthwhile for the creditor, he could even invoke the Admiralty’s assistance to ‘nail a notice to the mast’ [or the equivalent]; then have it hauled away incurring vast legal & storage costs.

 

The importance of boating/shipping in times of yore was such that extreme measures were emplaced in law to protect the industry. While the normal practice in canalside boatyards was to take an extravagantly relaxed attitude to billing and chasing monies owed [mea culpa], that never vitiated the position in law. In the more restricted inland navigations people often forget that the Merchant Shipping Acts still apply to them. Don’t take chances with it; you could be arrested for theft if taking the boat from the premises without approval.

 

The sensible thing for any boatyard is to treat everyone the same, so that no possibility exists to accuse them of suspiciousness of any individual. I've had a high court judge quite openly renege on paying a bill that in his opinion came too late after his being allowed to leave the yard. I got some of it back after a great deal of hassle, and gave him apoplexy in the meantime with a small claims court judgment entered against him [with his being unable to work until the matter was settled], but that was small consolation and the incident still rankles.

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I think you are all missing the point here.

 

According to Dave P the boatyard took the work on knowing it was an insurance claim, and the boatyard owner has seen written proof that the claim has been accepted.

 

"Normal practice", dare I suggest, in these situations is for the contractor to invoice the insurance company and the customer goes on his way. The contractor knows he will get paid eventually, holding the owners boat to ransom is totally out of order.

 

I agree it might be a whole lot different if this was a private agreement between a boatyard and a boat owner, particularly if the boat owner doesn't have a land address.

 

Maybe this boatyard doesn't have much experience of doing insurance work and, hindsight being a wonderful thing, maybe Dave should have clarified things at the outset. There's maybe a lesson for us all here.

 

 

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When I worked for Coles Morten Marine we sold a engine to a boatyard in Stoke on Trent, when the payment was due they said they did not have the money and anyway the engine had been fitted into a boat to be sold. Next morning at 0800 after being told there was no money to pay for the engine, myself and three lads had the engine out of the boat and were back in Whaley Bridge before you could say jack robinson. They payed up front for the next engine.

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