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

[DAKA]

You are not the only one concerned Ari, there are plenty others that share your concern.
I expect many are reading this thread but few will post , it was significant when jfm made special arrangements for his sale.

Does anyone know how to do a poll on this new forum ?
Lets see how many would now be happy to allow an unsecured creditor to hold £300 000 during times when many companies are going bust.

 

[jfm]

Indeed.

It seems that ignorance really is bliss after all!

Ari, I respect your views, in this thread and generally. I don't think it's a case of ignorance is bliss tho. Those arguing agianst you in this thread aren't guilty of ignorance. I think we can all see there is risk when buying a boat that you take on someone else's debt, and when selling a boat that the broker absconds with the loot. Where we differ is what should be done about it. You support the idea of state intervention and a super-register, and others think the state should stay out of it and that parties to these large-ticket and quite rare (in the national sense, I mean only a few rich people buy boats whereas everybody buys cars and houses)transactions should carry their own cans, understand caveat emptor, do due diligence and(in the case of a sale, as I described above in my own sale of the Sq58) not let the broker ever get the loot. We perhaps just need to agree to differ?

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

You are not the only one concerned Ari, there are plenty others that share your concern.
I expect many are reading this thread but few will post , it was significant when jfm made special arrangements for his sale.

Does anyone know how to do a poll on this new forum ?
Lets see how many would now be happy to allow an unsecured creditor to hold £300 000 during times when many companies are going bust.

I bailed out of this thread because I was bashing my head against a brick wall. I too am very concerned about various aspects of the boat buying and selling process but it seems that the concensus of learned people on this thread consider that there are no major problems to address and any inherent risk is a case of caveat emptor. I'm happy to be in a minority on this one as nothing that has been said convinces me that the average boat buyer/seller is aware of the risks or knows how to mitigate them and that a sizeable retail industry like this one should continue to operate in this way

 

[jfm]

You are not the only one concerned Ari, there are plenty others that share your concern.
I expect many are reading this thread but few will post , it was significant when jfm made special arrangements for his sale.

Does anyone know how to do a poll on this new forum ?
Lets see how many would now be happy to allow an unsecured creditor to hold £300 000 during times when many companies are going bust.

That post feels like it's on the wrong thread. If anyone, on either side of this debate, said they recommend becoming a £300k (or any similar sum) unsecured creditor, then I missed it!

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

That post feels like it's on the wrong thread. If anyone, on either side of this debate, said they recommend becoming a £300k (or any similar sum) unsecured creditor, then I missed it!

C'mon, jfm, you know what he means. We've certainly discussed this issue on this thread. If you sell a £300k boat thru a broker and the broker goes bust after he's collected the money and before he's paid you, you're an unsecured creditor. You recognise this risk judging by your own sale arrangements so don't wind dacarak up

 

[DAKA]

That post feels like it's on the wrong thread. If anyone, on either side of this debate, said they recommend becoming a £300k (or any similar sum) unsecured creditor, then I missed it!

I know you are bright enough to know exactly what I meant but for the benefit of anyone else who couldnt understand the abbreviation here goes...........


Buyer

Hands £300 000 to a broker who has no legal obligation to buyer to check that the boat he is selling you is free from encumbrance.

Seller

Has to rely on the integrity of a Broker to handle the £300 000 properly.
If the Broker fails either deliberately or unintentionally to protect your funds in a Clients account then you have to get in line with other creditors BEHIND any creditors who have arranged security on buildings/stock/stock boats etc

Here is a hypothetical example for you

Buyer hands £300 000 to Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd and take delivery of a boat .

Now Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd put the money into an account that is called Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd clients account.
Administrators are called in and they soon spot that HSNWBC bank set up an account and called it Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd clients account but failed to remove the banks standard account condition that states the bank may take charges from the account and also to use the account balance to offset other account debts.
Although the Administrators realize the money is clients money, they spot the Bank condition weakness along with co-mingled money ( commissions from this sale and several others) left in the account and realize they have a statutory duty to run the Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd working capital account into deficit and force the bank to use the Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd clients account to balance the Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd working capital account.

The seller has now lost his £300 000 boat sale cash, his mortgage company is suing him for his outstanding balance of £200 000.

The seller can sue the Broker for failing to protect his money in a clients account but Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd are in administration and their professional indemnity Insurers say they is no longer any Insurable Interest and in any event the policy was written under the condition that Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd operated within the ABYA code, which they failed to comply with as the ABYA didnt check the clients account was correctly protected by trust.

Now the buyer learns that the boat has a £200 000 mortgage and he cannot use his boat , the buyers mortgage company learn clear title is no longer clear and have called for settlement of the Buyers mortgage.

I have full confidence that you, Observer, Troana and others are all able to sort this mess out through the courts or by simple correspondence in a month or 3 years but the buyer hasnt got his boat and the seller hasnt got his money , in fact they both now have debts.

Now all of the above might be legally illiterate but I think that is a fair reflection of what many of us think, we are all potential buyers being put off buying which is depressing the market.

 

[asteven221]

I bailed out of this thread because I was bashing my head against a brick wall. I too am very concerned about various aspects of the boat buying and selling process but it seems that the concensus of learned people on this thread consider that there are no major problems to address and any inherent risk is a case of caveat emptor. I'm happy to be in a minority on this one as nothing that has been said convinces me that the average boat buyer/seller is aware of the risks or knows how to mitigate them and that a sizeable retail industry like this one should continue to operate in this way

Agree 100%.

I got fed up reading this thread so apologies if I am just repeating others but boat buying is to my extremenly hazardous for both the buyer and seller. The fact that 99% of transactions seem to go okay is testament to the trustworthy individuals involved in the transactions, but if a bad apple appears on the scene, big, big problems.

I know enough about the law in the UK to know that boat buying (and selling) is one potential huge can of worms, which could easily lead to life changing financial ruin for many if it all goes horribly wrong. The law is great in theory, but in practice it's a completely different story and a bit of lottery, as I am sure most of us who have many years running a business know very well.

 

[jfm]

C'mon, jfm, you know what he means. We've certainly discussed this issue on this thread. If you sell a £300k boat thru a broker and the broker goes bust after he's collected the money and before he's paid you, you're an unsecured creditor. You recognise this risk judging by your own sale arrangements so don't wind dacarak up

Yes Deleted User, sure. But everyone here is agreed that it's mad to take that particular £300k risk, and as you say I did my sale in a way secifically designed to avoid it. So we're all agreed on that point. Hence in posting "You are not the only one concerned Ari... let's see how many others would risk £300k unsec creditor" in response to posts that were actually about about undisclosed mortgages, it's Daka who is off the mark and scaremongering/winding things up (not maliciously, I appreciate! - It's only a forum)

 

[jfm]

Agree 100%.

I got fed up reading this thread so apologies if I am just repeating others but boat buying is to my extremenly hazardous for both the buyer and seller. The fact that 99% of transactions seem to go okay is testament to the trustworthy individuals involved in the transactions, but if a bad apple appears on the scene, big, big problems.

I know enough about the law in the UK to know that boat buying (and selling) is one potential huge can of worms, which could easily lead to life changing financial ruin for many if it all goes horribly wrong. The law is great in theory, but in practice it's a completely different story and a bit of lottery, as I am sure most of us who have many years running a business know very well.

Asteven, just to be clear in case it got lost in the crossfire, I and others on the other side of this debate agree all of that. It is indeed a huge can of worms that can lead to financial ruin. But the real question is whether it is the job of the state to create some new system (like a super-register) to remove some of the risks, or whether it is up to private citizens to be more careful. you are not saying what your view is on that crucial question!

 

[Tranona]

Pete

You really do have a fertile imagination. We can imagine all sorts of things that "might" happen - a bit like a Dave Allen joke.

The important thing is that they don't. Why, because despite what you and Mike for example, think, the average boat buyer is not stupid, and is well aware of the "risks" involved. Next the "industry" is not full of crooks. Next as jfm has pointed out there are many ways of avoiding the risk just by following well established procedures.

I guess the real point is that whenever any sceptic is asked to illustrate their hypothetical examples in practice they are unable to do so. Of course there are cases of deals that go wrong, but when you look at them you find there is no pattern, or they are adequately resolved using well established legal principles.

I can lie in bed every morning imagining all sorts of things that might go wrong in my life, but when the cup of tea comes I wake up and realise if I worried about it I might never get up!

 

[DAKA]

The above is a genuine concern, this post is meant in humour

scaremongering/winding things up

Not another get at daka day, I was called stubborn earlier too !
Anyone one else feel like sticking the boot in ?

 

[jfm]

I know you are bright enough to know exactly what I meant but for the benefit of anyone else who couldnt understand the abbreviation here goes...........


Buyer

Hands £300 000 to a broker who has no legal obligation to buyer to check that the boat he is selling you is free from encumbrance.

Seller

Has to rely on the integrity of a Broker to handle the £300 000 properly.
If the Broker fails either deliberately or unintentionally to protect your funds in a Clients account then you have to get in line with other creditors BEHIND any creditors who have arranged security on buildings/stock/stock boats etc

Here is a hypothetical example for you

Buyer hands £300 000 to Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd and take delivery of a boat .

Now Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd put the money into an account that is called Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd clients account.
Administrators are called in and they soon spot that HSNWBC bank set up an account and called it Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd clients account but failed to remove the banks standard account condition that states the bank may take charges from the account and also to use the account balance to offset other account debts.
Although the Administrators realize the money is clients money, they spot the Bank condition weakness along with co-mingled money ( commissions from this sale and several others) left in the account and realize they have a statutory duty to run the Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd working capital account into deficit and force the bank to use the Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd clients account to balance the Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd working capital account.

The seller has now lost his £300 000 boat sale cash, his mortgage company is suing him for his outstanding balance of £200 000.

The seller can sue the Broker for failing to protect his money in a clients account but Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd are in administration and their professional indemnity Insurers say they is no longer any Insurable Interest and in any event the policy was written under the condition that Peteopally bad boy boat Brokers Ltd operated within the ABYA code, which they failed to comply with as the ABYA didnt check the clients account was correctly protected by trust.

Now the buyer learns that the boat has a £200 000 mortgage and he cannot use his boat , the buyers mortgage company learn clear title is no longer clear and have called for settlement of the Buyers mortgage.

I have full confidence that you, Observer, Troana and others are all able to sort this mess out through the courts or by simple correspondence in a month or 3 years but the buyer hasnt got his boat and the seller hasnt got his money , in fact they both now have debts.

Now all of the above might be legally illiterate but I think that is a fair reflection of what many of us think, we are all potential buyers being put off buying which is depressing the market.

Daka, ok, my response (which wasn't intended to be rude but i apologise nevertheless as it might have come across that way - sorry) reflected the fact that what you describe isn't where the debate currently was. In relation to the scenario you describe I'd say this:

1. Seller should not have agreed to let broker receive the £300k. He should have done as I did above when selling my boat. Everyone is a winner with that structure. It's not the job of the state, imho, to pass laws and police them to cure a problem for seller that he could perfectly easily cure himself if he took legal advice or read this forum or just engaged his sodding brain!

2. buyer should not have paid the mortgage element of the money to broker. He should have remitted it directly to seller's finance co, after seeing the title deeds to the boat put into escrow in the hands of the broker. Again, if buyer is stupid enough to pay the broker without taking legal advice/reading this forum/engaging his brain, he has made a bed and should lie in it. It's not (just imho) the job of the state to create a set of laws and police them to fix a problem that people can and should fix for themselves

So I don't dispute at all the risks and problems in the transaction you describe, and all I'm saying is that a bit of common snse by buyers and sellers would cure all those problems at a stroke, so it isn't rhe job of parliament to pass laws to fix it. It comes back to my earlier comment that I don't expect the state to wipe my aarse for me . Citizens, especially those with the resources to buy a boat, need to take responsibility for their own actions and omissions. I think that;s the only point we're disagreeing on, becuase we are 100% agreed that the risks you describe do exist for those daft enough voluntarily to expose themselves to them

Just a small PS, if buyer was buying with a mortgage as you mention, what you describe would never happen. Buyer's finance co would ensure that seller's £200k mortgage is paid off, without passing the £200k thru the broker. The scenario you describe could only happen if the buyer was a £300k cash buyer

 

[gjgm]

The important thing is that they don't. Why, because despite what you and Mike for example, think, the average boat buyer is not stupid, and is well aware of the "risks" involved
*******
While I m taking sides with the lawyers on this one, thats probably bcz I m (hopefully) clued up enough to be aware of the risks. But I do think Mike and others have a valid point that many people DO NOT. They go with the flow, as it were (not a la carte JFM- stylie),bcz thats the way things seem to be done when buying boats.
What would be beneficial if someone articulated a prefered practice that would at least reduce some of the risks, and that got adequately circulated/publicised. Seems to me, that would be for the greater good.
I think many of us believe the remaining risks to be acceptable, not in terms of the notional amount of money, but in terms of the likelihood of an event.

 

[jfm]

Mike and others have a valid point that many people DO NOT. They go with the flow, as it were

Agreed gigm, some people do not. But the question to be answered in deciding whether to spend parliament's time and taxpayer's money on passing new laws and policing them is not whether they do or do not know these pitfalls, it's whether they OUGHT TO know. It comes back to my aarse-wipe principle

All that said, RYA could do much more on this by publishing guidance which could become the market standard.

 

[DAKA]

ok, my response (which wasn't intended to be rude

Not taken as such but thanks for your comments.

Pete

You really do have a fertile imagination.


I guess the real point is that whenever any sceptic is asked to illustrate their hypothetical examples in practice they are unable to do so. Of course there are cases of deals that go wrong, but when you look at them you find there is no pattern, or they are adequately resolved using well established legal principles.

I can lie in bed every morning imagining all sorts of things that might go wrong in my life, but when the cup of tea comes I wake up and realise if I worried about it I might never get up!

I can not really take full credit for the 'fertile imagination' as it was more or less two factual events joined together with a few details altered.

But that is totally irrelevant as to the purpose of my post, I have failed to explain how I feel, please dont take this the wrong way , three very well legally articulated posters may have inadvertently also put others off posting how they perceive the situation to be, therefore the purpose of my ill drafted post was to suggest a poll in order to ascertain the
extent of the concern.

Is it really just Mike, Ari and myself that feel £300 k is too much to gamble on little more than a AYBA 'Gentlemen's agreement' and the 'Gentleman's agreement' needs to be give teeth by statute if necessary.

 

[ari]

Seems prety clear there are plenty that are concerned that there's no way of establishing outstanding loans, despite the fact that the law will uphold those loans on behalf of the original vendor.

And undoubtably many many more who (understandably) simply have no idea that such a ridiculous situation exists. (Or believe that a broker will make those checks, or that their finance company will make those checks, again in blissful ignorance that actually no mechanism exists for doing so and responsibility would ultimately fall to them as the new owner).

Lets face it, 99% of people wouldn't buy a £5,000 car without doing a simple HPI check. To suggest that spending the same, or ten times, or one hundred times that on a boat with no way of actually reliably doing a similar HPI check is, well, bizarre frankly.

Oh well, fingers crossed chaps.

 

[gjgm]

Agreed gigm, some people do not. But the question to be answered in deciding whether to spend parliament's time and taxpayer's money on passing new laws and policing them is not whether they do or do not know these pitfalls, it's whether they OUGHT TO know. It comes back to my aarse-wipe principle

All that said, RYA could do much more on this by publishing guidance which could become the market standard.

I dont see the new for legislation, no.
Ought to know? I cant agree with you there, as to me that implies the issues should be common enough knowledge-which I think is not the case. OUGHT to do some due diligence before handing oodles of money to someone you know nothing about? Well, I recall the first boss of our first financial services association.. his aim was to prevent the financial sector making fools out of individuals, but regretted there was little he could do to stop individuals making fools of themselves...

 

[jfm]

Not taken as such but thanks for your comments.




I can not really take full credit for the 'fertile imagination' as it was more or less two factual events joined together with a few details altered.

But that is totally irrelevant as to the purpose of my post, I have failed to explain how I feel, please dont take this the wrong way , three very well legally articulated posters may have inadvertently also put others off posting how they perceive the situation to be, therefore the purpose of my ill drafted post was to suggest a poll in order to ascertain the
extent of the concern.

Is it really just Mike, Ari and myself that feel £300 k is too much to gamble on little more than a AYBA 'Gentlemen's agreement' and the 'Gentleman's agreement' needs to be give teeth by statute if necessary.

Hang on a minute Daka. your suggested poll didn't at all reflect fairly what is being debated here. It merely asked whether folks want to take a 300k unsec credit risk, and obviously you'd have got a 100-nil result But that's pointless, and doesn't reflect this debate.

There is unanimity here that (a) the law ought to be changed to say that lenders who do not record their mortgages on part 1 register lose their claim on the boat if it is sold to a good-faith 2nd hand buyer, and (b) some of the risks you describe in your £300k post above do indeed exist, if people do the transaction the "standard" way.

The ONLY point we're disagreeing on is that some folks (me included) say that the risks you describe should be cured by people re-designing the transactions themselves (as I did), whereas others say it is the job of parliament to pass all-singing-all-dancing laws to try to remove these risks

 

[asteven221]

JFM. Just jumped back on. To clarify my thoughts. NO not the State. Big Brother pokes his nose into too much of our personal lives already! Surely the RYA could come up with some kind of register. Maybe even an organisation like Experian or one of the other big credit reference agencies that seem know everybodies affairs. Thinking out the box here. Hmmmm Glasses Guide? HPI? Who does the RCD databse? What about them? MCA? DVLA - bit close to Downing Street maybe! There must be some outfit that could do something, although I guess it means registration like a car to track the boat. We'll need reggy numbers! The more I think about it, it's not that simple, but if the alternative is that I might get screwed out of say £100k by some dodgy crook/broker/builder going bust etc.... then paying some body a small fee every year seems a blooming great idea to keep a register going. I have just thought of something! Why can't you insure against getting swindled as an addition to in your annual policy? Then the insurance companies can get together and set up something or pressurise the RYA to administer a register. Until then it's risky, risky and risky! Sorry if I have repeated what someone else has said but it is a long thread!

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Yes Deleted User, sure. But everyone here is agreed that it's mad to take that particular £300k risk, and as you say I did my sale in a way secifically designed to avoid it. So we're all agreed on that point. Hence in posting "You are not the only one concerned Ari... let's see how many others would risk £300k unsec creditor" in response to posts that were actually about about undisclosed mortgages, it's Daka who is off the mark and scaremongering/winding things up (not maliciously, I appreciate! - It's only a forum)

Well it started as a thread about undisclosed mortgages and drifted on to the subject of other risks associated with boat buying/selling so I thought dacarak's post was valid