Another surveyor recommendation thread

[pipemma]

We've had an offer accepted - yay! However, the boat is lying in the south of Italy. The broker is the same one used by a member of this parish some years ago and they inspire confidence, but the surveyor they usually use (as used by the member here) is not available until May; same for another one I enquired with in Italy. The broker thinks he's found one in Rome and one in Naples, and I have another enquiry to make, but it seems that if someone is travelling from Rome or further afield, then it make little difference to us where they come from if they're on a Ryanair route.
We'd really like to get the survey done mid-April with a view to completion by the end of the month - a pipe dream? With this in mind, can anyone recommend any names in Italy or striking distance?
Thanks in advance.

 

[IanCC]

Wait for a good one. Lots are useless.

 

[greeny]

I'm going to be controversial here.
Do you really need a survey? Dependent on cost of the vessel, size, age and construction type, if you know boats or have a couple of friends who do, then maybe you will get more value from doing it yourselves.
If the survey is for finance, insurance or other good reasons then you may have no choice other than to employ a surveyor.
Having it done by a "professional" surveyor does not always get you what you would expect with many of them writing "get out" statements in the reports to minimise their responsibilities. For example: - I had one survey that said "Engine appears visually to be clean and well maintained but not run and tested."
Survey or no survey, if things are later found to be faulty, I would suggest that getting any recompense from a foreign surveyor would be nigh impossible.
You suggest that the Broker had a surveyor they usually use but he is unavailable in your time frame. I would be thinking that using the surveyor suggested by the sellers agent may introduce some "vested interest" especially in a foreign country.

 

[pipemma]

I'm going to be controversial here.
Do you really need a survey? Dependent on cost of the vessel, size, age and construction type, if you know boats or have a couple of friends who do, then maybe you will get more value from doing it yourselves.
If the survey is for finance, insurance or other good reasons then you may have no choice other than to employ a surveyor.
Having it done by a "professional" surveyor does not always get you what you would expect with many of them writing "get out" statements in the reports to minimise their responsibilities. For example: - I had one survey that said "Engine appears visually to be clean and well maintained but not run and tested."
Survey or no survey, if things are later found to be faulty, I would suggest that getting any recompense from a foreign surveyor would be nigh impossible.
You suggest that the Broker had a surveyor they usually use but he is unavailable in your time frame. I would be thinking that using the surveyor suggested by the sellers agent may introduce some "vested interest" especially in a foreign country.

On your last point, normally I would agree with you, but a user here used the same broker and the broker's surveyor a few years ago and reported being happy with the outcome. In the event, the broker has done a search and found a very reputable and accredited surveyor from Rome who is also recommended on other sailing forums.

We're pretty confident about the outcome of the survey - we're not novices and the boat has clearly been looked after. The owner fired up the engine from cold and let it run for a while during our viewing so we're happy with that, but the boat was in the water so, for our own peace of mind, we'd like to just get the underwater parts checked out. Also with the value of the boat it would be silly to skimp on a survey and at the age, it just broadens the insurance options if we do it. I hear you about the get-out clauses (was shocked on the survey of the boat we're selling how non-committal it was, but thankfully I'd had her from new in a yacht management scheme so I knew her full history anyway).