Caraway
Well-Known Member
Did I suggest it was over? 
I am leaving it to the stewards and Christian Horner now. They get paid for this shit.
I am leaving it to the stewards and Christian Horner now. They get paid for this shit.
Boatyard won’t release boat
- Thread starter WayneP
- Start date
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Read both the original post and post#6. Both make clear the seller's agreement to pay storage costs.
In fact this was the issue of the original question - what can the yard do if he does not.
That is still a potential issue that the buyer should be aware of. However up to the date of the last post from the OP it is not an issue. If the seller defaults on paying the bills and the OP wants possession of the boat for which he has already paid 90% then it does become an issue. But not there yet.
penfold
Well-Known Member
Send two and eight; we're going to a dance.
Tranona
Well-Known Member
It is as simple as I suggest. If this were a question for a first year law student on contract then the correct answer would be exactly as I have written. You look at the facts (as presented by the OP) and apply the principle of contract law. Does not matter that the contract it is not in writing Post #6 gives all the necessary information to determine that a contract exists between the two and the conditions that apply. Given that there is no indication that those conditions have been met yet does not change the contract - it is just not completed.
If the OP is right. I am impressed at your level of understanding of a contract which none of us knows in any detail. And it has all gone so swimmingly hasn't it? No money, no launch and nobody even knows who owns the boat.
Perhaps trying to apply an imagined simple contract to a complicated situation is not ideal. Whoulda thunkit? And that's before considering just how and where and at what expense the term of this nice, simple (and imaginary) contract are to be enforced ...
Suggest you and many others here buy a copy of this Search Results: | Sweet & Maxwell
Gave my copy to my granddaughter when she was making up her mind about studying law. Just completed her first year - if I can drag her away from enjoying the first bit of real freedom for over a year I will get her to answer the question.
As I have said many times in boat sales there is nothing unusual about this contract or its conditions - the only unusual thing is the buyer handing over 90% of the purchase price with no security other than a BoS that would only come into effect when all the conditions have been met, rather than the payment being held in a client or escrow account until completion.
penberth3
Well-Known Member
Repeating what I said in my post #279, paying storage costs "in the meantime" would be from provisional sale to handover. The buyer didn't know about the outstanding debt - buyer was told the boat was "free of encumbrances" when it wasn't.
SaltIre
Well-Known Member
Refueler
Well-Known Member
Thistle
Well-Known Member
Why do this thread and the "Cyclists, oh dear" thread in the lounge remind me so much of the sort of argument that seems to break out frequently during the winter when we can't go sailing and folk seem to be looking for something - anything - to fill up some of their time? All we need now are discussions of the anchoring arrangements on the boat and the types of brake on bikes.
Gixer
Well-Known Member
Best one was the domed pistons...
Tranona
Well-Known Member
While it may have been better for the OP to discover at an earlier stage the storage costs unpaid were higher than he expected, (he might well have then not paid for the boat!) it does not alter the facts of the contract - the seller has to deliver the boat free of encumbrance and all the agreed work completed to the buyer's satisfaction.
Things changes of course if the buyer considers the seller is in breach and tries to enforce the contract. This is not a good course of action because there is a possibility that he could lose the boat and the money he paid, so best to work with the seller and get the boat completed and the yard bills paid.
RichardS
N/A
The "compression ratio" debacle was an absolute doozy.
I do fear that those days are gone.
Richard
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
That's completely irrelevant. It's all going wrong, so the simplicity of what you think the original contract was doesn't matter any more.
That would be interesting. To remind you, and her, the question is "How and where and at what expense are the terms of the contract are to be enforced?"
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JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
I think you mean "Both make it clear that the buyer thought the seller had agreed to pay storage costs until work was completed although not necessarily until launch."
All we and you have is one party's recollection of informal and undocumented discussions.
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JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
How would he find that out, though? No yard with a hint of understanding of GDPR would tell him anything about another customer's bills and this one won't even say what bills have been run up since the "sale" took place.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
That one was good, but still nowhere close to "Direct downwind faster than the wind" which went on for weeks with frenzied denials of both theory and reality.
penberth3
Well-Known Member
No, two different issues which Tranona hadn't made clear.
Bru
Well-Known Member
This comes back to the unanswered question about the Bill of Sale in the OPs possession. He stated it was an RYA form and unless the wording has been amended or added to would give the OP documented proof of title to the boat (regardless of what verbal agreements may have been made between the OP and the seller - if the seller objected to the title he'd be at liberty to dispute it through the courts)
This is the critical nub of the matter because ...
If the OP has documented title to the boat and the boatyard won't allow him to remove it due to unpaid bills incurred by the previous owner, the OP is entitled to demand a statement of how much money the yard demands in order to release his boat. GDPR is irrelevant, he's not asking for personal information about the seller, he wants his boat so how much?
If the yard continues to be obstructive then the OP may have to resort to threats of legal action against them (it is debatable whether a lien on the vessel can be transferable between owners in this situation but that's a legal minefield the OP really doesn't need to get into ... the yard has the whip hand having possession of the boat and the OP needs to resolve that by the simplest route)
If the bill of sale wording was altered then the OP is in a right pickle and his best hope is to gently persuade the seller to complete the deal as agreed because if that is the case he's paid a 90% deposit on something he doesn't own. His only legal recourse if the seller doesn't complete is to go to court to try and get his money back
Either way, it would be useful if the OP updated the thread but understandable if he doesn't - if it's gone seriously awry then he'd be well advised not to post anything further on social media
penberth3
Well-Known Member
Didn't the BoS say "free of encumbrances" but that wasn't true? How does that alter the contract?
Bru
Well-Known Member
If the boat wasn't free of encumberances, it would give the buyer a legal route to demand his money back or force the seller to settle the encumberances. Or to put it another way, the buyer could void the sale, after the fact, as the seller would be in breach of contract. It would not, i think, give the seller a mechanism to void the sale as the buyer would not be in breach of contract
Back to my point ... that Bill of Sale is absolutely crucial to the whole matter although imo it's only crucial in persuading the boatyard to deal with the OP because i strongly suspect the seller, being nicely in pocket and with a new toy to play with, will never actually get around to finalising matters unless legally forced to do so and that's aggravation the OP doesn't need
Get the yard to quote a sum to release the boat (in writing and get a receipt), cough up, get hands on boat, put it down to experience
Tranona
Well-Known Member
I have said all along that the facts of the contract are as given by the OP.
What happens if it goes wrong is a completely different question, and in the absence of any further word from the OP nothing has yet gone wrong.
There seems to be no fixed completion date, and this is what normally triggers the next stage. As someone who once breached a contract by failing to complete on the day, I can say you want to avoid that if at all possible. Well written contracts with a fixed date will also include a clause detailing the penalties. But in this case the simple contract derived from the OPs account clearly does not have that.
The question was not about how the contract can be enforced. The original question was about what rights does the Yard have over the boat if the bills are not paid - but although they clearly do have some control, we have not got there yet.
I could indeed set a question about what happens if the seller defaults, but that is the sort of question that would lead to a range of possible remedies, some speculative due to lack of information, but even based on what we do know from the OP would tell him things he does not want to hear. I would probably set a 2500 word limit on the answer and expect fully referenced case law. Should say that I could not answer it off the cuff, but I could write an essay plan pretty easily!
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