CRT Bypassing The Auctions Process And Going Straight to A Standard Contract.

[Guest]

I know it is probably a special case, but just because a mooring is advertised as less long than it appears to be, does not mean all the space you see is available to let.....Look at it the other way around.... If I have a 60 foot boat, but a space is advertised as 70 feet, I may decide to take the hit, and pay for 70 feet to get a mooring. I'm then paying for 10 feet of spare space, but not using it.If the 60 foot boat next to me then leaves, (creating an apparent 70 foot space), they can still only re-advertise it as 60 feet, because to allow more would mean you getting part of the length I'm already paying for.I also know of cases where someone is deliberately paying for more, whilst looking to buy a longer boat, (or even as I have seen, have their current one stretched).

We pay for a 70ft mooring and our boat is 10 ft less than that. One advantage is that the boats fore and aft don't 'crowd' you too much.

 

ISTR reading on here however that once the three years is up you revert to paying based on actual boat length, does anybody know if you can opt. to continue paying for the original length instead? I would prefer to do that.

[Tony Dunkley]

 

Call it – “something else entirely”.

 

http://www.cutweb.org.uk/bw/eogmooring.pdf

 

“2. Natural parts of rivers managed by BW but which are not owned by it:

 

Where BW is navigational authority but does not own the bed of the river, a boater needs a licence from BW to cruise the river. However, the boater does not need to pay BW a mooring fee as well because BW does not own the river bed. As mentioned earlier common law rules of riparian ownership usually apply (Note 1). Therefore, the owners of the properties on either side of the river bank may ask a boater to pay them a charge for mooring over their land.” [my bold]

 

Edit to add: to be pedantic, on a seemingly small but vitally important point, no one is entitled to charge for "mooring over their land", they are entitled rather, to charge for mooring to their land. The phrasing is deliberate on BW's part, because they DO claim a right to charge for boats floating above their land. It is the only ground upon which they justify any EoG mooring charge.

Has the BW/C&RT claim to a right to charge for boats floating above their land, but moored to land not owned by them, ever been tested in, or upheld by, a Court? A licenced boat afloat on any waterway, whether in use or moored, will be occupying, at all times, waterspace commensurate with its size and Licence Fee and as no vessel can possibly be in two different places at the same time, then charging for the use of waterspace in the guise of a Mooring Fee would seem on the face of it to be charging for the same thing twice,

[MtB]

How can it possibly be cheaper to leave a mooring un-let?

 

Post number 24 in this thread explains how this can be the case.

 

Selling one mooring at 'whatever you can get for it' forces down the value of all the other moorings on the site to the same price, so on renewal, the income from potentially dozens of other moorings on the same site falls by far more than the cost of the one empty mooring.

 

In which case it makes more commercial sense to leave the mooring un-let.

 

 

MtB

[chubby]

I got my figures wrong about my mooring . I checked my emails . i was offered a buy it now price of £2172 . as i say , i was the only bidder & it went for the reserve of £1637 . A difference of £ 535 & not the &800 i suggested . Stupid boy

cheers

 

edited to remove an unnecessary comment

Edited June 19, 2014 by chubby

[mango]

I know it is probably a special case, but just because a mooring is advertised as less long than it appears to be, does not mean all the space you see is available to let.....

 

Look at it the other way around.... If I have a 60 foot boat, but a space is advertised as 70 feet, I may decide to take the hit, and pay for 70 feet to get a mooring. I'm then paying for 10 feet of spare space, but not using it.

 

If the 60 foot boat next to me then leaves, (creating an apparent 70 foot space), they can still only re-advertise it as 60 feet, because to allow more would mean you getting part of the length I'm already paying for.

 

I also know of cases where someone is deliberately paying for more, whilst looking to buy a longer boat, (or even as I have seen, have their current one stretched).

If you buy a house the price is likely to be affected by the number of rooms and not whether you plan to use them.

 

You have presented some convincing arguments Alan but this seems to scraping the barrel.

 

Think about the advantages, such as being a little further away from possible sources of noise and smoke. Hopefully the 'extra' money that CRT have gained will go towards a useful purpose.

[alan_fincher]

You have presented some convincing arguments Alan but this seems to scraping the barrel.

 

Huh ?

 

I'm not scraping any barrels, nor even presenting any personal opinionswhatsoever in the post you quote.

 

I'm simply telling people what are straight facts that try to explain in a logical way what a previous poster may not have fully appreciated.

 

So the point you are making is totally lost on me, I'm afraid.

[NigelMoore]

Has the BW/C&RT claim to a right to charge for boats floating above their land, but moored to land not owned by them, ever been tested in, or upheld by, a Court? A licenced boat afloat on any waterway, whether in use or moored, will be occupying, at all times, waterspace commensurate with its size and Licence Fee and as no vessel can possibly be in two different places at the same time, then charging for the use of waterspace in the guise of a Mooring Fee would seem on the face of it to be charging for the same thing twice,

 

I have two County Court judgments where EoG charges were tested, BW winning in both instances [i had an idea there was a third, but can’t find it]. Neither formed binding precedents, and one of them preceded the 1995 Act which confirmed that ability to refuse or revoke a boat licence was restricted to the three conditions laid down therein [that is pertinent to the arguments advanced in the two cases].

 

You are absolutely correct in what you say about a licensed boat being entitled to occupy water space whether moored or in transit – but the county courts were misled by BW into swallowing the argument that this is NOT the case.

 

The judge in BW v Allen, Crennell & Shaw noted the defendants’ argument that their boat licence “to use” their boats on BW’s waters necessarily implied a right to keep their boats on them, whether stationary or moving – but concluded that however correct that might be “I do not follow their relevance as points which enable the Defendants successfully to attack the Board’s decision to make the issue of a mooring licence and the levying of a fee for it a pre-requisite to a successful application for a pleasure boat licence.” [my bold]

 

This of course, is not an argument that can be upheld post the 1995 Act. It also relied heavily on the new 1977 Terms & Conditions of boat licences, wherein EoG mooring charges were introduced for the first time. These I have not seen and CaRT won’t produce them – but it matters nothing for present day purposes.

 

The more up-to-date situation was covered in the 2001 BW v Roberts case. But even there, BW maintained that the boat licence, according to their new 1977 Terms & Conditions, did NOT grant a right to “keep” a boat on the water, only to “use” the boat – pointing to the 1968 Transport Act as having abolished rights of navigation which were explicitly expressed to include both the right to “keep” and the right to “use” a boat: -

 

“The right to “keep” is clearly disjunctive from and a separate act to “use” a craft on the waterway or canal. The “use” element must be the transit element of navigation, whilst the “keep” must be the stationary element, or when the craft is moored.”

 

That is perfectly correct of course; the problem is that the Terms & Condition DID include [by then at least] the stated rights granted by the licence to be - as it is today -- inclusive of the right to keep AND use a boat on the waterways. The court was misled into believing otherwise.

 

The other argument presented, in rebuttal of the defendants’ reliance on conferred rights to moor under the Macclesfield Canal Act, was that they did not exist – a position that had already been rejected by Parliament when it specifically fenced such private moorings rights within the protection of s.20 of the 1995 Act. However, once again the Transport Act 1968 terms re: “use” and “keep” were applied to the effect that all such mooring rights had been repealed by s.105(5) & s.115(1a) of the Transport Act! The judge bought the argument.

 

It is absolute nonsense of course – what was repealed was the conferred right to keep and use boats, not the right to avail oneself of the unrepealed right to moor a boat if legitimately on the water – whether, in other words, the boat is on the water by right, or by permission. Where necessary, the boat licence gives that permission for the boat to be kept on the water, and whoever owns the bank is the relevant owner to give the separate and distinct permission to moor to their property.

 

So much for the County Court. In my own case, there is the obiter dicta of Lord Justice Lewison at Appeal which, though again not binding is persuasive, to the effect that it would be trespass to moor floating over someone else’s property – again ridiculous, he ignored the whole concept of usufruct and misapplied case law, but as it is not a judgment it can be readily dealt with in any future cases.

 

The one clear message to come out of it all has already been long since acknowledged by BW/CaRT – there are NO statutory powers to control moorings, their argument for ability to control relies solely on common law rights of land ownership – rights to which, as a statutory body, they can have no access. Where they DO have offside bank property, their entitlement to charge whatever they like and under whatever conditions they set, are conferred by the original Enabling Acts as extended by s43(3) of the 1962 Transport Act.