Fire Extinguishers (again)

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Today I was supposed to complete the sale of my boat which is fitted with a set of perfectly serviceable halon fire extinguishers in the engine bay.
The prospective buyer has had a survey done on the boat and the surveyor has pointed out that halon extiguishers are no longer permitted. At the last moment, the buyer has told the broker he wants me to drop the selling price by £2000 to cover the cost of replacing the halon system since it is now illegal
1) Does anyone know the approximate cost of replacing a halon system with whatever is legal on a 48' boat?
2) The buyer is also saying that the insurance cover on the boat would be voided in the event of a fire if the halon system is triggered as it is illegal. Any views on this?
3) Does the panel think it should be my responsibility to replace the halon system?

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[tripleace]

If you had NO Extinguishers the boat would be legal.

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[Wiggo]

1) a couple of hundred quid, or so. More if you want a whizzy auto shutdown of engines, fans etc. I think MBM fitted one for about £1700, but that was, by their own admission, a huge engine room. See this month's MBM for prices, I think.
2) Probably correct. Insurance companies will happily point out the clause that said you weren't wearing your lucky underpants on the day of the fire, so they won't pay up...
3) Yes. You own the boat, you could be prosecuted now for having Halon...


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<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.fairlinetarga29.info>Buy my boat!</A>

 

[jimg]

Price could be right! You need a "larger" model with these new babies and boy thet are much more expensive than the old Halon ones!

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.mfs-fire-extinguishers.co.uk/acatalog/Firemaster-Automatic-Fire-Suppression-Units.html>http://www.mfs-fire-extinguishers.co.uk/acatalog/Firemaster-Automatic-Fire-Suppression-Units.html</A>

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[miket]

Mike, I had a quote from one of the stands at LIBS, who only do the new type extinguishers, and for our Broom 37 with TAMD61A's the volume, including engines, showed the appropriate size extinguisher to be £700, ex fitting.

No fancy system, just mount and some wiggly wire (sensor) under floorboards.

I think the bottom line is if that is what the buyer wants and you want to sell you must accept or negotiate. Not a huge amount in relation to the total value?

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[tcm]

1) dunno. Bet if you rip it out it will be legal
2) probly bollox. I'd say this. If you put the fire out with forged tenners that wd be okay. Note it is not a legal requirement to have insurance.
3) hm, not sure.

Henyway, I bet your targa 48 is totally excellent deal. And with good weather around the corner, lots more buyers soon. Note he also paid for surveyor so this sounds like trying it on. It's a bit desperate if that's the one and only thing.

Imho, i think estate agents and brokers are all a bit rubbish when this happens. Cos they get paid pretty much the same as long as you sell, and the other guy has the money and not you. So they are all consultative and oh yes i am sure he's keen to sell and will let it go for quite a bit less. whereas my recent mby shows a 99 model at £265k, and petersd have three from £229k for an old '97 which is loads more than i got so prices are already going up what with the blimmin 52 chiming in at well over 400k, city revival, stock market up, stronger pound, everyone forgetting about stupid euro, and even jfm actually having to do some work now and again it is obviously very busy busy indeed and your t48 is the very cheapest ultimate 3bed cottage/targa 48 anyway.

I think youhave to get the broker off the idea of selling to him, or at least being a bit more robust with price, so you have to tell the broker summink that will convince the *broker* to restart selling to others, and start being a bit of a nasty bugger to the buyer instead of giving him red carpet and lots of coffee treament, so praps tellem that you always thought that this would happen as a search through d+b or summink reveals that the buyer seems very highly geared already, and would have been surprised if he had gone all the way to completion. The broker will think that this means he's a mental patient so you may have to explain further.



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[tcm]

Re: nother thought

..you could also come over all very decent and vair sorry that i have an illegal boat, must take it off the market this very instant and get the work done - otherwise the buyer would then own an illegal boatand that is just as bad innit?

Then either he says oh soddit look just gimme the boat OR you'll have a more legal boat for sale, and only for 700 quid or whatever.



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[stefan]

I just installed Pyrogen extinguishers. Check www.pyrogen.com
They are as small as the halons and 2 bottles for your engine room is 1.792 euro in my corner of the sea. As easy to install as the halons.

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[jfm]

Contract rules

Hang on a minute. you are about to complete. That menas you and the buyer already signed a contract, and this is allegedly a defect that has been found by the buyer's surveyor AFTER the contract has been signed and AFTER the deposit has been paid, right?

If so, the answer depends on what the contract says about defects. At a guess, I'd say it requires you to put right (at your expense) or take a price haircut in respect of any "material defects".

Defence number 1 is that it is not a "defect" within the meaning of the contract. There was no latency in the defect, a simple look in the engine room would allow anyone to see they were halon and therefore the contract was entered into in circumstances where the buyer already knew or should have known the extinguishers are halon. It's like, if it had an 8-track cartridge player or a Betamax video and the surveyor said "you can't get the tapes anymore", they could not claim for a new hifi becos the "defect" was manifestly there, unlike say osmosis or too much molyslip in the motors.

Defence number 2 is that even if this is a defect it is not "material". There is much caselaw here, very little of which i can remeber. Generally "material" means of sufficiant magnitude that it would change a reasonable purchaser's view on buy/not buy. Now, on a £200k purchase where the market is thin (there are mebbe 20 T48s for sale on the planet, compared with 200,000 Mondeos) it is implausible to suggest that Halon xtinguishers would be material to a buy/not buy decision, especially as the issue is not a "blight" on the boat (in the same way as a repaired crash would be) and the market for FM200 replacements is well developed and can do the job with no side effects for say £1500. There is also caselaw on the meaning of "negligible" and this tends to quantify it at "less than 5%" and so you can say the cost of the halon/FM200 switch is plainly "negligible" and thus cannot be "material".

You need to consider fighting fire with fire. If buyer threatens to walk over this, say you will retain the deposit and a big scrap will occur. The broker is of course holding the deposit as stakeholder, but if he returns it to the seller you will sue him for failure in his duty to you.

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[Deleted User YDKXO]

Yup, you've hit the nail on the head about brokers. They're supposed to be agent of the vendor (ie. me) but since they only get paid when the buyer coughs up the cash, they're always bullying the vendor to give way on every little point of contention. I've received a mile long list of faults that the surveyor has identified with costs of rectification including and I kid you not
To reinflate dinghy £30
To check nav lights £40
To spray, adjust and clean portlights £50
Trouble is the buyer is a first time buyer (and no I have'nt suggested he gets training, I dont care if he drives it into the side of the QE2 providing he's paid) and he's not familiar with the concept that any boat is a pit into which you have to pour cash from the day you buy it until the day you sell it


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[Deleted User YDKXO]

Re: Contract rules

The actual situation is that the deposit plus the balance of the buyer's cash is already in the broker's account and the finance company are ready to transfer the balance of monies owed into the broker's account today. However I have not yet signed any contract or bill of sale and I have questioned this with the broker who has told me that the paperwork can be dealt with after payment is made which seems a bit arse about face to me and, certainly, for previous sales I've made, I've signed the paperwork before the money has been paid
Your advice about latent and material defect is excellent and much appreciated. In fact this confirms an article in MBM that I happened to read recently which stated the same thing ie. material defect had been established under case law to be about 5% of the purchase price. In fact, the total cost of rectifying all the defects identified by the surveyor comes to much less than 5%
Thanks again to you and all who've given advice (even tcm)

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[jfm]

Re: Contract rules

Yes, tis very arse about face. But if anything this strengthens your hand in this case. Just run the "immaterial" and "not latent" arguments and stick to your guns imho

Yuo might run into tight spot wiv finace co. If they see report and £2000 figure they might retain £2000 (unless they're well inside the 80% LTV ratio). In which case buyer is gonna have to dip into his pocket for £2000 to complete.....

I heard someone say you can buy FM200 decals but I wouldn't condone that practice at all, a very bad idea really.

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[Deleted User YDKXO]

Re: Contract rules

I like the last point!

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[duncan]

I would rectify these 'faults' rather than make an allowance! - haven't you got kids that will do those 3 for a tenner?/forums/images/icons/smile.gif

hope things go through without getting nasty - it's funny how things can turn from nowhere.

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[BrendanS]

2) depends on the insurance company. Mine when queried stated that terms of insurance were that I had a working automatic fire extinguishing system on board. Therefore as long as it was functioning, they didn't care what sort. Will vary between insurance companies though

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[Jerbro]

Mike,

FM200 for a 9.5 cubic metre engine bay = £650 including vat. Just done this myself - easy peasy to fit (without automatic engine shut-off).

Good luck

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[gcwhite]

Yes. I have just had mine replaced on a 43' motor boat fitted with twin Volvo 63ps by Dart Haven, not the cheapest in the World, at a cost of £1000 including all the electrics.

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