Deal or no deal?

[jwilson]

The wannabee buyer I referred to wanted me to put in all new instruments because the existing ST50 Raytheons were 'old hat and replaced by ST60s' ( they all worked) and this was before he even had a survey where he expected to 'renegotiate to cover any other 'defects' found in a survey.

Funny you should mention this - it seems to be a trend - have had "buyers" of middle-aged boats expecting to get the cost of replacing a mixed bag of old but all working speed/log/depth/wind instruments plus a basic GPS with a new set of matched instruments and a colour plotter - and that the cost ought to come off the price, including of course the cost of someone installing them for him.

"And I'll need to get an Eberspacher fitted too.... It'll all add up to about £10,000 ...." tends to follow this. Curiously enough these serial "buyers" seem to spend a lot of time and money looking at 20-30 year old boats and never actually buying one, as none of them look just like the new ones they saw at the Boat Show.

 

[sailorman]

Why? What have you got to hide?

Nothing & i am not selling either.
such time as i do consider parting with my beloved yacht, there will be a deposit prior to survey. i sold my previous boat a Co32 by private sale using the RYA contract, the survey found £1k worth of work, some of which was the so called up-grade to the gas system. she had the std Co32 camping gas system with a hole through the bulkhead to isolate the bottle & the new owner knew of this. We agreed a 50/50 split & the balance was paid over. This was 15 yrs ago he still owns her.

 

[Lakesailor]

Funny you should mention this - it seems to be a trend - have had "buyers" of middle-aged boats expecting to get the cost of replacing a mixed bag of old but all working speed/log/depth/wind instruments plus a basic GPS with a new set of matched instruments and a colour plotter - and that the cost ought to come off the price, including of course the cost of someone installing them for him.

"And I'll need to get an Eberspacher fitted too.... It'll all add up to about £10,000 ...." tends to follow this. Curiously enough these serial "buyers" seem to spend a lot of time and money looking at 20-30 year old boats and never actually buying one, as none of them look just like the new ones they saw at the Boat Show.

What the sales teams at big house builders call "carpet treaders". They visit every show home site and make noises about buying, but never do.

Identify and ignore. People who want upgrades need to understand they have been offered an item "as is". Upgrades are for them to deliberate on once they own it.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Proving title on a house is relatively easy - check with the land registry.

Only if the house has changed hands since the land registry was made compulsory - which wasn't all that long ago. For properties not yet on the land registry - and they exist - it could be just as complex as for a yacht, especially if the property had been subdivided or amalgamated, which can't really happen for a yacht.

Just to give an example of the problems that could arise, I grew up in an old Victorian house. After my father died, my mother sold the house. A few years later, when the house was next sold, my mother was approached by a lawyer who wanted to know where the boundary of the property lay. She rang me, and between us we worked out an answer; it turned out that the only way that the boundary could be defined was according to usage, and our statement as to where the boundary was during our occupancy was actually required to define the boundary! However the point is that the boundary of older properties is often not defined by a map, and that even if it is on a map, the map of an older property may not match modern mapping!

On my mother's sale of the property (which was after the land registration became compulsory), she was left with a BIG bundle of old parchment deeds which were no longer necessary. But before land registry, those deeds would have been the only way of tracing the ownership of the property.

 

[Tranona]

it could be just as complex as for a yacht, especially if the property had been subdivided or amalgamated, which can't really happen for a yacht.

You can get much more complicated problems with yachts. Joint ownership, syndicate ownership, title with a limited liability company but beneficial ownership with an unknown individual, title with an insolvent business, unregistered charges, third party leasing deals and so on. The big challenge is that (in this country at least) there is no compulsory registration system or title deeds. Add to that, boats are mobile, but their mobility may be constrained by tax or certification status, so what may be legal in one country may be illegal in another, and independent of the physical location of the boat, or indeed the nationality of the owner!

Of course most boats do not have such complications, but if you are spending 10's or 100's of thousands on an asset it makes sense to be sure that you are acquiring legal title and that the boat can be used legally before you hand over the dosh.

The nod and a handshake brigade are living in cloud cuckoo land if they seriously think that is the way to buy any reasonably valuable boat. Fine if not much money is at stake, but they are likely to be the first to moan if they ended up losing a substantial part of their wealth because they could not be bothered to do things properly.

 

[chrishelen]

Damn....I thought this was a thread slagging off that t@@t Noel Edmund's.

 

[JumbleDuck]

You can get much more complicated problems with yachts. Joint ownership, syndicate ownership, title with a limited liability company but beneficial ownership with an unknown individual, title with an insolvent business, unregistered charges, third party leasing deals and so on.

You can get all these - or equivalents - with houses as well.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

You can get all these - or equivalents - with houses as well.

And, a yacht is always a yacht. Properties can be amalgamated or divided, and frequently are. The house I now live in is on a plot subdivided from a larger property; the house I used to live in was on a plot created by amalgamating two earlier plots (which themselves were the result of subdivisions).

 

[Tranona]

And, a yacht is always a yacht. Properties can be amalgamated or divided, and frequently are. The house I now live in is on a plot subdivided from a larger property; the house I used to live in was on a plot created by amalgamating two earlier plots (which themselves were the result of subdivisions).

So what? There are mechanisms in place to record such events and a defined procedure for resolving disputes. How many properties can be owned by a person whose name does not appear on any documents, does not have any formal title deeds, could be used as security against a loan without any record and could be illegal to use in the place where it is physically located.

It really is pointless trying to compare property with a boat. The one has legal status and the other does not except as the "personal" chattel of the owner. Real estate is fixed, identifiable and immobile, a boat is not.

Why is it that people are quite happy to pay legal fees to ensure they get clear title to a piece of real estate but don't see the need for a much more risky asset such as a boat which may cost far more than a property? Bizarre or what?

 

[JumbleDuck]

So what? There are mechanisms in place to record such events and a defined procedure for resolving disputes. How many properties can be owned by a person whose name does not appear on any documents, does not have any formal title deeds, could be used as security against a loan without any record and could be illegal to use in the place where it is physically located.

How many of the Russian owners of expensive London properties do you think have their names on the deeds as opposed to holding companies controlled by Luxembourg corporations owned by Bahamian trusts run by Belizian lawyers ... (cont p94)? Many older properties have no or incomplete formal title deeds. Are loans against properties centrally recorded? And as for illegality, yes, a house built without planning permission is illegal to use where it is.

Why is it that people are quite happy to pay legal fees to ensure they get clear title to a piece of real estate but don't see the need for a much more risky asset such as a boat which may cost far more than a property? Bizarre or what?

And yet houses are invariably transferred by qualified lawyers or paralegals while yacht brokers require no formal qualifications at all.

(I know that reputable brokers like jonic have training, keep up professionally and have legal backup for the tricky cases.)

 

[Tranona]

How many of the Russian owners of expensive London properties do you think have their names on the deeds as opposed to holding companies controlled by Luxembourg corporations owned by Bahamian trusts run by Belizian lawyers ... (cont p94)? Many older properties have no or incomplete formal title deeds. Are loans against properties centrally recorded? And as for illegality, yes, a house built without planning permission is illegal to use where it is.



And yet houses are invariably transferred by qualified lawyers or paralegals while yacht brokers require no formal qualifications at all.

(I know that reputable brokers like jonic have training, keep up professionally and have legal backup for the tricky cases.)

I am never sure why you (and others) have to keep trying to "prove" that boat title is easier than houses. Each have their own characteristics, some of which are similar.

The big difference is that in general the property regime is structured and regulated and the assets have a legal status. This is just not the case with boats - which is perhaps why some think sales and purchases can be conducted over a pint in the pub. And, of course for some boats this is entirely appropriate - I have bought and sold 2 boats in exactly that way - for obvious reasons as I knew the other parties in each case and the boats were of little value. Some people clearly are quite happy with that and if that is their experience assume that all boats are the same. However, if one's experience is of the complexities that can arise then one sees things from a different perspective.

It is almost unique in the UK that there is not structured title for boats, meaning that individual buyers and sellers have to satisfy themselves on issues of title. There is no secure independent way of verifying title, tax status, certification or financial charges against title other than through the paperwork related to a transaction. This does not have to be done through a third party if the individuals involved are satisfied that they know what they are doing. They have to be as they are personally responsible for the outcome! For some however, there is security in paying an expert third party to verify the paperwork as far as is practical.

Just think about the implications of that before you dismiss the need to exercise caution when buying or selling a valuable asset such as a boat.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I am never sure why you (and others) have to keep trying to "prove" that boat title is easier than houses. Each have their own characteristics, some of which are similar.

That is precisely my point. It's the idea that house conveyancing is always trivially simple that I'm challenging, not the idea that boat sales are sometimes complicated.

The big difference is that in general the property regime is structured and regulated and the assets have a legal status. This is just not the case with boats - which is perhaps why some think sales and purchases can be conducted over a pint in the pub.

Which still leaves open the interesting - to me - issue of why people are happy to trust (sometimes) unqualified and (always) unregulated yacht brokers.

Edit: Just thought of this. We are always told that the broker works on behalf of the seller. In view of the potential complexities, isn't that a bit odd too? What house buyer would be happy to leave the purchase wholly in the hands of someone working for the seller? It seems to me that the dual roles of a yacht broker - marketing the boat and carrying out the sale - are most closely like those of solicitors in Scotland, who do most of the house marketing. Even so, house buyers here must instruct a solicitor, and it can only be the solicitor working for the seller if s/he has an established relationship with the buyer.