Buying second hand

[Timx]

I am currently hunting for a boat, 55' to 58' not too old ,needs a pump out toilet, a good shell maker, everything else is compromiseable.

My question is,=

I have seen boats in the normal suspect places selling quite quick [possibly], obviously I do not know what they are going for, but from what I have been told,[independent personal experienced view] they are overpriced.[the ones I have seen,[ Liverpool shells ]and asked about] so as people are accessing there pension pots instead of annuities, is the market place getting flooded with the grey pound.? and inflating current prices..

Or am I just not used to the process , too uneducated, or need to get real and realise when I am told its a buyers market , it isn't. Luckily patience will prevail for me as it can..just frustrating.

[davidc]

my boat is moored at Great Haywood and I see how fast boat sales is sell I have to say its a sellers market I would suggest you go and see the boats you like and put in an offer on the one you fancy, waiting around might not be the best approach

[KJT]

From what I have seen, good quality, well maintained boats, priced realistically seem to sell quite readily. I am sure that the change in pension rules has had some effect, but I don't think many will dip too deeply into their pots and incur the higher tax band as a result.

 

Keep looking. Your dream boat is out there somewhere. Once you have seen a few you will get a 'feel' for the market values.

 

Ken

[Dave_P]

Keep looking and check back regularly with all the brokerages. The good, well priced boats can move very quickly. The overpriced trash can hang around for months or years. When I made an offer on my boat over five years ago, it had been on the market for just under 24 hours. I knew what I was looking for and when I found it, there was no way I was letting anyone else get in before me. This was after months and months of visiting boats and brokerages to see what was mostly dross.

[Neil Smith]

You will just know the boat is for you when you see it, but still get a survey.

 

Neil

[Peter X]

The overall feeling I get from the forum is that demand for boats is increasing, but only slowly. There are other plausible reasons, namely the gradual recovery of the economy and the good publicity the canals have had on TV from Tim & Pru and other programmes.

 

Pension money may be a factor, although as NB Ellisiana has mentioned it's important for anyone dipping into their pension pot to spread it out over different tax years so as not to pay higher rate tax. I'm not sure the government have explained this properly to the public, and a cynic might imagine that this is because if someone makes the mistake of drawing a big lump sum in one go to buy a nice narrowboat and ends up paying higher rate tax that year, that makes more money available for George Osborne. But most people will probably realise this problem or be told about it by a financial adviser or the pension company.

[rustydiver]

The marina where I'm too boats seem to sale quick. The one we bought it won't up sat afternoon we saw it Sunday morning put an offer in, had the keys two weeks later. Didn't go down the survey route. Dry dock was full for 3 months, seller was desperate = a fair discount. You will know if a boat is right for you as soon as you step aboard. But if you see the right one at the right price your happy with, don't hang around.

 

One broker recons a lot off boats go off to London for people to live on cheaper than buying a house, no big deposits and you don't loose a lot at the end off it.

[Seti-Yeti]

As I understand it, you can take out up to 25% Tax Free, i.e you didn't have to return the tax refunded to you when you put it into the pension fund. That being so, it doesn't contribute to your income in that year. However, if you take more than 25%, you will have to pay back the tax you were refunded when you put the money in. (ouch).

 

I apologise if I'm incorrect but that is my current understanding.

 

Take cash in chunks

You can take smaller cash sums from your pension pot - 25% of each sum would be tax-free.

ExampleYour pot is £60,000 and you take £1,000 every month. £250 of this amount would be tax-free every time. The remaining £750 would be taxable.

How much tax you pay

Your Income Tax for the year depends on your tax rate and tax-free Personal Allowance.

The Personal Allowance is in addition to your 25% tax-free lump sum.

[Richard10002]

And if self employed without a tax code, the lump you get after the 25% tax free bit is taxed at the emergency code rate. You then have to recover any overpaid tax via your self assessment, presumably over a year later.

[RufusR]

) Having just bought a boat after looking at LOADS and getting guzumped a few times , I would say the problem is not that it is buyers market or a sellers market but that that there is a lot of absolute over priced rubbish on the market and a few really good boats hence for the former it is a buyers market and the latter it is definitly a sellers market.

 

we ended up buying privatly from a friend of a my in laws who already live aboard and we were very very lucky to get "the right Boat " at the right price in the end .

 

Keep looking its out there but be prepared to move quick with the deposit when the right one comes along as if its a goodun it will be snapped up . We found an excellent boat a few months ago , hesitated just a little and bam someone jumped in an bought it from under us just as we were about to make an offer but alot that we looked at and rejected are still sitting( some have even been price reduced quite a bit recently but are still sitting so others must have rejected them too

[KJT]

And if self employed without a tax code, the lump you get after the 25% tax free bit is taxed at the emergency code rate. You then have to recover any overpaid tax via your self assessment, presumably over a year later.

Not just self employed. In May I took a single portion out of my pot, just enough to take me up to the next tax threshold and, despite assurances to the contrary, a significant portion was taxed. When I queried the tax the reason given was HMRC assume I will be receiving that amount each month and taxed me accordingly. I had to claim it back on the appropriate form. Instead of a nice refund, so far all I have received is a letter from HMRC advising me the refund will be made after the end of this tax year. Had I known that to be the case, I would have left it invested and taken it out just prior to next April 5th.

 

Ken

[Peter X]

Yes, that's what HMRC do, tax is calculated on the assumption that your income for the rest of the tax year is likely to be at the same rate as it has been so far, so if it's loaded into the early months you will only get the money back after the tax year ends. For example if your calculation is done monthly and your sole income in the whole tax year is a payment of £10,000 in month 2 (6th May to 5th June), the tax taken will be a sixth of what it would be for the whole year if you earned £60,000. It won't be much comfort to know you'll get it all back a year later because your annual income is less than your tax code!

 

Last week I decided that I'm retiring in March, using the remaining money in my limited company to draw a salary for 2016-17 which uses up my tax code, then from March 2018 onwards I plan to draw just enough from my pension each March (thus avoiding the above problem) to use up my tax allowance each year. I'll probably also rent out a room in my house, which is not taxable if the annual rent income is below £7500 (as of April 2016), subject to finding a lodger I can trust and some conditions such as me being officially living in the house:

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/13/rent-out-your-spare-room

This should all be very tax efficient and leave me with enough grey pounds to buy and run a good second hand boat if I want to.

[KJT]

Yes, that's what HMRC do, tax is calculated on the assumption that your income for the rest of the tax year is likely to be at the same rate as it has been so far, so if it's loaded into the early months you will only get the money back after the tax year ends. For example if your calculation is done monthly and your sole income in the whole tax year is a payment of £10,000 in month 2 (6th May to 5th June), the tax taken will be a sixth of what it would be for the whole year if you earned £60,000. It won't be much comfort to know you'll get it all back a year later because your annual income is less than your tax code!

 

Last week I decided that I'm retiring in March, using the remaining money in my limited company to draw a salary for 2016-17 which uses up my tax code, then from March 2018 onwards I plan to draw just enough from my pension each March (thus avoiding the above problem) to use up my tax allowance each year.

That is pretty much what I assumed and was the first question I asked of my pension provider. They assured me that 'special provisions' were in place with HMRC to cover one off withdrawals. Yeah, right! I won't make that mistake next year.

 

Ken

Edited December 12, 2015 by NB Ellisiana