Boat buying nerves

jakew009 said:
It would be interesting to know if a broker would even do it for £1000 incl vat on a 100k transaction, seems a lot of potential risk for them relative to the profit.
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What risk are they absorbing? They're being paid to function as a full service escrow account and verify that the paperwork is what it proports to be, risks that brokers run routinely.
 
Tranona said:
Do you have a written contract covering these arrangements?

You are not following the normal procedure - the Bill of Sale comes last, not first. What governs the transaction is the contract and while your payment arrangements are reasonable and your handover process sound it seems all verbal and reliant on you being able to check that the boat is indeed loaded onto your transport before you transfer the balance.

As already suggested many brokers will handle just the "conveyancing" side - due diligence to check the boats paperwork and handling the transfer of funds through their client account. He would hold your final payment and when the seller has met his side - that is the boat is loaded onto your transport release the funds to the seller. You would then get all the paperwork including the Bill of Sale.

It is actually more common for a seller to go down this route because he has the most at risk of you failing to complete, although in this case he has your substantial deposit to defray any costs should you not complete. The lack of a written contract though leaves both of you vulnerable if there is a dispute.

In a straightforward transaction like this a broker's charges would be in the hundreds, not thousands.

Hope it all goes well.
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There isn’t a formal written contract covering the arrangements but there is a very clear whatsapp history of exactly what the plan is and what will happen if anything goes wrong.

I agree it is a bit backwards doing the bill of sale first, but the seller was happy to do it and it gave me a little more protection than if I transferred him the money and he then vanished on me.

As it happens the seller is an experienced buyer / seller (in classic vehicles) and I’m an experienced buyer (of agricultural / hgv stuff) so we were both happy to do the deal on trust.

If I had any doubts about the seller I’d have wanted a middle man involved. I didn’t realise they would do it for such a low cost given the potential hassle they could end up embroiled in if it went wrong.
Saying that last time I tried to buy a boat through a broker he was totally useless; inept in fact. He didn’t realise the boat was not vat paid (and he didn’t even understand how VAT worked).

It would have been easier if I lived closer but I couldn’t face another trip around the m25.

thanks for your thoughts
 
penfold said:
What risk are they absorbing? They're being paid to function as a full service escrow account and verify that the paperwork is what it proports to be, risks that brokers run routinely.
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Boat is stolen, boat is smuggled, boat has undeclared finance on it etc etc. The broker could end up in the middle of a legal dispute between two parties being paid pittance for it.

But I accept that some brokers apparently are prepared to do it for relatively little money.
 
We (Hamble based brokerage) offer conveyancing only for 3% (plus VAT if applicable) - half our normal brokerage fee.

It is quite common place for brokers to offer this when a client comes with a deal all agreed.
 
I bought my boat 18 months ago privately. Yes it was a tad tense but, like you, you have to go with your instinct a bit. I had approached him after a post on here. There was a bit of - not sure if I sell or not sell - but in the end we agreed a very fair price. We viewed the boat twice - it on the Hamble, us in Cornwall, he in the Midlands - and after the second viewing we met in a pub near Gloucester for lunch and to do the paperwork.
I had joined the RYA and used their sale/transfer paperwork. He brought all his paperwork including the initial VAT invoice when she was sold new. I had chanced a grand as I sent him that as a goodwill deposit to secure the boat. We signed all the documents, we copied them all and divided them between us. He gave us the keys and we sent him the money in three tranches and he then sent us the remaining paperwork originals. We then had her trucked down to Cornwall a few days later.
Of course caution is essential, we did look at using a broker for escrow but just went for it in the end. Society wouldn't function in the western world if the majority of people weren't honest.
 
jakew009 said:
There isn’t a formal written contract covering the arrangements but there is a very clear whatsapp history of exactly what the plan is and what will happen if anything goes wrong.

I agree it is a bit backwards doing the bill of sale first, but the seller was happy to do it and it gave me a little more protection than if I transferred him the money and he then vanished on me.

As it happens the seller is an experienced buyer / seller (in classic vehicles) and I’m an experienced buyer (of agricultural / hgv stuff) so we were both happy to do the deal on trust.

If I had any doubts about the seller I’d have wanted a middle man involved. I didn’t realise they would do it for such a low cost given the potential hassle they could end up embroiled in if it went wrong.
Saying that last time I tried to buy a boat through a broker he was totally useless; inept in fact. He didn’t realise the boat was not vat paid (and he didn’t even understand how VAT worked).

It would have been easier if I lived closer but I couldn’t face another trip around the m25.

thanks for your thoughts
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Good to be dealing with an experienced seller. I had similar when selling the old engine out of my boat. All done over the phone and texts with exchange of photos, copies of technical documents and a video of it starting and running. Transfer of a nominal deposit to make sure transfer works. Lifted the engine out in the morning and buyer arrived to collect after lunch. He was a dealer in used sports cars, mainly Porsche so very familiar with this sort of transaction and transferred the money on the spot. Only risk to me was having the engine out of the boat rather than in, if he failed to collect.

Like the idea of Whatsapp as a medium for evidencing the contract. Only risk to you is your £10k deposit and that is where using a broker would eliminate the risk.
 
jakew009 said:
Am I the only one who still gets a bit nervous when buying a boat and sending large sums of money to someone's bank account 😂

Sold my rib 2 weeks ago
Started looking for Merry Fisher 805 2 weeks ago
Viewed Merry Fisher 805 last Sunday (left Devon at 4am, on boat in Essex by 9am, deal done by 11am, left Essex lunchtime, home by 5pm)
Signed bill of sale sorted this morning, insured this afternoon.
Transfer half the balance tonight, remainder tomorrow (Lloyds 25k limit)
Boat lifted out tomorrow, collected by haulier on Friday and delivered to North Devon on Monday (if all goes to plan)

Let's hope the seller doesn't do a runner with the money and the boat 🤞
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Haven't read whole thread, but why not do final transfer when you are there, on the boat immediately before hand over.
 
Tranona said:
Good to be dealing with an experienced seller. I had similar when selling the old engine out of my boat. All done over the phone and texts with exchange of photos, copies of technical documents and a video of it starting and running. Transfer of a nominal deposit to make sure transfer works. Lifted the engine out in the morning and buyer arrived to collect after lunch. He was a dealer in used sports cars, mainly Porsche so very familiar with this sort of transaction and transferred the money on the spot. Only risk to me was having the engine out of the boat rather than in, if he failed to collect.

Like the idea of Whatsapp as a medium for evidencing the contract. Only risk to you is your £10k deposit and that is where using a broker would eliminate the risk.
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Yep, the seller has actually been very sensible all the way through. I always send £1 first now after we had a very near disaster with a huge business payment a few years back :oops:

The boat is now on the hard at an independent boat yard (to both of us) and I have transferred the seller the remaining money without any fear. It will be on a truck at 9AM tomorrow :)
 
j24jam said:
We (Hamble based brokerage) offer conveyancing only for 3% (plus VAT if applicable) - half our normal brokerage fee.

It is quite common place for brokers to offer this when a client comes with a deal all agreed.
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Interesting, thanks for commenting. This sale was 31k so fee would have been £1116.
What would a prospective customer get for that?
 
Some years ago a friend of mine paid £60K in a private sale for a Beneteau. The seller moved abroad. A few months later a finance company came to my friend for the outstanding £20K on the boat. My friend had to pay up, after taking legal advice. After a while he gave up trying to persue the seller, as he was advised it would be almost impossible to recover the monies, even when they did find him.
 
jakew009 said:
Interesting, thanks for commenting. This sale was 31k so fee would have been £1116.
What would a prospective customer get for that?
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Daydream believer said:
Some years ago a friend of mine paid £60K in a private sale for a Beneteau. The seller moved abroad. A few months later a finance company came to my friend for the outstanding £20K on the boat. My friend had to pay up, after taking legal advice. After a while he gave up trying to persue the seller, as he was advised it would be almost impossible to recover the monies, even when they did find him.
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That.
 
jakew009 said:
Interesting, thanks for commenting. This sale was 31k so fee would have been £1116.
What would a prospective customer get for that?
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Full conveyancing, including contracts, money handling through secure client accounts, transfer of title, checking boats Title, RCD (or UKCA soon) and VAT documents are all correct. Plus all the normal advice and hand holding we give to all our clients.

I should add we have a minimum charge of £1,500 + VAT these days, so in that scenario it would cost a little more for our services.
 
jakew009 said:
In that scenario how does it work? Can you sue the broker?

I can’t see how the broker is in any better position to find out if the boat has finance on it than I am.
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If a broker had done their job correctly, they would have picked up on the finance when checking the Title & Registration documents. So had a broker been involved in that instance, then you could sue them, and hope they had PI insurance (not all do!!).
 
j24jam said:
If a broker had done their job correctly, they would have picked up on the finance when checking the Title & Registration documents. So had a broker been involved in that instance, then you could sue them, and hope they had PI insurance (not all do!!).
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But my point is, if the boat isn’t Part 1 registered (which the one I have bought isn’t), there’s no way of knowing if it’s got a loan secured on it or not. And any broker who tells you any differently would be bullshitting.

So either the Beneteau that Daydreamer was talking about was Part 1 registered and the buyer was an idiot for not investigating, or he should have never been responsible for the debt in the first place.
 
jakew009 said:
But my point is, if the boat isn’t Part 1 registered (which the one I have bought isn’t), there’s no way of knowing if it’s got a loan secured on it or not. And any broker who tells you any differently would be bullshitting.

So either the Beneteau that Daydreamer was talking about was Part 1 registered and the buyer was an idiot for not investigating, or he should have never been responsible for the debt in the first place.
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You cannot secure a loan on a boat without it being Part 1 registered.
 
jakew009 said:
I’m not sure that is strictly true
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I am, but happy to be proven otherwise.

You may get an unsecured loan, but not one where the lender has a charge against the boat, as it must be p1 registered in order to place the secured loan on it.

I should add some lenders will lend small amounts against a boat if they keep possession of the Title documents (rather than registering a charge on the p1 registry), so you couldn't sell the boat on without them (unless buyer was stupid enough to buy a boat with no documents).

(I suppose someone may lend money against the boat, if they took possession of it until it is paid back, but then the owner couldn't sell it on anyway)
 
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