If you Snooze you loose - The truth v the Theory

petem said:
And your Princess 62, I wonder if you have a buyer already lined up to take it unseen so no risk to you anyway :).
Click to expand...
I wish! I owned the sodding thing for about 4 months, berthed in Essex, until a guy from Norway kindly flew over and fell in love with it. Despite owning it for 4 months I only stepped on it once and didn't go inside because I didn't have the key. Essex (BCU) sold it for exactly the price they predicted it would go for - was a nice boat with Cat 1125 D18s
 
jfm said:
Agreed. But I was responding to your post #26 (which I quoted) in which you said that if the target boat was not available to be surveyed then Dennis "really did waste a trip". That is tantamount to saying that surveys are pretty much universally necessary. My position is that they are just an item on the menu, that you can choose or decline, depending on risk/reward and risk appetite. You're now agreeing that I think. :encouragement:
Click to expand...

I got the feeling that Dennis had an expectation (planted by us) that he'd be able to turn up, view the boat, decide if he wants to buy it or not and then complete whatever surveys / inspections he required. If he still wants to buy a boat in this fashion then his trip was wasted.

So I'm not retracting what I said but certainly agree that people buy boats in all kinds of manners (surveys / sea trials / oil samples, all being a la carte).

Interestingly, in my (albeit limited) experience of selling shares in boats, it's possible to sell shares without buyers even viewing the thing (of course I'd always encourage them to have a look)!
 
I think the point at which the OP's purchase went wrong was:

"...said I needed to discuss with my wife on the way home and would give him a definite answer that night when we got home."

For the current boat, Mrs FP knew I was going to look. So she got a phone call where I went all assertive for a change and said something along the lines of "this is what is happening" followed by sticking £2.5k refundable deposit (in case of survey fiasco) on my debit card.

A survey and an inspection by Volvo Paul followed in short order, within a few days.
I'm not convinced that buying a Sealine without any kind of survey is a good idea ;) , although I did inspect what I could, myself.
 
If we all had JFM's knowledge, then surveyors would be out of a job. I'm pretty confident that I could check most things myself, but not specialist things like hull moisture, and some of the engine/transmission checks, so used specialists to check these to give me a level of confidence. In a newish boat, with warranty and service records, one would be pretty confident without a survey. Frankly, when I bought boats earlier in my mobo career, the surveys were rubbish, and did not pick up on things that could have been pretty nasty. However, for a newby to boating, and someone with little technical knowledge, while not perfect, a survey is a sensible thing to do, as is a sea trial, and getting someone who is knowledgeable to check the thing over.
 
I wouldn't buy without a survey, yes it's possible to take an educated gamble, but I'm not rich enough to shrug off getting it wrong so anything that reduces that risk (I appreciate you'l never reduce it to zero) has to be considered.

Agree with the above, at the point where someone says "I need to go and talk it over with the wife" they're no longer a buyer. That's not to say they aren't serious, or won't be back, but at that point you need to forget them till they are - it's a classic 'I don't want to buy it but I don't want to offend you' line.

Pretty sure that is the OP had said 'yes I'll take it, and here's a decent deposit subject to a survey checking out okay' he'd have had a deal, I doubt it was wanting the survey that was the issue. (And any seller not prepared to accept having his boat surveyed is perhaps a warning sign in any case).
 
ari said:
I wouldn't buy without a survey, yes it's possible to take an educated gamble, but I'm not rich enough to shrug off getting it wrong so anything that reduces that risk (I appreciate you'l never reduce it to zero) has to be considered.

Agree with the above, at the point where someone says "I need to go and talk it over with the wife" they're no longer a buyer. That's not to say they aren't serious, or won't be back, but at that point you need to forget them till they are - it's a classic 'I don't want to buy it but I don't want to offend you' line.

Pretty sure that is the OP had said 'yes I'll take it, and here's a decent deposit subject to a survey checking out okay' he'd have had a deal, I doubt it was wanting the survey that was the issue. (And any seller not prepared to accept having his boat surveyed is perhaps a warning sign in any case).
Click to expand...

The wife was there at the time and I wanted to talk it over in the car on the way home. A survey was never mentioned and I certainly did not intend to have one carried out

Dennis
 
Okay so there we are then - nothing at all to do with surveys, just the fact that you hadn't made a decision so were just someone who came to look at his boat.

That's absolutely not a criticism, entirely reasonable to go away and think about it. My point is simply that all the talk above of whether or not to have a survey or just dive in is irrelevant in this instance, as it was never the issue.
 
Hi Dennis,

There will be others :D I didn't expect to pick up a 25' diesel sports boat with low hours for what we paid either, so keep looking! Having just gone through the same process with similar budget I thought I'd share...

I did snooze and watched for a long while wondering what the 'catch' was. This became more apparent - boat was through a broker, but off-site at the owner's house and getting to view was a hurdle that took weeks. The engine isn't from a well known stable, but does have a good reputation and the boat was unserviced. I had a very thorough look when we did however and concluded what we felt the boat was worth. No offer made on the day, just confirmed we liked the boat and would contact the broker the next day - cheeky offer perhaps at around 65% of asking price, but you have to start somewhere. We actually visited the broker on our way back from the boat and pointed out a list on concerns, so this perhaps paved the way for the offer? The boat hadn't been serviced since 2014, but had been used in 2015 and thereafter stored complete with half-wasted anodes etc. The trailer was included, but again unserviced, and being close to towing limit was another risk/hurdle. We liaised over the next few days via the broker and reached a provisional deal £1k more than our initial offer (£4.5k less than asking). Despite being a significant expense for us, I also opted not to have a survey (or sea trial), but I did stipulate offer was subject to engineers report and took a very capable engineer to assess engine and drive. This was the one area I felt out of my depth/exposed on and I didn't want to risk a major problem - a re-power would be twice the cost of the boat! The owner was happy with this and we paid a deposit. The mechanicals subsequently had a clean bill of health with few recommendations beyond a full service, gear cable, precautionary gimbal replacement and a few extra internal drive seals. A few friends commented I should have had a sea trial, but practicalities of this were difficult and the 'unknowns' were small given the logistics and risk of running the boat at sea as it was. In short, I knew I was going to spend perhaps £5/6K by the time I'd serviced, replaced seacocks, added shorepower, updated electronics, re-applied Coppercoat and fixed covers plus a few likely surprises. I did have a good idea of the costs of all the things that I felt were needed and took a notepad and camera on the first visit. This was a big help and better than relying on memory of a fairly short (perhaps 90 minute) viewing. She's now almost ready for the water (Coppercoat to do) and then I will be able to say just how well the gamble paid off, but no major surprises as yet and I've gone through boat from end to end! The only job I had overlooked was cutting an access panel in tank and cleaning - possibly not essential, but perhaps wise on a 35 y/o boat, so done it anyway! :) Our biggest single expense was lifting/transporting the boat back from Poole to South Devon because I wasn't going to risk towing on a trailer in unknown condition, but well worth it overall.

Obviously what you ultimately find will depend on how specific your search criteria is and how much work you want/expect to do. Enjoy the searching... :cool:

Regards,

Robin
 
ari said:
Okay so there we are then - nothing at all to do with surveys, just the fact that you hadn't made a decision so were just someone who came to look at his boat.

That's absolutely not a criticism, entirely reasonable to go away and think about it. My point is simply that all the talk above of whether or not to have a survey or just dive in is irrelevant in this instance, as it was never the issue.
Click to expand...

I rather think you have missed the whole point somewhat
 
From my own viewpoint (lower end of the market; reasonably good technical skills) my main fear would be whether the seller actually owns the boat he/she is selling.

Does a survey cover this point?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Other threads that may be of interest

steved
Original boat paperwork
2
Replies
30
Views
975
steved
steved
EugeneR
Help with getting sold boat data
Replies
8
Views
555
Tranona
T

Share this page

Top