To survey or not to survey

[derby65]

Hi all.

I've just had an offer accepted on an 18 year old narrowboat.  

It had a full survey 15 months ago which I've read and all is OK with her. 

Is it worth forking out for another survey. I'm really torn between piece of mind and probable waste of money. 

Hope someone on here can help.

Dave 

[koukouvagia]

I know from experience just how quickly a survey can be out of date.  Our butty passed a full survey but two and a half years later the state of the hull was so rotten that 70% of the back end had to be replaced.

 

 

 

[Richard10002]

A lot can happen in 15 months. The owner may have tipped the surveyor a couple of quid to provide a good looking survey. The owner had different reason for getting the survey, so the surveyor had different instructions, (express or perceived), and so on.

Peace of mind could be worth a few hundred quid, and you can black it before relaunching, assuming that you go ahead.

[David Mack]

1 minute ago, koukouvagia said:

I know from experience just how quickly a survey can be out of date.  Our butty passed a full survey but two and a half years later the state of the hull was so rotten that 70% of the back end had to be replaced.

But you don't really think all that happened in 2.5 years do you?

[MtB]

24 minutes ago, derby65 said:

Hi all.

I've just had an offer accepted on an 18 year old narrowboat.  

It had a full survey 15 months ago which I've read and all is OK with her. 

Is it worth forking out for another survey. I'm really torn between piece of mind and probable waste of money. 

Hope someone on here can help.

Dave 

 

It depends on the state of your finances and your attitude to risk.

The chances are, the boat is fine. 99% certain in my personal opinion. But not 100%. There is a 1% chance of it having turned into a rust bucket in the intervening 15 months. Would it kill you financially to have to dock the boat and spend £7k on overplating? Do you feel the gamble of not surveying, not knowing and at the same time saving the £600 cost of a hull-only survey is an acceptable gamble for you?

It certainly is for me given personal experience of an A1 survey by e respected surveyor, then finding out three years later I have a rust bucket. I frankly don't believe the original survey, rather than the boat degraded that fast. Other people here have had similar experiences. Surveys themselves are a gamble too. 

[cuthound]

I found that even though my surveyor found almost nothing wrong with my boat,  he still managed to find me enough things to renegotiate the price down by more than his survey cost.

The most significant thing he found was that the charger part of the Victron Combi wasn't working. It enabled me to get a further £2k knocked off the originally offered price to a buy new one.

When I got the boat home to its mooring the charger was found to be working and has continued to do so since I bought the boat.

Edited November 4, 2017 by cuthound
Clarification

[ditchcrawler]

26 minutes ago, cuthound said:

I found that even though my surveyor found almost nothing wrong with my boat,  he still managed to find me enough things to renegotiate the price down by more than his survey cost.

The most significant thing he found was that the charger part of the Victron Combi wasn't working. It enable me to knock £2k off the originslly offered price for me to a buy new one.

When I got the boat home to its mooring the charger was found to be working and has continued to do so since I bought the boat.

So you sent the seller the extra money?

[cuthound]

5 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

So you sent the seller the extra money?

I'll amend my post to make it clearer.

Edited November 4, 2017 by cuthound
Clarification

[Movin' on]

Why not ring the original surveyor and see if he will allow you to take over the current survey  - this will and should cost you but it will uncover how he really felt about the boat.

[Momac]

With my present boat the survey revealed significant defects . I decide to proceed with the purchase  but the survey report allowed me to negotiate a price reduction. I didn't profit from it but nor did i find myself out of pocket. I would therefore recommend arranging a pre purchase survey .

15 months since the previous survey is  plenty of time for slowly developing and previously unidentified faults to reveal  themselves . Also plenty of time for new faults to develop.

 

 

 

 

[koukouvagia]

3 hours ago, David Mack said:

But you don't really think all that happened in 2.5 years do you?

I don't know.  The other possibility is that the surveyor missed something.  At any rate the boat was given a clean bill of health and two and a half years later it was a bit of a basket case.  

 

eta see Mike's post #5.

Edited November 4, 2017 by koukouvagia

[cuthound]

37 minutes ago, koukouvagia said:

I don't know.  The other possibility is that the surveyor missed something.  At any rate the boat was given a clean bill of health and two and a half years later it was a bit of a basket case.  

 

eta see Mike's post #5.

I think it is impossible for a surveyor to completly test a hull for thickness.

What they do is to test a selection of areas likely to be vulnerable with assessment reason ultrasonic tester, and make their assessment on that.

It usually works out fine, but it is eminently possible for them to miss areas of the hull, which will continue to get thinner until the next survey or the leak, whichever comes first.

[derby65]

Thanks for your help guys.

Really appreciate it.

I'm going to get the survey. 

Regards 

Dave 

[MichaelG]

Hi Derby 65, I am looking to buy A narrowboat soon and personally I wont consider buying without a survey as at the very least it will give you some peace of mind. I have owned several fibreglass boats over the years and found insurance companies have always wanted sight of a recent survey before they will put the boat on risk. Understandable I guess as they dont want to insure something that for all they know, without sight of a survey, could be about to sink. I am not sure if they will accept a survey commissioned 15 months ago by the previous owner.  

[Bargebuilder]

I have commissioned a number of surveys over the years and although they may give peace of mind, in my experience, it would be unwise to put all of your faith in them. Surveyors can and do miss things and attempting to get satisfaction from them or their insurance companies when things do go wrong is almost impossible.

The hull thickness survey is probably the most critical element of the procedure, and as already mentioned, that is only as good as the number of test areas probed, and a degree of luck in finding any thin bits.

Might hiring or even buying the hull thickness equipment be an idea worth looking into? Just think what a thorough job you would do if you were doing the survey yourself.

 

 

 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, MichaelG said:

Hi Derby 65, I am looking to buy A narrowboat soon and personally I wont consider buying without a survey as at the very least it will give you some peace of mind. I have owned several fibreglass boats over the years and found insurance companies have always wanted sight of a recent survey before they will put the boat on risk. Understandable I guess as they dont want to insure something that for all they know, without sight of a survey, could be about to sink. I am not sure if they will accept a survey commissioned 15 months ago by the previous owner.  

Not the case with steel narrowboats in my experience.

We owned a boat for several years and were never ever asked to send a copy of a survey, recent or otherwise to our insurance company.

Even if this was correct not accepting a survey 15 months old would make insuring your narrowboat a ridiculously expensive business on an annual renewal basis.

Edited November 5, 2017 by MJG

[Alan de Enfield]

11 hours ago, MichaelG said:

Hi Derby 65, I am looking to buy A narrowboat soon and personally I wont consider buying without a survey as at the very least it will give you some peace of mind. I have owned several fibreglass boats over the years and found insurance companies have always wanted sight of a recent survey before they will put the boat on risk. Understandable I guess as they dont want to insure something that for all they know, without sight of a survey, could be about to sink. I am not sure if they will accept a survey commissioned 15 months ago by the previous owner.  

In general, insurance companies will only require a survey for boats over 25/30 years old.

If you are insuring 3rd party only then you will not require a survey at any age.

With regard to ’peace of mind’ – just the other side of the coin:

I had a boat surveyed, it ’passed’ with flying colours, I bought it. On trying to leave the marina  I  discovered problems and eventually found it needed over £20,000 spending on it to make it ‘sea-worthy’.

Tried to take the surveyor to court, to find that ’the small print’ in the surveyors contract excluded any errors or omissions he may make in the survey – they are worthless.

Having a ‘survey’ is not a guarantee of the state of the boat, AND, you need no qualifications to call yourself a surveyor.

I have never had a survey in the subsequent 18 boats and much prefer to ‘self insure’ and save the £1000 survey costs towards any repairs that need doing.

Caveat Emptor.

[Sea Dog]

57 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Tried to take the surveyor to court, to find that ’the small print’ in the surveyors contract excluded any errors or omissions he may make in the survey – they are worthless.

 

Caveat Emptor.

I see this view a lot in posts on this forum. Are they really  really that bad on the cut? 

In the marine leisure boating world, the yacht surveyors I knew had quite the opposite experience. A common issue there was folk who already knew they had a problem trying to get a surveyor to miss it... and then threaten to sue them. I think most had paid off such people from  their own pocket rather than face court costs, insurance price hikes and loss of time/earnings for a case they would probably have won. Their insurance overhead increased with the number of surveys they did and the time they'd been doing it, to the point where they needed insurance to cover them for 5 years after packing in.  Twas a minefield and, whilst the headline figure of a survey price looks like a licence to print money, the reality of the work doesn't bear that out. I'm not saying all yacht surveyors are good, I hasten to add, but the good ones aren't bad.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Sea Dog
Edited to add - the Latin quote still applies!

[cuthound]

25 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

I see this view a lot in posts on this forum. Are they really  really that bad on the cut? 

In the marine leisure boating world, the yacht surveyors I knew had quite the opposite experience. A common issue there was folk who already knew they had a problem trying to get a surveyor to miss it... and then threaten to sue them. I think most had paid off such people from  their own pocket rather than face court costs, insurance price hikes and loss of time/earnings for a case they would probably have won. Their insurance overhead increased with the number of surveys they did and the time they'd been doing it, to the point where they needed insurance to cover them for 5 years after packing in.  Twas a minefield and, whilst the headline figure of a survey price looks like a licence to print money, the reality of the work doesn't bear that out. I'm not saying all yacht surveyors are good, I hasten to add, but the good ones aren't bad.

No, there must be hundreds of surveys undertaken on the cut each year and the only tale of doom that regularly turns up is Alan De E's.

Things can go wrong with surveyers missing things, but a major failure will be very rare.

Edited November 5, 2017 by cuthound
Spillung

[Bargebuilder]

Alan De Enfield may be the only person who has had problems with duff surveys and happens to be reading this, but he is definitely not alone.

Where the contents of a survey is concerned, peace of mind is notional: A warm fuzzy feeling that is sometimes not based on reality.

The client of a surveyor should be able to rely on the fact that, should the survey be proved to be inadequate, some sort of fair financial recourse is likely to be forthcoming from the surveyors insurance company. Without this, the survey is a waste of time and money and any feeling of peace of mind an illusion.

If you ever question a surveyor's fees, he or she will immediately blame the astromonical insurance charges that they have to bear. If you then buy a boat on the basis that the survey was a good one and subsequently need to spend thousands on sorting out issues that weren't reported, just try making a claim and see how much success you have. 

I suspect that surveyors pay large amounts to insurance companies, not to compensate clients to whom they have given poor advice, but in fact to engage their huge legal departments to do everything possible to wriggle out of their 'obligation' to make things right.

[mrsmelly]

21 hours ago, cuthound said:

I'll amend my post to make it clearer.

This reminds me of one time in my pub when I charged a bloke £ ??? for a pint of bitter, he immediately snapped that it had been £ ??? a few minutes earlier when one of my bar staff had served him. I again immediately responded with a " Thankyou " for letting me know that he had been undercharged 10 pence and wouldn't take the money he owed me due to his honesty. His face was a picture............what a plonker

[Jess--]

7 minutes ago, Bargebuilder said:

I suspect that surveyors pay large amounts to insurance companies, not to compensate clients to whom they have given poor advice, but in fact to engage their huge legal departments to do everything possible to wriggle out of their 'obligation' to make things right.

I think you have just described almost every insurance company

[Alan de Enfield]

35 minutes ago, cuthound said:

No, there must be hundreds of surveys undertaken on the cut each year and the only tale of doom that regularly turns up is Alan De E's.

Things can go wrong with surveyers missing things, but a major failure will be very rare.

Agreed, but there is a whole world outside of the 100 (or so) regular posters on this forum.

Remember a few years ago - the newbie who bought a boat from a well known midlands broker, had a survey, and it sank as they got out of the marina ?

There are examples on this forum, I am not saying it is an everyday event, just that a survey is not always the answer that you ma think it is.

[OldGoat]

What folks ignore / forget about surveys is that at the very least the boat is out of the water and that 'somebody' has examined the hull and measured it's thickness at likely eroded points. Examining the internals is possibly a more dubious matter as there's no absolute baseline between good and bad (as there are no 'standards') and any examination may be hindered by lack of access.

A prospective purchaser is about to spend a not inconsiderable sum on the survey, so it's sensible - nay essential for a newcomer to boating to be present at the survey and ask questions as appropriate.

You're spending a large amount on the boat - isn't it worth taking some interest in possibly being the only time you can see everything and get an independent opinion 'on the hoof'

[MtB]

1 hour ago, Sea Dog said:

n the marine leisure boating world, the yacht surveyors I knew had quite the opposite experience. A common issue there was folk who already knew they had a problem trying to get a surveyor to miss it... and then threaten to sue them. I think most had paid off such people from  their own pocket rather than face court costs, insurance price hikes and loss of time/earnings for a case they would probably have won.

And 

2 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I had a boat surveyed, it ’passed’ with flying colours, I bought it. On trying to leave the marina  I  discovered problems and eventually found it needed over £20,000 spending on it to make it ‘sea-worthy’.

Tried to take the surveyor to court, to find that ’the small print’ in the surveyors contract excluded any errors or omissions he may make in the survey – they are worthless.

 

These two anecdotes seem to directly contradict each other. 

Makes me wonder if there is a major difference between canal boat surveyors who seem to be able to impose T&Cs on their customers that excuse them from all consequences of their errors/oversights, and sea-boat surveyors, who Sea Dog says are legally liable for the accuracy of their survey reports.

Further, canal boat surveyors it is often said here need no formal qualifications. Perhaps sea-boat surveyors have to be members of a professional for their surveys to be accepted by insurers. Perhaps @Sea Dog could expand on this please?