How Do I Check Who Owns It/Is There Any Other Finance Interests

The likelihood of anyone going to your house and trying your door to see if it's locked whilst you are out today is also statistically minute.

Bet you still locked it though...

To my mind the biggest risk is the undeclared mortgage. Matey is in financial dire straits, bank are about to foreclose on his business and/or the mortgage company on his house. But he's got a boat worth £250K with a £240K loan secured against it and an offer of £230K. And £230K would sort out a lot of his financial problems. And he fully intends to just keep paying the loan, so where's the harm?

What to do, what to do...?

To suggest that any buyer must be "with it" is neither here nor there since it doesn't matter how "with it" you are, there's no mechanism for reliably ensuring a boat is free from encumbrance.

The laws of contract and agency may well be "robust". But that means diddy squat if the person you're pursuing has, in reality, no money and/or has done a bunk.

It does happen, it has happened.

You may be wealthy enough to take a hit on tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds and shrug your shoulders, sadly however many of us are not.
 
As ever, Mike, mostly in your mind. Of course all of these things can happen - just quote some documented cases of them actually happening! As has been established many times here the laws of contract and agency are robust in both theory and practice - although like all laws there are always people who will try and break them. Brokers do not go bust anywhere as often as you imply nor do they take clients money with them as easily as you suggest. The two examples you quoted are much more complex than the simplistic view you present.

And, be realistic, anybody who has £300k to spare on a toy like a boat must be somebody who is reasonably with it - or how would they have got the £300k in the first place! Nor is it likely to be a newcomer, but if they don't know what it is about, spend less than £10 with the RYA on their publication on buying and selling a boat and they will know about all the "risks" involved.

All your suggestions for "improvements" have come up over and over again but never get anywhere because they are likely to create more problems than they solve.

So, keep a sense of proportion. As we both know, even if it appears a minefield the reality is that it is IN PRACTICE robust.

Firstly, Tranona, I have bought and sold 12 used boats in 20 yrs of boating. Those include sales/purchases in Germany, Holland and Spain as well as the UK. Therefore please give me some credit for knowing something about the used boat buying/selling process and, in particular, the risks involved. In practice, brokers/dealers do go bust on a regular basis and buyers/sellers do lose money as customers of the likes of B A Peters, Tarquin and Sea Ventures will testify although, yes, in some cases these monies have been recovered after a tortuous and no doubt expensive legal process. You say keep a sense of proportion but I would say that if just one person loses a six figure sum as a result of this boat buying/selling process, then that process is not robust. The fact is that large sums of money are channeled through brokers/dealers accounts and those sums are often far larger than the working capital in those businesses so the risk of of that money being misappropriated is significant. I have been in business for myself for many years and I don't know any other industry that operates in such a haphazard way when it comes to security of payments and transfer of title. If you don't believe me when I say there's a risk, perhaps you'll believe somebody else like http://marine-mortgages.org.uk/deposit-security.htm
Btw it would be helpful if you filled out your public profile on this forum. It's always interesting to know if somebody has an angle on a particular issue
 
As ever, Mike, mostly in your mind. Of course all of these things can happen - just quote some documented cases of them actually happening! As has been established many times here the laws of contract and agency are robust in both theory and practice - although like all laws there are always people who will try and break them. Brokers do not go bust anywhere as often as you imply nor do they take clients money with them as easily as you suggest. The two examples you quoted are much more complex than the simplistic view you present.

And, be realistic, anybody who has £300k to spare on a toy like a boat must be somebody who is reasonably with it - or how would they have got the £300k in the first place! Nor is it likely to be a newcomer, but if they don't know what it is about, spend less than £10 with the RYA on their publication on buying and selling a boat and they will know about all the "risks" involved.

All your suggestions for "improvements" have come up over and over again but never get anywhere because they are likely to create more problems than they solve.

So, keep a sense of proportion. As we both know, even if it appears a minefield the reality is that it is IN PRACTICE robust.

I have kept out of this thread so far as it seams an area where arguments start but feel compelled to chip in now !

I agree with Mike, the current system where Brokers are trusted with large sums of cash is a ridiculous risk to take.

I have posted previously about a Broker who lied to me in order to obtain cash under false pretences, I recovered my loss but had to risk considerable extra cash in legal fees including a barrister @ £200 hour.

There is one example of a Broker who I would not trust £10 000 with never mind £300 000.

In my opinion a private sale has benefits

It misses out a middle man who is free to lie

It misses out someone who can leg it with your cash

You can ask the owner questions and expect answers

The last two boats I have bought I have insisted that they are taken out of Brokers hands prior to the sale being agreed.

One of the Brokers was B Peters at Chichester !

I was able to speak to the seller and ask about the boat , any problems, how did you pay for it, can you show me the invoice for the engines so I can check serial numbers.
I showed him my bank account s he could see I had the means to pay and I paid a token gesture deposit direct to him.
I insisted on speaking to his finance company and I settled his outstanding balance to the finance company and then paid him the balance.
I had written confirmation that ? Barclays ? would transfer all their rights to the boat to me upon my cleared funds to them.

Brokers should be regulated and forced to have statutory trust clients accounts , any found guilty of deliberately giving false or misleading information should be struck off .

I can't understand why a Broker doesn't open a dedicated Bank account for sales over £50 000 , it doesn't take so much effort, they find time to toast each large sale with champagne down the local !

One of my friends from my Club had first hand experience of a builder taking money for almost completed boats that were little more than shells and it transpired that some 'shells' had been sold through a Broker to multiple owners.

Your suggestion that anyone who can afford a boat is clever is flawed in that most of them will be so busy at work earning a fortune they are easy prey for a Broker to rip off.

I am not prepared to get into an argument here, I am happy to accept I am unusual but facts remain

A Broker deliberately lied to me in order to obtain my money by deception.
I was young, I was working incredibly hard and didn't have the time necessary to avoid being ripped off by the Broker, I trusted him and I left him to deal with everything.
I have a total lack of respect for Boat Brokers following this incident.
I would not trust a Broker with my hard earned cash, if that meant me upsetting a Broker in order for him to set up a dedicated account then so be it , if the Broker got so upset and couldn't be bothered to do his job(Broker a deal ) so he wouldn't deal me then I would deal with the owner or find another boat.
 
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In response to the original post

Requesting a loan on the boat may help ascertain free title or locate where any finance is.
Requesting a small loan and then paying it off may not help as the finance company may not conduct the regular tests if you are putting adequate funds yourself to act as security,
and paying off the loan soon after you took it out may well trigger a money laundering investigation.

Ask the seller how he bought the boat and ask for documentation.

Of course a Broker may well object to such personal details being requested but many boat owners tend to be open, honest ,friendly and helpful.
 
dacarak, thats a very sensible strategy for buying a boat but were the brokers happy to tell you who the sellers were in order for you to contact them direct and how was the broker's commission paid?
 
Mike and Daka

First I do not have any "angle" - just an aversion to unwarranted hysteria.

Daka, if I remember rightly in your case you bought the boat from a trader buying and selling on his own account - NOT a broker Please correct me if I am wrong). You really need to understand the difference in law. Then your "experiences" can be put in the proper context.

Brokers do use trust client accounts - that is a requirement of their "professional" or "trade" body. Whilst it is true that they are signatories to the account, it is a breach of trust to use the funds for their own account and they can be sued if they do.

I have never said that buying boats either through a broker or a dealer or from a manufacturer is risk free - just that the risks are different depending on the nature of the transaction, are well known and very small. In addition there is a variety of strategies open to both buyers and sellers to minimise the risk - or rather the consequences. If there were not there would be no transactions - thousands a year without any problems. There is always the final choice if you are unhappy with the risk and that is to walk away from the transaction if you are not happy. After all you are adults capable of making your own decisions and nobody is forcing you to buy a boat.

Businesses go bust from time to time in all sorts of activities and people lose money - there is nothing unusual about this. They may go bust because of criminal activity or incompetence - but I don't think the marine idustry has a monopoly on this. I don't suppose you lost money in Farepack - but the sums involved there make BA Peters pale into insignificance!

When you look at the business failures, you need to understand the nature of the business you are dealing with. Most of the failures are DEALERS rather than brokers - although as in the case of Peters they could be both, but it was the failure of the dealer side that brought it down (together probably with illegal activity, but his is still not proven). Brokers are, one could argue essential to create a market. The vast majority of secondhand boat sales are between individuals. If there were no intermediaries, each individual seller would have to find and deal with his own buyer and vice versa. Not sure there would be many successful transactions if this were the case.

As to regulation - brokers are already regulated - in a practical sense by industry practice and their trade bodies who prescribe best practice and in a legal sense by the laws of agency, trust and to an extent contract. All of these are robust in a practical sense - but all the laws in the world won't stop criminal behaviour.

So, please think through the various forms of business activities when you are making sweeping claims about deficiencies in the current system. There is always room for improvement in any business activity, but there is always a danger of over reacting to a "problem" that is not really there.
 
Dear Tranona,

I have a lot of respect for your views and style of posting ( Im Pete by the way, Dan doesnt seem to want to change me back to DAKA), I can understand your views and I recognize that I am in the minority of people who has managed to not only catch a Broker (technically a partnership of 2 Brokers and a company trading and advertising as Yacht Brokers, so yes they were Yacht Brokers who were later found to be acting in my case as dealers. Of course I understand the difference between in Law, they didnt and got a bit of a wake up !
OOOOOOOOOOOps I digress, sorry, I was about to suggest that many well be reading this that have been ripped off but can not comment as they are concerned about liable, I benefit as I won and retain proof.
The point of law is not relevant in this post, I used my example to show how dishonest the Brokers were, you asked Mike for an example, I gave at least one.

If you are suggesting that just because two Brokers are prepared to lie in an attempt to obtain money by deception ( illegal), it does noep06.t follow that they may "borrow" clients funds (not illegal) then I must yield to your argument however would you risk £300 000 knowing what thesep06. brokers did while acting as dealers ?
(the reason they were acting as dealers may be because they managed to con the previous owner out of his boat but that is another story and was never tried)

If the industry was regulated then they would have been struck off.
surely any reputable Brokers will benefit, they cant all be dipping in the honey pot , can they ?

Regards

Pete
 
OK Pete

There are lots of people that I would not do business with - but that is because of the people, not the form of their business. It really is important to differentiate because unless you know the capacity of the people in that transaction you cannot decide what the risks might be nor how you might minimise them.

I bought my (to me very expensive) boat new from a dealer in Greece under a charter management deal. The contract was very straightforward - but not without risk because, for example there was a higher level charge from another provider of finance before my interest and the boat was registered in the name of a Greek company. I took all the necessary precautions to check out the dealer, but at the end of the day there was always risk until the contract ran its course and the title of the boat passed to me (7 years after I first paid for it). I went into the deal with my eyes open and accepted the risk. As it turned out everything went according to plan. I did it because I had reasonable confidence in the dealer and a contract under which I could sue for my boat - although not sure how I would have fared in Greece if I had to.

The point I am making is that people make these kinds of decisions all the time - just that it seems that people get more worked up about boats than other things they buy - perhaps because of the value in relation to their discretionary income, or their ignorance about the boat - and think too much from the heart rather than the head.

As to regulation, how do you propose this is going to work? Is Lord Mandy going to have a new department licencing and inspecting yacht brokers? Don't think even he would have such high ambition. I fail to see any need for additional regulation over what is a private transaction between two individuals where one chooses to employ an agent to handle his interests. This is after all a mechanism that has worked successfully in our society for well over 100 years. And I don't think there are brokers "dipping into the honeypot" - heart again rather than head.

Many people of course prefer to do business direct with the principal rather than an agent (that is what a broker is in a legal sense), but this locks you out of many potentially rewarding transactions. Personally I think when I come to sell my boat I will use a broker unless I am confident that I can get a higher net price myself. However I would prefer not to deal direct with the potential buyers as I am not in the business of selling yachts!

Hope this clears the air a bit!
 
Tranona, the idea of suing a broker is a nonsense as you well know. As I pointed out, brokerages are generally small businesses with minimum assets (as gludy found out with Tarquin) and are I'm sure deliberately so structured in order to avoid being sued. In any case, in most cases, a loss will occur as a result of a broker going bust in which case there is nobody to sue anyway.
Your comparison with Farepack is silly. That involved lots of people losing very small amounts of money (although it was very painful for many of those people at the time). Loss of money in a boating transaction involves far bigger sums and may be a life changing event for some people. Yes many buyers may well be rich businessmen for whom such a loss is manageable but, equally, many people sink their life savings into buying a boat. And why should people have to keep their eyes open for the risks in the boat buying process? This is a mature industry that should have got it's house in order years ago to put in place a system which eliminates the risk in the buying process. In fact you would think it would be in the industry's own interest to do so.
Yes I agree with you in that brokers do provide an essential service in the market by putting buyers and sellers together but using that service should not be at the expense of risking the value of the boat
 
OK Pete

There are lots of people that I would not do business with - but that is because of the people, not the form of their business. It really is important to differentiate because unless you know the capacity of the people in that transaction you cannot decide what the risks might be nor how you might minimise them.

I bought my (to me very expensive) boat new from a dealer in Greece under a charter management deal. The contract was very straightforward - but not without risk because, for example there was a higher level charge from another provider of finance before my interest and the boat was registered in the name of a Greek company. I took all the necessary precautions to check out the dealer, but at the end of the day there was always risk until the contract ran its course and the title of the boat passed to me (7 years after I first paid for it). I went into the deal with my eyes open and accepted the risk. As it turned out everything went according to plan. I did it because I had reasonable confidence in the dealer and a contract under which I could sue for my boat - although not sure how I would have fared in Greece if I had to.

The point I am making is that people make these kinds of decisions all the time - just that it seems that people get more worked up about boats than other things they buy - perhaps because of the value in relation to their discretionary income, or their ignorance about the boat - and think too much from the heart rather than the head.

As to regulation, how do you propose this is going to work? Is Lord Mandy going to have a new department licencing and inspecting yacht brokers? Don't think even he would have such high ambition. I fail to see any need for additional regulation over what is a private transaction between two individuals where one chooses to employ an agent to handle his interests. This is after all a mechanism that has worked successfully in our society for well over 100 years. And I don't think there are brokers "dipping into the honeypot" - heart again rather than head.

Many people of course prefer to do business direct with the principal rather than an agent (that is what a broker is in a legal sense), but this locks you out of many potentially rewarding transactions. Personally I think when I come to sell my boat I will use a broker unless I am confident that I can get a higher net price myself. However I would prefer not to deal direct with the potential buyers as I am not in the business of selling yachts!

Hope this clears the air a bit!

I thought we had three examples above of Brokers 'borrowing' from clients money.
The practice isnt illegal, so we will only get to find out as and when the brokers go into administration which could see a large increase over the next few years.

I am confident that there will be some well run brokerages out there but without regulation I have no way of knowing which ones are clean and can be trusted, how many thought B Peters were one of the best ?

You suggest that I take a risk each and every time I buy any product which is correct however there is a massive difference using a broker .

Buying a £300 000 piece of jewellery from a company

I want it, I make an assessment of the company and risk they don't go bust overnight but I want it and take a risk.

Buying through a Broker

He owns nothing, and adds no tangible asset what so ever.
All he does is add risk and uncertainty.
In fact I dont think he is actually the buyers broker is he , he is acting purely for the seller so he can lie to me about the boat and I will fail to prove he should have known better as it is buyer beware.

Regulation could be through a trade association

Clients money needs to be held in Statutory trust accounts that are audited on a regular basis, if a smaller broker cant afford the extra audit costs then a solicitors account can be utilised.
All brokers should be accountable for their misrepresentations

It is not acceptable to sell a 3 ton boat on a 1 ton trailer and let it be driven away behind a £60k range rover as the rich snotty nose kid deserves it....in my opinion he doesn't , he deserves professional advice from the broker.
 
Mike

You are confusing issues. Tarquin was (as far as I know) not acting as a broker but as a dealer. It really is important that you recognise the difference as I am sure you do. If a company is buying and selling on its own account it is governed by consumer law and there are various penalties if it fails to perform. You are right that often such businesses are undercapitalised and suing them is often not worthwhile. However, that is not unique to the boating business.

I, too would be very uneasy buying a new boat from a dealer -even though my one experience was successful. Many dealers and builders do have contracts that give buyers specific rights in return for their deposits and stage payments, either by having the contract direct with builder (which then makes the "dealer" an agent) or by the builder using mechanisms to recognise ownership in stages. It clearly works as most new boats are sold through these channels. You also have to recognise that sellers have rights too. When have you ever been asked by a seller to prove you can meet payments by for example lodging the money in an escrow account or using a bank backed performance bond? Dealing direct with a builder is probably more risky because although you can gain ownership as you pay, what you own if the firm goes bust is likely to be well short of a marketable boat as many have found, most recently with Sadlers.

Getting back to the broker in the sense of being an owners agent. Yes, it is difficult to recover money - but as a buyer your exposure is your funds in the client account. I do not think there are many cases of brokers abusing this type of account and if solicitors are anything to go by, not sure that regulation and stiff penalties are effective. There are probably more cases in a year of solicitors helping themselves to client funds than there have ever been with yacht brokers.

So, keep a sense of proportion. By your own admission you have bought and sold 12 boats. I guess from the sort of boat you have this would have involved more money than most people have handled in a lifetime - but you have lived to tell the tale. Sort of proves my point!

Nothing is perfect in this world. Brokers are not always the easiest people to deal with as a buyer, but remember they are not engaged by the buyer and their main interest is securing the best deal for the seller while behaving properly in relation to potential buyers.
 
dacarak, thats a very sensible strategy for buying a boat but were the brokers happy to tell you who the sellers were in order for you to contact them direct and how was the broker's commission paid?

One boat was through B Peters in Chichester marina.
I called into their office, picked up half a dozen brokerage sheets , scanned through them over a pint and then popped back into their office to be given the keys to 'Dacarak' and rough directions to go and find it.

As soon as we stepped on we knew we wanted it so I effectively surveyed it, within an hour I knew the full service history, and had found dozens of invoices including the two previous owners details, the current owners only had the boat 6 months which concerned me so spoke to both previous owners.

Following week the owner took me on a sea trial to our marina Port Solent, sale agreed (no payment) let us stay on the boat that weekend with the keys in our new berth but I didnt start the engines as it wasnt ours.

Not sure how commission was sorted out, that was none of my business.


Next boat was too far away to turn up on spec.
I asked for full details, spoke to the owner , we deal the deal over the phone on the basis the boat was as described and performed as claimed on the sea trial. The owner took me on a sea trial , I paid £1000 deposit arranged surveys and paid him and finance company.
I believe he did pay the broker something but again, that was none of my business.

Always insist on meeting the owner, owners are enthusiastic about their boat and will be happy to tell you where they have been and how many times it has broken down, have you ever moored at the side of a boat for the weekend and found the owners to be objectionable ?, compare that with how many Brokers you have met that couldn't be arsed to answer a simple question.
 
OK interesting. In my experience brokers are very reluctant to allow monies to pass direct between buyer and seller for the obvious reason that by doing so they cannot control when and if they get their commission. Also, I'm sure that brokers put any client money coming through their accounts on short term deposit to make a few quid extra out of the deal
 
I used Tarquin only as an example of how companies in this business are generally not solid enough to be worth suing. I know perfectly well the difference between a broker acting as a commission agent and a dealer acting as principal. Yes you are right that new build contracts sometimes recognise stage payments with part ownership of the boat but often, builders refuse to enter into contracts direct with the customer, preferring that customers enter into contracts with their dealers, in which case, you are reliant on the dealer passing stage payments across to the builder. If the builder is a foreign based company (say, Taiwan in Tarquin's case) then I very much doubt whether any contract a buyer signs with a dealer could be enforced in terms of transferring ownership on payment of stage payments. Even if it is enforceable, at best the buyer is left with a half built boat sitting on the other side of the world
As you say, going back to the brokers situation, there may well be more cases of solicitors absconding with clients monies in the housing market but obviously there are far far more transactions in that market. And yes you are quite correct to point out that builders/dealers have no way of ensuring that buyers pay over stage payments but IMHO that just reinforces my argument that the whole process needs overhauling. Is it too much to ask for an industry backed insurance scheme that protects both buyer and seller in these deals?
 
OK interesting. In my experience brokers are very reluctant to allow monies to pass direct between buyer and seller for the obvious reason that by doing so they cannot control when and if they get their commission. Also, I'm sure that brokers put any client money coming through their accounts on short term deposit to make a few quid extra out of the deal

Hardly surprising. They have both parties' interests to protect as well as their own. deposits are an expression of good faith, but don't belong to the vendor until he has fulfilled his part of the contract so reasonable that they should be held by a third party. Not unreasonable that a brokers should also have a means of ensuring he is paid for the work he does.

As to brokers using client funds to earn interest for themselves - I find this very hard to accept as not only is it a breach of trust but I doubt a bank that is holding the account would allow it. Anyway the amount of money one might earn and the risk attached makes that a rather silly thing to do.

So, make sure your funds always go into the client account and ask for evidence that has been done. Then any attempt by the broker to take it for his own use is fraudulent - not to say it can't happen but no broker is going to do it on a regular basis as the chances of getting caught are very high. Might be worth it if there is a large sum and you plan to do a runner - however suspect the bank would spot such an action.
 
Not unreasonable that a brokers should also have a means of ensuring he is paid for the work he does.



So, make sure your funds always go into the client account and ask for evidence that has been done. Then any attempt by the broker to take it for his own use is fraudulent - not to say it can't happen but no broker is going to do it on a regular basis as the chances of getting caught are very high. Might be worth it if there is a large sum and you plan to do a runner - however suspect the bank would spot such an action.


The broker has just sold a boat for £300 000 and has a contract that says he is due to £15 000.

How hard is it for him to sue for £15 000 off someone we know has at least £50 ooo left in the bank .


Now can I please educate myself

I insist on seeing a bank statement which shows my £300 000 going into an account in the name of

Severn Yacht Brokers Clients account

Now they may be honest but they may have just opened up an account called Severn Yacht Brokers Clients account , and they are legally entitled to borrow as much as they want from the account to pay wages or buy stock.
They may not even realize that the account isn't really a client account that offers any protection to a client, even if they dont borrow from it, administrators will be under a duty to take it, leaving the prospective buyer £300 000 out of pocket.

Thats part of the reason why regulation is required to make sure clients accounts are safe and administrators can not get their hands on the funds.

Thats why the reputable brokers need to force through regulation quickly, even if they are trying to act correctly, they will all loose out when a few get it wrong.
 
I thought we had three examples above of Brokers 'borrowing' from clients money.
The practice isnt illegal, so we will only get to find out as and when the brokers go into administration which could see a large increase over the next few years.

.

No, it is not as simple as that. You are wrong, it is illegal to take money out of a clients account. However just because it is illegal may not stop some people - but see my earlier post.

The failure of Peters was a business failure. The issue with the client account where deposits were held is not money being taken out, but never being put in, or put in indirectly. The High Court has ruled that funds in a client account belong to the client but only if there is evidence that the funds were paid directly into the account. In the Peters case deposits were sometimes paid into a general Peters account and then sums transferred to the client account. The court held that as there was no specific record of certain deposits going into the account the purchaser could not have a claim on general funds. In other words a client account is not a general "pot" but series of individual transactions. This was an important clarification of the law and is why it is always necessary to get evidence that your money has been deposited in the correct account.

As to your issues about misrepresentation, that is why you employ a surveyor. Your contract is to purchase from the vendor and you rely on his description. The broker only tells you what the vendor says. If he tells you something different he is misrepresenting. That is why their particulars are qualified and it is up to you to ensure the boat is as represented. If it turns out to be different after you have paid the vendor, your claim is with your surveyor.

You are right about the brokers status - I am surprised if you ever thought it was any different. Vendors use brokers to represent them and protect their interests and buyers use surveyors. It is difficult to imagine situations where a buyer might want to sue a broker. There is no contractural relationship, there is only a duty of care in very limited circumstances and when the broker is holding a buyers funds in a client account the legal position is very clear.

We seem to have different ideas about what constitutes "risk and uncertainty". I cannot imagine anything more risky than buying an expensive boat from an individual you have never met before. By all means meet the owner, but it seems much more sensible to me to conduct the formal business transaction using experienced people where there is a record and audit trail.
 
Pete

Missed your latest contribution before I posted mine.

Your example of "Severn Yachts" which I assume is fictitious could not be more wrong. Suggest you read up on what a client account is. It cannot be used for business expenses, nor even used as security against borrowings.

This is for the simple reason that a client account is a trust account where monies are held on behalf of clients.

If they could be used in the way you suggest then they would indeed be of no value - but they can't - legally.

If you want a practical example of how client accounts can be abused (illegally) read the news item bottom left page 3 of today's Telegraph.
 
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