Are boat surveyors worth the money?

[tonybannister]

In my experience they are not a lot of use.
First they will ask what you need the survey for 1. Selling boat. 2.Buying boat. 3. Insurance. Depending on the answer you will get one of 3 different surveys. Best to ask for a condition survey without telling them its purpose because that after all is what is needed.
The survey is done of course before they leave base on their word processing package. For instance if it is an old boat the words "due to the age of the vessel" will appear throughout the report. And then there are all those exclusions. The boat needs to be out of the water to be surveyed but it really needs a run around the bay to assess the engine etc properly. Keel bolts will carry the standard "extract one to see its condition" advice.
Mind you I have seen a good survey report and that was worth it but for that one I have seen many bad ones.
Rigging is covered by asking for the receipt of the last new supply. In fact receipts can tell you a lot. If the engine has recently had a full service done professionally that tells more than the surveyors comment "as the boat was out of the water I could not test it but due to the age of the boat the engine will probably need replacing in the near future" this assumes the engine is original and the same age as the boat.

 

[KellysEye]

Have a very close look at the contract detail about what he was to report on. If the problems you have found are not on the list you have no recourse to action. If they are on the list and he didn't spot something then he has failed in his duty of care. They have insurance to cover for that thus you can make a claim.

There may be something on the Internet about how to make a claim.

 

[Allan]

I've two opposite experiences. Buying a boat, great surveyor. Very enthusiastic, insisted on sailing from the mooring to the boat lift, checked everything, even climbed the mast steps. Emailed a good report quickly and sent a hard copy a few days later. Selling a boat, not so good. He got a phone call halfway through his work and told me he was finished inside so I could lock it up and he would be back later. I slept on the boat that night and he never returned but still sent what he said was a full report. No mention of the damage, which I had told the buyers about.
Allan

 

[Tranona]

Nothing difficult about making a claim against the person (which is what you have to do). You just need to show that he was negligent and you suffered a loss. Easy to say but not easy to do as you are challenging his professional competence. Therefore you need to collect evidence and this may in fact need the services of another surveyor to support your claim.

He may choose to settle direct, or you can go to his professional body for arbitration, or he can refer it to his insurer. Litigation should be avoided if possible as the only people that benefit from that are the lawyers.

Problem with many of the examples that come up here is that the bits missed are relatively minor, often have little effect on the value of the boat (so difficult to show loss) and their importance can be disputed. That is not to say that there aren't really bad cases. I looked a buying a boat for essentially scrap value from an owner who had bought it unseen on the strength of a survey, although from the original report I don't think the surveyor had seen it either! It was clearly past it and you could tell that from just walking up to it. Anyway, he sued for his money, but as it only cost £16k and he sold it for £3k he had over a year of argument, new surveyor's bill and legal costs (which he recovered) for (relatively) not a lot of money.