Barclays Marine Finance cash in on repossessions seller beware

well, only one person on the forum knows all the details, so most of us are relying on conjecture...
Still, there arent that many companies that actually buy boats outright. From some comments over the years, I think that a cut of about 30pct was par for the course.
I ve re-read the original post. If I have understood it, he agreed to allow the finance house to achieve the best price it could. As Mike said, they went to a recognised and established company, and I read this as that company took the boat on, and repaid the finance house. I guess he isnt paying brokerage so thats 8pct+ !
Buying second hand boats isnt my living, but if you call me up and say make me a firm bid for £100k boat, I dont think I' d offer you more than 70pct either. Ok, maybe they manage to sell it for £85 over the next six months, but they have all the costs, probably have to offer a warranty,maybe service it if needed.
And maybe they still have it in a year's time.
Maybe in hindsight he should have got some floor prices from someone;maybe he would then have managed to get a bit more in his own fire sale. Do EBY still buy boats outright, I wonder ?Would that have been materially different if you just asked them to buy it outright?
 
Enterprise, agreed that adverstising a boat even £40k under the asking price should shift it quick, hoever it could still take weeks with survey, sea trial etc. all the while the finance company loses money. The alternative for them is one phone call to the broker, sold and sorted. The boat never reached the market at £40k under.
 
[ QUOTE ]
How hard did they really try to secure a better deal for their customer

[/ QUOTE ]

Their customer was the Bank
 
[ QUOTE ]
The boat probably never reached open market, the broker paid off the debt at cost in return for the boat, the equity is now the brokers profit or loss.
The broker will now market the boat as a trade in & is probably quite happy that he will exceed the "Fire sale" price.


[/ QUOTE ] That particular broker told me last week that he never owns any boats.
 
Its not 40k under any asking price. Its £40k under what the guy paid for it (whenever that was).
Some months ago, the broker advised a price of 105k. Again we dont know what that means. but lets say 105k and you get 90pct of that asking price(is that realistic?I dont know the boat), pay 8pct brokerage.. now we are at £87k. Now we are £17k adrift. Not quite the same story, is it....
 
[ QUOTE ]
But who is going to enforce this? The punter that cannot afford to pay the monthly repayments. Obudsman is probably the only way to go for this punter to stand a chance of any sort of redress and that would be less than certain.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am not saying that in this case it was not done properly, if it was advertised along with their other brokerage boats, at a simmilar price to others of the same type and for a reasonable time then I believe that they would have met their obligations to the customer.

If on the other hand they rang a friend, within days of getting instructions from Finance company, and moved it on without offering it on the open market, that I understand is not legal.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Barclays placed the boat with an experienced and active broker who got £70k in a depressed market. That's the value of the boat, not more

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, more precisely that's the value of the boat for a quick sale, out of season. The value may be substantially different for a sale realised within 3-6 months, with a growing contingent of euro buyers, including Spring which is peak season, and might allow some of the equity to be returned to the borrower? Thing is there seems to be no incentive or obligation for the banks to think that way, not even from the boat owning public it would seem, on the strength of the replies to this thread? I'm surprised there seems to be no expectation whatsoever on the banks to try and do the right thing by their customers when they fall on hard times. It could happen to any one of us with a mortgage, loan or business overdraft.
 
I'm surprised there seems to be no expectation whatsoever on the banks to try and do the right thing by their customers when they fall on hard times

We dont know Nick, what they have tried to do, or for how long, or even the circumstances of the non payment..
 
capsco, found this on the interweb re repossessed houses

"The Building Societies Act 1997 directs companies to "take reasonable precautions to obtain the true market value of the mortgaged property."

The true value of any property is often subjective - and depends on the opinion of a purchaser. So how can a mortgage company determine its true market value?

Auction is a route that many companies take.

However the mortgage company does not has to sell the property via auction to obtain the true market value. Courts generally accept this method as a determinant of fair value, but as long as a company can demonstrate, if questioned, that other methods were used, it is allowed.

Some companies sell the property via local estate agents without disclosing that he property is repossessed. By the way of like for like comparison, they can demonstrate that fair value was achieved"

Obviously this only applies to houses but I think that, if this did apply to other assets like boats, Barclays could reasonably claim that they achieved fair market value by selling on the open market via a recognised broker in the absence of any auction selling system in the boat market
 
When a house is sold off cheap dont they have to advertise it ?

I thought I had seen sealed bids or auctions.

They should put an add in MBM to the effect

Sunseeker 36 foot 2000 to be sold by sealed bid 9/3/09 .

There could be no arguments then.
 
Er, well yes but you can't blame Barclays for the fact that they had to repo in winter rather than the peak selling season and you can't blame them for not wanting to pay storage charges until the market improves. In any case, in the present climate, who's to say if they would have achieved a better price by hanging on? For example you could very well argue that most of the used boat buyers around in the UK at the moment are Euro buyers and with Sterling looking like it might recover against the Euro over the next few months, it was more sensible to take any offer that might come along now rather than wait
I am similarly amazed that anyone should think that banks are some kind of social care organisation. We all know that any asset is at risk if you borrow against it and that the banks' only duty is to their shareholders
 
There is a big difference between a broker willing to represent a boat at a price for a punter and then take a fee and having to fund the purchase of the boat and then hope they can sell it on some time soon. I wouldn't blame a broker for putting in a bid at £70k, means they know they can fund the boat whilst waiting for a reasonable sale without losing a stack of cash. The other thing we don't know is if this was put out to auction with a load of brokers, if it was then £70k was the highest bid from the broking community. I wouldn't be trying to beat up Inwards over this. Also a Sh!t load has changes in all markets in the last few months, price points on everything have dropped from houses to car and boats aren't insulated from this in fact are far more likely to take a hammering becasue the are an unecessary to every day life for most. I agree morally it ain't great, however the punter was nieve to say the least to hand it back to the finance company.
 
Does anybody know anything about the make and model of the boat.A flybridge from a respected well known builder is going to hold its value during the winter far better than a sportsboat from a lesser marque.The price achieved may be much closer to its true value than suggested.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Does anybody know anything about the make and model of the boat.A flybridge from a respected well known builder is going to hold its value during the winter far better than a sportsboat from a lesser marque.The price achieved may be much closer to its true value than suggested.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not a flybridge, reckon its the recent feature in MBY for 1995-97 Sunseeker Portifino 375 for 95-125K he mentioned, most well known brand in europe etc.... I'd say 70K for quick sale would be about right, and even not that unusual in a normal market.
 
If the boat ws offered via sealed bids to brokers then you expect that there would be some low offers, but wouldn't you have thought they should have offered it for general sale (with clauses) for a better price at the same time.
How would the broker know the outstanding debt? unless the finance company had said something like "take the first offer over £75k", my guess the broker sold to a partner so it didn't look like they had bought it, some insider dealing perhaps & why wouldn't the owner try for say £80k just to walk away with something?

If you were offered a £125k boat for £75k no mater what the economy is doing you would have to think about it, especialy a well known brand & a popular boat.
Can see problems if it's not such a good boat though as mentioned above.
 
You've missed the point. For an immediate sale to trade, no questions asked, no survey, no sea trial it ain't a £125k boat it is a £70k boat. The brokers are providing a service to the finance house.

I think you are getting rather excited about the insider dealing potential here. This sale to trade happens all the time in the car industry even in the good times. When you trade in a used car for new or one get repossessed by a finance house for that matter it generally goes to a local used broker for trade book price, if they aren't interested it then generally goes to the car auctions. The new car dealer will very rarely put it on his forecourt.

So why is this practice abhorent in the boat world? I bought a new boat from a reputable dealer 3 years ago trading in my old boat, they offered a reasonable price, rather than put it up for sale and maybe get a higher price I traded there and then coz I wanted the new boat. The dealer then put my boat up for sale at a healthy old margin, took them 6 moths to shift though, but they had already made their margin on the new boat sale.

Only difference in this case is that the customer offering the boat is in fact the finance house, the original punter has lost control and has learnt a very harsh commercial lesson, don't borrow what you can't afford to repay, if you do find away to sell the asset yourself quickly.

There are lots of complaints on the fora when dealers go through, these are the sorts of practices that will ensure the sharp/clever dealers will stay in business and are still around to provide dealer support to their customers whether they are boat buying joe public or finance houses. No I am not a boat dealer or any other dealer for that matter, just an experienced businessman living in the real world.
 
How do you know its one of those?

In fact, it definitly isnt the Revolver as he is trying to buy a bigger more expensive boat. DINO II has been on the market for a while and is in Ireland

You really shouldnt jump to conclusions and suggest boats/owners are involved in a fire sale without proof.
 
Surprised that this thread is still going........

.......I guess the lesson is that if you can see a Repo coming for your own boat make sure you sell it beforehand - even if taking an unpleasant knock.....as ain't gonna get better.
 
I don't, I was replying that if it is a Sunseeker Porto 375 that Inwards have that these were the only two.

"You really shouldnt jump to conclusions and suggest boats/owners are involved in a fire sale without proof. "...last time I checked this was a discussion forum...not a court of law! I think you need to lighten up a buy a boat! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Paul /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Other threads that may be of interest

R
Brokers.
Replies
6
Views
503
Irish Rover
Irish Rover
Bouba
Keeping warm in bed on these cold nights
2
Replies
25
Views
713
Mr Googler
Mr Googler
ari
What is your lifejacket policy?
3 4 5
Replies
86
Views
2K
Greg2
Greg2
wombat88
Arvor boats and TDI engines
Replies
4
Views
212
James L
James L

Share this page

Top