Boat purchaser has completely disappeared.

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Paddingtonbear

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Some of you may recall my travails re. an extremely negligent surveyor, well progress on this grinds extremely slow :). I now have another somewhat more intractable issue. In order to fund my restoration of the boat referred above we decided to sell one of my other boats and soon found a buyer. A price was agreed, £32000 and 10% deposit taken and to complete the deal I undertook to do a bit of fettling inc. underwater repaint and new anodes etc.. The work is now complete and the purchaser has completely disappeared. I have tried to contact via email inc. sending photos of the work and progress reports but to no avail. There is a slight problem in that he lives in Switzerland for some of the time and London the rest. Whilst Switzerland is a strange place by all accounts it is not the other side of the moon. The boat will soon need its moorings renewing. Am I just unlucky or perhaps too trusting? What to do now?
 
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Difficult question, isn't it? You have £3k of his money, but that could quickly evaporate with mooring costs etc. Do I gather that there was no broker involved? Three grand is not a vast amount of money but should be enough to stop most people just walking away. If you have addresses for the purchaser in both London and Switzerland, I guess I would be sending a letter, possibly a solicitor's letter, by recorded delivery to both addresses requesting that they get in touch and complete the transaction within a defined period of time and pointing out that, if they do not respond before that time elapses, you will take it as an indication that they are no longer interested in the boat and, therefore, you will feel free to readvertise it, retaining part, or all, of the deposit to cover the extra costs that you will incur.
 
maby said:
Difficult question, isn't it? You have £3k of his money, but that could quickly evaporate with mooring costs etc. Do I gather that there was no broker involved? Three grand is not a vast amount of money but should be enough to stop most people just walking away. If you have addresses for the purchaser in both London and Switzerland, I guess I would be sending a letter, possibly a solicitor's letter, by recorded delivery to both addresses requesting that they get in touch and complete the transaction within a defined period of time and pointing out that, if they do not respond before that time elapses, you will take it as an indication that they are no longer interested in the boat and, therefore, you will feel free to readvertise it, retaining part, or all, of the deposit to cover the extra costs that you will incur.
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Sounds like a fair and sensible suggestion to me....
 
If you have a sale and purchase agreement in place, this will state what the terms are. If it is an RYA private sale agreement, you are legally entitled to retain the deposit after giving him 14 days written notice.

Our brokerage sale and purchase agreements are slightly different, and vary depending on whether there is a survey or not, but the principle is similar. If a buyer simply fails to complete, he can lose his deposit, though we always prefer, if there is a genuine reason why the buyer cannot complete (his bank Lehmans going bust was one in 2008) to, with the agreement of the seller, refund the deposit.
 
I agree with Maby.

At least you have the deposit.

I agreed a sale once. Did not take a deposit as the guy said he would be back in a couple of weeks to collect the boat; as seen, no survey........we sealed the deal with a bottle of Laphroaig.

Agreed the date and time and I paced up and down the pontoon. Not a sign of him. Didn't bother phoning and he never contacted me.

I suppose he could have been killed in a freak tiddlywinks accident.
 
Paddingtonbear said:
Some of you may recall my travails re. an extremely negligent surveyor, well progress on this grinds extremely slow :). I now have another somewhat more intractable issue. In order to fund my restoration of the boat referred above we decided to sell one of my other boats and soon found a buyer. A price was agreed, £32000 and 10% deposit taken and to complete the deal I undertook to do a bit of fettling inc. underwater repaint and new anodes etc.. The work is now complete and the purchaser has completely disappeared. I have tried to contact via email inc. sending photos of the work and progress reports but to no avail. There is a slight problem in that he lives in Switzerland for some of the time and London the rest. Whilst Switzerland is a strange place by all accounts it is not the other side of the moon. The boat will soon need its moorings renewing and possibly moving as the boat yard might be shutting. Am I just unlucky or perhaps too trusting? What to do now?
Click to expand...
You must have his name, enter it here: http://tel.search.ch/. It is all in English and all telephone numbers are listed - no unlisted numbers are allowed in Switzerland (you did say it was a strange place). There may be duplicates; call them and ask them if they are the disappearing man. Perhaps you know something to narrow the search, like the Canton or his profession (many include that in the telephone listing).

Good luck.
 
I assume this was a private sale between yourself & the buyer? Was there anything in writing, copy of a receipt for the deposit? I think I would keep his deposit safely in the bank, just in case and continue trying to contact him. However, would I deduct the cost of new moorings from his deposit, don't know. Perhaps speaking with a lawyer to find out where you stand could be beneficial. I would also consider selling the boat to somebody else after a period of time, (2 months?) that way you have given the original purchaser ample time to contact you, then you can simply return his deposit.
 
You can't hide on the interweb.
Plenty more to choose from on LinkedIn.
I know the name, I think I was at uni with a Chris Rayner, a different one I think.
 
Barnac1e said:
Hmm, very odd. Only one Rayner surname in the whole of Switzerland and that's a Hervé first name in Lausanne. He must be living at a property not registered to him or always using a pre-paid mobile - quite possible these days. The Swiss chemical industry is concentrated in Basel and I now see a possible reference to your man on the XING site here : http://www.xing.com/profile/Chris_Rayner4
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It is a private sale with very little in the way of paper work, not even a survey of any kind although he has seen it out of the water and knows about boats as he already has one moored in London which he lives on when he comes back.
 
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I really don't know and I can understand your frustration.

At a minimum you have the deposit, which I am sure you can eventually retain. It is just unfortunate that your sale has been delayed.
 
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