Delay to survey- what would you do?

[Witchword]

I don't have unlimited funds. If this boat is a disaster, it's a disaster for me. The delay isn't disastrous but it's a pita. I've found another surveyor who's free but finding a dry dock is not so simple. I'm going to ask the surveyor (who isn't the one the broker's engaged) to see if he can find a dry dock and if he can I'd engage him to do the survey, or is that not what's done?

[mrsmelly]

 

But you are an experienced boater and almost certainly have a good instinct for good boats, the op is new to boat owning and is risking everything she has on this purchase, if it sinks she is homeless, if it needs big welding she is at best going into debt to pay, plus the attitude of the broker is a slight cause for concern.

As for houses, I am happier buying a house without a survey than I would be buying a boat without one!

 

..................Dave

 

Yes in this case I tend to agree with you and Mike re the evasive broker.......never a good thing.

 

Tim

[blackrose]

 

 

I'm very concerned that you seem to view the survey as a formality to get out of the way, when in actual fact is is a condition report, the result of which should help you make the decision whether to buy this boat, or not.

 

I'm rather concerned that this boat could be a basket case and the broker knows this. If true it would most certainly not be in the broker's interest to help you get the survey done, as he knows it will lead to you pulling out of the deal. Far better to put obstacles in your way in the hope you give up and just buy it anyway.

 

Good points - the first point being far more valid than the second in my opinion.

 

Hi

 

I will be one of the few who goes against the norm. How old is the boat? I have never had a survey on any of my eight boats and never boght a dud one and some have been very old. If I knew the previous purchaser had got finance on it a year or so ago I would consider that a bonus. I would buy it. BUT I would not buy in this particular case unless my requests where met. You are paying for it so if they cannot find a way of getting an easy process sorted out in your time scale I would buy another of the hundreds of boats that are for sale. My present boat I saw and paid for in twenty minutes and took it away 2 days later. Unecessary waiting and paperwork crap is for housebuyers not boat buyers. Oh and my last 3 boats that I have sold ( All for over 50k ) where sold to buyers with cash and non had a survey so it aint that unusual.

 

Tim

 

A refreshing maverick's perspective! But I dare say you know a LOT more about boats than the OP so you are better able to forego surveys. I wouldn't suggest that the OP do the same. How would we all feel if she just gave it the once-over and ended up buying a lemon?

[blackrose]

I don't have unlimited funds. If this boat is a disaster, it's a disaster for me. The delay isn't disastrous but it's a pita. I've found another surveyor who's free but finding a dry dock is not so simple. I'm going to ask the surveyor (who isn't the one the broker's engaged) to see if he can find a dry dock and if he can I'd engage him to do the survey, or is that not what's done?

 

I think the best you can really do is just push everyone and explain your predicament. The current situation is a pita but it's not a disaster and it's only a going to continue for a while.

 

My advice is DON'T rush and DON'T be ruled by your heart. Your survey may reveal problems (which is the whole point of the survey). As MtB says, use the survey to decide whether you want to buy the boat or not, or use it to get money knocked off the agreed price. Hopefully you made an initial offer which knocked a bit off the asking price - any issues the survey reveals can be used to reduce this price further.

 

In the meantime, look around at other boats for sale. There are plenty on the market.

 

Oh, and by the way, living on a boat can often be a pita, so just get used to it!

Edited March 8, 2016 by blackrose

[Witchword]

Thanks everyone. I know I'll just have to suck it up. It's all a bit hard, I'm desperate to make sensible decisions which end up going right because recent big decisions I've taken have looked sensible and ended up going awfully and expensively wrong. I'm stressed and at the moment only work is going sort of well, big bad things happening in other areas of life.

 

There is a boat FS at £££ less than this one which the seller says needs a lot of work, but IDK, it's already been a lot of time and petrol and heartache to find this boat and she's in Berkshire on the K&A, so it's possible according to someone on here that I still couldn't bring her round to home before May. I think I need to stick with Dreams unless/until it becomes clear it isn't going to go through. If it takes another five weeks to get the survey, so be it. The yard here is booked up for dry dock until May, I'm told; maybe it really is just a very busy time for boat yards

[Captain Pegg]

Yes in this case I tend to agree with you and Mike re the evasive broker.......never a good thing.

 

Tim

Is the broker being evasive or have we jumped to that conclusion? This is one of the larger established brokers isn't it?

 

I thought the suggestion was they only took boats out of the water on Mondays and the combination of demand and bank holidays was delaying things. I bought my boat at Ashwood where they hire a crane to lift in and out once a week so there is a limit on capacity. There could be something similar going on here.

 

The obvious thing would be whether in Easter week they couldn't do things on Tuesday instead if there is demand.

 

Agree with advice to get a survey by whatever means. I only found it a bit odd that the broker was engaging the surveyor as mine gave me a list of surveyors within range but explicitly said the rest was down to me which seemed right from a legal point of view.

 

JP

Edited March 9, 2016 by Captain Pegg

[Witchword]

I chose the surveyor from the list (and looking at some other websites as well, found through the search engine of your choice^TM) and the broker said she would do the rest- booking the dry dock and so on- which I just found helpful. The surveyor has sent me his contract this morning and I did speak to him as well, the contract is with me not the broker. I don't think it's evasion on her part, my local marina have no drydock availability until May, so perhaps it's just very busy at the moment. Haven't other posters remarked that there is less stock for sale? And things are going fast, too, and at asking price.

 

Might have to start looking for a skipper, or a friend who wants a holiday cruising!

[Paul C]

The broker is on "boatyard time" and the OP is on "teacher time" - there is a conversion factor somewhere, I think its about 3-5?

Edited March 8, 2016 by Paul C

[dmr]

As a last resort might your surveyor take the best shot that he can at a survey in the water? If he can get access to the baseplate (from inside) in a few locations he might be able to say its probably good or probably bad, but you will have no come-back if he's wrong, but then you never do anyway.

 

...............Dave

[Lily Rose]

It appears from this thread that the other parties involved here are GHBS and Ventnor Marina (formerly called Ventnor Farm Marina).

 

I think the broker being evasive suggestions are people jumping to conclusions.

 

I bought my boat in August 2015 and had it surveyed at Ventnor quite quickly on a Friday rather than a Monday (maybe they now prefer to do Mondays or maybe it was a quiet week). My boat has been moored at Ventnor ever since I bought it and, due to the blacking backlog, I have had to wait from October last year to June this year to get it blacked.

 

Not a surprise really when you think about it. The single dry dock at Ventnor is booked for blacking once a week and there are something like 200 boats at Ventnor plus another 200 at Wigrams Turn plus the Black Prince fleet. That's a lot of boats that may want to use the drydock for 4 or 5 days each week for blacking. Anything else has to be fitted in around those.

 

In summary, I doubt if there is anything sinister going on here, it is a simple case of too much demand for a single dry dock.

 

I believe Calcutt use a slipway so they may, unlike Ventnor, be able to have more than one boat out of the water at a time.

[LEO]

I have never bothered with a survey for boats I have purchased, Nb Dreams apparently had a survey in 2014, can the hull have deteriorated in that time?.

 

I am always amazed that people spend thousands on a house and not bother with a survey - yet when they buy a boat they go overboard with inspections..... just get the boat slipped and blacked to a good standard with several layers around the waterline, rent a couple of extra days on the slipway to allow the blacking to dry and also have anodes welded down the side of the boat.

 

No doubt post purchase problems will occur, but all too often these would not have been picked up during a survey.

 

This situation does indicate the benefits of a pre-sale survey (no doubt people will howl at this point) but I am having my boat blacked next month and am getting a hull survey at the same time - the waiting list for the slipway is long and the first date when I booked it in February was April......

 

L

[Jack48]

Comments re this topic confirm our current gut feelings buying through a dealer / broker, maybe i'm missing something but a rented phone line, being handy at spin with a computer / web site and hay presto a broker, yea right. We hope to purchase this spring and if we cant meet and work with the seller then it aint gona happen i.e. no boat. Brass in your arse pocket, you and the seller own the process or walk.

[Paul C]

Comments re this topic confirm our current gut feelings buying through a dealer / broker, maybe i'm missing something but a rented phone line, being handy at spin with a computer / web site and hay presto a broker, yea right.

 

...not quite. A broker would need a premises to operate from - a very specific kind of, from a marina or other area where boats can be moored, an office located, and probably with facilities to do minor (or major) repairs nearby. Of course, while in Spain you can't see that but many people start the process of looking at canal boats for sale by visiting the brokerage.

 

 

We hope to purchase this spring and if we cant meet and work with the seller then it aint gona happen i.e. no boat. Brass in your arse pocket, you and the seller own the process or walk.

 

See post #36 - you're unlikely to be given the seller's contact details by a broker. Its the whole point of the brokerage - the broker handles the sale. If that's your approach, then you're limiting yourself to boats for sale not via a broker, which has its own issues, some of which might come into focus if you're coming from Spain. For example, what if you arrive to look at boats, find one, want to see it and the seller says "yeah sure, how about a week next Tuesday?" and 3 other boats your interested in, their sellers say "Wednesday"; "Thursday"; "we're on holiday for 2 weeks but after that, Saturday" etc. Don't underestimate the convenience of the broker vs private seller when you are buying a boat.

[Jack48]

Truck load of experience with brokers, last one involved us driving from the South of France to North of London to view a boat that ticked all the boxes.

We met with the seller having been on the road all night South of France / London via Euro Tunnel, Seller ticked all the boxes, it was the walk up to the boat that did it when it said "since the welding on the block we've had no further problems we did mention it to the broker".

[Witchword]

Re broker vs private, the worry with private (it occurred to me and I was also warned about it on here) is that there are no guarantees that the seller is honest. They could take your money (even just your deposit) and sail away; they could sell a boat they don't own, or one with finance on it.

 

Leo, the fact of the 18mo survey is really what made me question whether I needed one this time. I suppose there's no way to know. People have said that they've not had one and it's been fine; they have had one and problems have arisen either from the surveyor, or not detected but no comeback. Any amount of permutations! I suppose it's toss a coin time but it's such a lot of money.

[Alan de Enfield]

 

...not quite. A broker would need a premises to operate from - a very specific kind of, from a marina or other area where boats can be moored, an office located, and probably with facilities to do minor (or major) repairs nearby. Of course, while in Spain you can't see that but many people start the process of looking at canal boats for sale by visiting the brokerage.

 

 

 

See post #36 - you're unlikely to be given the seller's contact details by a broker. Its the whole point of the brokerage - the broker handles the sale. If that's your approach, then you're limiting yourself to boats for sale not via a broker, which has its own issues, some of which might come into focus if you're coming from Spain. For example, what if you arrive to look at boats, find one, want to see it and the seller says "yeah sure, how about a week next Tuesday?" and 3 other boats your interested in, their sellers say "Wednesday"; "Thursday"; "we're on holiday for 2 weeks but after that, Saturday" etc. Don't underestimate the convenience of the broker vs private seller when you are buying a boat.

 

Do you remember the uproar when BWML 'kicked out' an 'ailing pensioner' from one of their marinas (Limehouse I think), talk of how cruel they were, human rights etc etc, but at the end of the day it turned out they were running a brokerage business from their boat ( specifically specified in the T&Cs as a 'no no')

 

There is another 'broker' operating on the internet as an 'agent'.

 

Neither of them used 'premises', they just list the boats wherever they are in the country and act as an intermediary to save the owners being 'worried' by 'fender-kickers'

[Alan de Enfield]

Re broker vs private, the worry with private (it occurred to me and I was also warned about it on here) is that there are no guarantees that the seller is honest. They could take your money (even just your deposit) and sail away; they could sell a boat they don't own, or one with finance on it.

 

 

 

Whilst not suggesting that as a newbie you do without a survey, I have never had one in 30+ years of boating (except for a rigging survey to meet insurance requirements) and several have been very expensive boats.

On average we have a 'new' boat every couple of years - but - in the last 12 months we have had three but sold one of them

 

I have said it before (as many here will know) but for the interest of newer members - turn up with an Aldi carrier bag full of 'notes', view the boat, decide it is the one, pay the man.

Wife drives car home I drive the boat off into the sunset. Job takes less than an hour.

 

So far, sold every boat 'bar-one' for more than it cost.

Edited March 8, 2016 by Alan de Enfield

[Athy]

One of the most respected brokers in the land sells a lot of boats from their home moorings. It's not necessarily the sign of a con man.

[peterboat]

I have bought two boats first with survey second without, I think if i had sight of the previous survey in 2014 and it was good I would be tempted to not bother with a survey this time. I know its a lot of money so dependent on the age of the boat only you can make that decision. If the boat is fairly young and has a history of being blacked regularly i would feel safe. However if its older and has no history I would survey and wait good luck

Had a look at Dreams seems very nice no mention of age though

Peter

Edited March 8, 2016 by peterboat

[Witchword]

I think she's 1990 so 26. She was blacked in 2014 as well, anodes replaced and she has a galvanic isolator. I wonder if I can see the 2014 survey? Also can you see a maintenance history?

Edited March 8, 2016 by Witchword

[Tuscan]

Higher risk but I would personally consider getting hold of the surveyor who did the survey in 2014(?) and ask him if he would carry out an in water condition survey. Be there when he is , pay and go boating

[Witchword]

Higher risk but I would personally consider getting hold of the surveyor who did the survey in 2014(?) and ask him if he would carry out an in water condition survey. Be there when he is , pay and go boating

Ah, how about this? How do I get a look at the previous survey?

[Athy]

By George, I think he's got it! Greeno for that cunning plan - for Witchy's sake, I hope it works.

[raymondh]

Is this the boat

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Ybaq0JvCQ

 

Ray

[LEO]

Ask the broker he should have or be able to get it, Speak to the Surveyor, you will have no protection with this survey but it may help you.

 

He may be more forthcoming with the offer of survey instructions on this boat in the future.

 

PS

 

If it is the boat in the previous post it looks good, sadly no pics of the exterior or the engine....

 

Have fun.

 

L

Edited March 8, 2016 by LEO