Surveyor's travel time & charge

dunedin said:
Your decisions are whether to use a local surveyor, to minimise travel time, or to pay a surveyor to travel to do the job.
If you want to fly somebody out for an hour’s work, then it is their decision how much to charge for this. If away for two days then two days plus expenses seems reasonable. Unless it is a nice holiday destination and somebody wants to have a weekend away in the sun.
Feels like you want something for nothing
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Well don't you think I would be happy to use a local one? I guess it is a nice holiday destination, +22, a lot white semi reddish lads around. I only want reasonable travel charge. Sitting on a plane, reading a book is not the same as working.
 
superheat6k said:
Fully agree. The time 'travelling' is immaterial, as this is still work time. My quote (were it my profession) would be 2 days, plus air flight, parking, subsistence and mileage, all subject to assessment of cost, plus standard mark up to achieve expected profit margin on ALL expenses of the task.
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Oh yes Beluga caviar, Dom Perignon, you name it! Pass on.
 
If someone hires me and sends me out of the country, they pay a day rate for every day they touch, plus expenses, If I'm going to lose my evenings at home, it's a premium rate.
If there's some work going abroad, and I choose to chase it, the rate will be the rate, and the fact I'm based elsewhere is my problem.
If the client isn't getting 'value' from flying experts around the place, they shouldn't do it.

In this case the 'value' might be saving the cost of taking the boat to a suitable surveyor.
 
Bru said:
What Paul said!

I didn't charge for travel time over huge last four years and it was a mistake, a costly mistake. Far too often as a result I was actually losing money on jobs

Used to have the same issue when I was a semi-final outside professional musician. People would grumble or worse about our fees totally falling to take into account that a two hour gig is pretty close to a full days work
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When i re-located to here i subsidised the travel time, because i wasn't sure how much work i'd get or how fast the business would build up a customer base. That turned out to be a costly mistake. I picked one big job up in particular, where i quoted my rates and travel times and was given about 3 days work. That turned into significantly more work and i ended up doing 60 hours of unpaid travel time. Not the fault of the customer, he was getting a good deal and made the most of it.

This year i'm doing things as they should be done, charging for all of my time (but my rates are very reasonable) and a modest mileage charge of just 25p per mile, which barely cover the diesel in the van. I currently have work booked in as far ahead as May !
 
I assume there are no local surveyors who are allowed to do the tonnage survey - this is not a faultfinding survey, just a tape-measure exercise to satisfy the UK MCA.
 
Twin said:
Oh yes Beluga caviar, Dom Perignon, you name it! Pass on.
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No, not caviar and champagne, but you are asking him to do a job that will take two days of his time. You should expect to pay for two days of his time. Sounds like two full work days to me.
Your options are to get someone local, or get several quotes from people who need to travel.
Probably not the answer you wanted. I suspect you want people to affirm your view that you should pay for an hour of work and not much more.

What you really have to ask yourself is how much time you are asking this person to put into the survey. Not just how much time he spends looking at the boat.
 
Bobc said:
£10/hour? They're not check-out girls you know. They are qualified engineers. Start at £50/hr and work up from there.
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I wouldn't pay more than £20 for the entire job.

We had a survey from a "professional" with more letters after his name than anyone could reasonably expect ... and it wasn't worth the electrons it was written with.

My advice would be:

If you want to know the boat is right, do it yourself.

If you are only doing it becuase the insurance requires it, just get the cheapest you possibly can.
 
Some years ago, I had a problem, but my boat was ashore in Germany. I was in legal dispute with the agent who had sold the boat, and we agreed to a joint survey. The surveyor, unknown to me, chartered a private aircraft from Bournemouth airport to a small airport in northern Germany. He spent at least an hour or two on the survey, and then was driven back (not by taxi, but by a local boatbuilder who had been extremely helpful to me) to the airfield, and then returned to Bournemouth.
He charged £2000 for travel expenses, and £2000 for the surveyor's report (which, although it supported my case to the letter, was wildly inaccurate), and would not release the report until he had been paid – half by me, and half by the agent who had sold in the boat.
In the end, the result was immaterial, since the agent simply said to me, "Okay. Sue me. This is a limited company with zero assets."
I gave up.
 
rszemeti said:
I wouldn't pay more than £20 for the entire job.

We had a survey from a "professional" with more letters after his name than anyone could reasonably expect ... and it wasn't worth the electrons it was written with.

My advice would be:

If you want to know the boat is right, do it yourself.

If you are only doing it becuase the insurance requires it, just get the cheapest you possibly can.
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It's a registration survey, and as I understand it, you can't do those yourself. They have to be done by someone with appropriate letters after their name.
 
Dropped ~30 emails with a single criteria, max. 150km from Gatwick, and oh boy... Price variation and requirements (fancy) just staggering... from 150 to 1500 in charges. Some even make no bones to charger 200 extra on top of official YBDSA fee (400 not bad for 20-30 min paper work). How cool is that? Nuts!

All supporters of fancy ripp-off'ers, please pass on.
 
Twin said:
Dropped ~30 emails with a single criteria, max. 150km from Gatwick, and oh boy... Price variation and requirements (fancy) just staggering... from 150 to 1500 in charges. Some even make no bones to charger 200 extra on top of official YBDSA fee (400 not bad for 20-30 min paper work). How cool is that? Nuts!

All supporters of fancy ripp-off'ers, please pass on.
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If you don't want the cost of a full measurement survey for Part 1 registry, then why not put it instead on Small Ships Register for £25.

However, I am astounded you expect professionals to travel long distances at their inconvenience because your boat is based somewhere you chose to berth it. I guess all of these can provide a quote, and how they form the quote or estimate is obviously entirely up to them. If they are busy and see this as two days out of their busy schedule, then they may not be that hungry, and the 'excitement' of travelling abroad for work is non existent, any professional will tell you that. You of course are at liberty to accept a quote or not.
 
I quite agree with the rest of the mob. If you need the surveyor to travel to the boat, paying his going rate for the time is reasonable.
I suppose it’s a pitfall of being a boat abroad.

Not sure if this will be acceptable. If the boat is a standard production boat from a well known brand. Try getting a set of plans and taking them in to the registration and see if they will accept its tonnage as the same as a sister vessel. Or ask a surveyor if they can confirm tonnage from plans or a sister vessel. Rather than have to travel to sise and measure the boat.
Photo to show it had not been modified might help.

Or register someplace else until you can move boat to a more convenient location.
 
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