Opinions on a 60' trad for sale?

[jetzi]

On 19/08/2018 at 12:29, Alan de Enfield said:

A bit of a revolutionary suggestion - but - have you considered other options ?

There are more boaty-boats about than 'skips-with lids'. 

 

Maybe difficult on a (below) £45k budget but look at steel widebeams and Dutch barges. 

  

Have you looked at any GRP boats - for your budget you'd be getting a very good quality and good sized boat.

Yeah, we have thought about it a little but the dream is to explore the waterways at a really slow rate over the next few years. Anything other than a narrowboat kind of defeats that purpose...

 

4 hours ago, sirweste said:

This forum generally seems adamant that you must get a survey. In the end it's up to your judgement. I bowed to the strong advice on here to get mine, I really didn't need to, should have trusted my instinct. Me and the seller went halves on the survey, if I pulled out of the sale he'd keep the report. 

Sounds like you got a great deal - only paid for half the survey AND the boat ended up being in good nick! That's pretty much the best case scenario, other than not getting a survey and not knowing what you've bought.

 

 

[sirweste]

Yer, I agreed that the seller would have the survey in his name, so if there was any reason I pulled out of the sale he had something useful to use for the next buyer.

I was new to boating when buying, so really wanted the piece of mind. But I would have been happy trusting the bloke too, he was very genuine and everything he'd said was the truth about the hull condition.

[Richard10002]

4 hours ago, sirweste said:

Yer, I agreed that the seller would have the survey in his name, so if there was any reason I pulled out of the sale he had something useful to use for the next buyer.

I was new to boating when buying, so really wanted the piece of mind. But I would have been happy trusting the bloke too, he was very genuine and everything he'd said was the truth about the hull condition.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing though. Even if you trusted the bloke, how could you be sure that the hull was 10 6 4, or whatever, without having a surveyor measure it at regular intervals all over. Even judgement can’t tell you that - but your shared survey obviously did

 

Id guess there are plenty of people who, “trusted the bloke”, and whose, “judgement”, convinced them not to have a survey, who end up with a boat in need of replating, or which sinks soon after purchase.

 

If someone is brand new to boats, and knows little/nothing about them, IMHO, it would be wrong to do anything other than advise them to have a survey, the most important part will be the thickness of the hull, and the most interesting parts will be the things that will need some attention in the near and distant future.

 

At the end of the day, it’s a kind of insurance against likely loss. 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

38 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

At the end of the day, it’s a kind of insurance against likely loss. 

The difference being you pay insurance knowing that if something goes wrong you get 'paid out', with a Surveyor, if it goes wrong all you get is "not my problem, read the survey small print - I am not responsible for errors, mistakes or not identifying / finding the faults, &, the survey is only valid for 30 seconds after I leave the boat"

[Richard10002]

2 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The difference being you pay insurance knowing that if something goes wrong you get 'paid out', with a Surveyor, if it goes wrong all you get is "not my problem, read the survey small print - I am not responsible for errors, mistakes or not identifying / finding the faults, &, the survey is only valid for 30 seconds after I leave the boat"

That’s why I said, “kind of”.

 

for a few hundred quid you get a fairly thorough inspection by an experienced inspector, at the end of which you will know more about the boat and it’s condition than you knew there was to know.

 

The alternative is to buy a boat which, in reality, you know absolutely nothing about, with respect to condition and contents.

 

The OP seems to want to be certain that the boat they buy will not loose value, (much), during their ownership. 

[sirweste]

I agree entirely, it was the sensible thing to do, and the advice on here was correct.

However, if the next boat was in the same circumstances then I wouldn't bother. I'm not one for insurance against everything, I rather take me chances.

 

 

[cuthound]

When I bought my boat, the surveyor found that the charger part of the Combi inverter/charger wasn't working, and suggested it would cost circa £2,000 to supply and fit a new one.

 

In the light of this I reduced my offer for the boat by £2,000, which was accepted by the seller.

 

When I got the boat to my EoG mooring and plugged the shoreline in,  I found the Combi was working, so it was likely that the shoreline at the dry dock where the boat was surveyed had tripped.

 

As the survey cost me £500 plus £300 to hire the dry dock, I was very happy that I chose to use a surveyor. ☺

[Alan de Enfield]

15 minutes ago, cuthound said:

When I bought my boat, the surveyor found that the charger part of the Combi inverter/charger wasn't working, and suggested it would cost circa £2,000 to supply and fit a new one.

 

In the light of this I reduced my offer for the boat by £2,000, which was accepted by the seller.

 

When I got the boat to my EoG mooring and plugged the shoreline in,  I found the Combi was working, so it was likely that the shoreline at the dry dock where the boat was surveyed had tripped.

 

As the survey cost me £500 plus £300 to hire the dry dock, I was very happy that I chose to use a surveyor. ☺

Had the surveyor said 'everything is working fine' and you got the boat home to find out the combi didn't work and you needed to buy a new one at £2000, and had you known you would have reduced your offer by £2k,  would you still consider the survey to be 'value for money'.

[WotEver]

Just now, Alan de Enfield said:

Had the surveyor said 'everything is working fine' and you got the boat home to find out the combi didn't work and you needed to buy a new one at £2000, and had you known you would have reduced your offer by £2k,  would you still consider the survey to be 'value for money'.

I’m not sure I’m following your logic here Alan. It seems that you’re asking that if the surveyor had missed something expensive would you think he was value for money. I think the answer is pretty obvious, surely?

[Neil2]

11 minutes ago, cuthound said:

When I bought my boat, the surveyor found that the charger part of the Combi inverter/charger wasn't working, and suggested it would cost circa £2,000 to supply and fit a new one.

 

In the light of this I reduced my offer for the boat by £2,000, which was accepted by the seller.

 

When I got the boat to my EoG mooring and plugged the shoreline in,  I found the Combi was working, so it was likely that the shoreline at the dry dock where the boat was surveyed had tripped.

 

As the survey cost me £500 plus £300 to hire the dry dock, I was very happy that I chose to use a surveyor. ☺

TBH in my experience people who have boats for sale are so keen to hang onto a buyer they will accept any apparent faults without much question, and you don't necessarily need a surveyor.  I've had this experience a few times now, rather than go and put the faults right the vendor more often than not will just accept a price reduction without further investigation.  For instance on the last boat, among many other things, I suggested it needed a new wiper motor as I couldn't get it to work.  That was £100 alone knocked off when it was simply a loose wire.  

 

I think for absolute novices a surveyor is a good idea but many of us on here are more than capable of identifying faults that a surveyor would spot and probably more besides.