Trusting your broker

[Guest]

Can you really trust your broker?I've been with Yachting Park for 3 years and already i feel hardly any trust between us.
I've asked them to complete jobs and they've failed to do so i have no idea wether i've just got a bad broker or are they all like this?

Please help

am

 

[jfm]

Broker, as in...?

when you say "broker", do you mean the people selling your boat (in which case 3yrs is a very long time) or your shipyard/repairers/servicing bods? Who/where are yachting park?

 

[tcm]

Re: Golfe juan, sunseeker dealers!

Titter. Well, actually, ROFL...

(note to others: jfm has Fairline on solent, secretly thinking of replacing it with monster Sunseeker in wife-preferred warm SofFrance...)

 

[tcm]

Your boat is Port Grimaud, YP are in GJ, miles away, so guardiennage will be light or absent. No reason why you couldn't use a local chap - the engines are common to all. They are not all like this, but a lot of them are.

 

[jfm]

Re: Oops!

Sorry, Med newbie, or Med not at all (yet) so HTH am I supposed to know?

Anyway, if they are the GJ sseeker bods, you recommended them to me the other day! Now Alex says they're crap! What's the general view, are they any good?

 

[tcm]

Re: field narrows

Hmm, well, mebbe have *look* at GJ, but mebbe axshully BUY from somewhere/someone else?

 

[Guest]

Has anyone had any bad times with British brokers I wonder,I would love to tell all about the happenings after I bought my last boat, between the previous owner and a certain broker, seems he didn;t read the small print after terminating his agreement with them , as they did not manage to sell it for him, so he advertised it privately, only he still had to pay them something after, although they had nothing to do with the actual sale between us. Sellers beware before signing up with brokers as you cannot get out of the agreement as easy as you may think!.
Going it alone after the agreement has been terminated was not straightforward in this case, I looked into it and the rules are set out by the ABYBDSA in this case.I don,t want to say anymore for fear of recrimination although it is over 2 years ago perhaps JFM may be quite hot with the answers for this case,



Also I have just advertised by boat the ad came out Friday, I have had many calls from brokers wanting to get in on the act to sell her for me, as if they aren,t enough boats on the market for them to choose from!.
Paul js.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Paul, I dont understand this because the seller has a right to terminate the agreement. I have looked at a couple of standard agreements I have signed in the past and the termination period is 14 days. So if your seller terminated the agreement and waited 14 days, he should have been able to advertise the boat privately without commission to the broker.
My guess is that he advertised the boat before terminating the agreement
In any case, in my agreements, there is no specific clause entitling the broker to a commission if the boat is sold elsewhere only that the broker is informed if the boat is offered for sale through another broker and it is not offered at a lower price - which think is fair enough

 

[ChrisW]

I know it seems strange but there are some honest brokers on the planet. I didn't say which planet though.

No honestly, when choosing a broker, go by word of mouth, see if they belong either to the BMIF or YBA ( YBDSA), always read the small print as some brokers require three months notice to terminate contract. Also many brokers insist on payment of commission if you sell your boat to a client of theirs even after contract has been cancelled.

I have been working in brokerage for over 8 years now and even I am amazed at some of the outfits that I encounter.

With regards to guardienage again ask around the marina where you boat is moored and use local company.

 

[burgundyben]

I had a really nasty time with a well known Fairey boat broker over an equally well known Huntsman 28, following a survey it turned out to have been misrepresented on 11 counts and he (the broker) had witheld a great deal of knowledge about the boat. The broker is not a member of any trade organisation, had he been a member of the BMIF he would have certainly broken their code of practice, I threatenend him with court action to recover the £500 survey fee, I think I have a strong case but I dropped it as I am only in UK 1 week a month and dont have time.

Funny how what goes around come around, I stumbled across a fairey boat in Hamble point that was just about to go on the same brokers books and managed to snaffle it out from under his nose by getting hold of the owner direct, aaah the satisfaction, his commission would have been more than the survey I wasted, and it was a better boat.

:O)

 

[jfm]

Re one small legal point

Deleted User, I have not seen a recent contract used in these cases, but it is perfectly possible in contract law to make the commission payable even after the contract has been terminated.

 

[tcm]

Re: But your Honour..

wouldn't there have to be a time limit as to when the sale was made? Otherwise unreasonble contract eg sign, no action, then sepretly sell boat 30 years later? Can see that advert etc consideration allows enforcing payment even after stopped with one broker tho?

 

[jfm]

Re: Legal advice now chargeable..

Yes, course, there would have to be a time limit. I was only making the point of principle that obligations under a contract do not have to cease strictly on termination of the contract! That'll be 500 quid pleeze. ;-)

 

[tcm]

Re: are you kidding?

erk, I've gone and asked him another blimmin question! DO NOT answer.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Re: Re one small legal point

How does that work then? If you follow the procedures for terminating a contract, surely the obligations under the contract are also terminated unless it can be shown that the conditions of the contract have been breached whilst it was in force
So, surely, once a brokerage contract is properly terminated, the seller can do what he wants or am I being stupid here?

 

[Guest]

Mike, what happened was that the boat we bought private, we also viewed it when the broker was selling it, it was withdrawn by the seller so we thought we had missed it or had been sold when we saw it privately we jumped at the chance of buying it. W hat happened after was that the broker had kept all records of all the people that had viewed it when on their books, the small print still applies after termination of agreement to anyones name on that list, which effectively means that if say 20 other which are on the list they cannot buy the boat without the seller paying the commision, a bad point really they say that there is no cooling off period whatsoever even years down the line, this case nearly went to court but the seller settled out of court as no solicitor knew which way it may go, just all beware about contracts with brokers in the future, if you want to know anymore send me a PM.
Paul js.

 

[Guest]

ATTENTION

No,

You should try Golfe juan yachting park has become much much better and is one of the bets brokers down in the S.france thats why we still have are boat with them.There reliability is now excellent and they have fantastic facilitys.
What i was saying in my original article was a one off and since then are boats been in fantastic condition and i highly recommend yachting park to anyone down there.
They also have very very reasonable prices compared with other brokers.

Please try them if you have a boat down there



am

 

[jfm]

Terminating a contract

You can write into a contract that certain obligations are not capable of being terminated, or survive the termination, or whatever. To be precise, what happens is that the contract is terminated EXCEPT for the bit about paying the commission, that part is written so it survives the termination of the other provisions. So, strictly speaking, the obligation to pay the commission or whatever remains as a contractual undertaking, despite the termination of the rest.

More generally, a contract can only be terminated if its terms provide for it to be terminated (or otherwise the terminating person has to pay damages). So you can include a term in a contract that says the commission bit cannot be terminated until a long time after the rest of the contract

Commissions on sales is a common example of where this is done. Another is confidentiality undertakings. If you're doing a deal with someone and you have to give em confidential information, you might write a ocntract that imposes on them a duty of confidentiality, and this is often written so that duty survives till long after the original deal is done and finished

The clock's ticking....

 

[Guest]

Re: Too late!

And he means it too! Thats how all these city wallahs get to run three boats like jfm!
On a more serious note, jfm is absolutely right about the continuation of contract terms even after its termination. If it were not so, the trick would be to get the broker to find a buyer and then terminate his contract before the sale completes - hardly fair. On the other hand, running the obligation to pay commission indefinitely after termination is equally unfair and there is always a time limit set.
We have had this discussion before in another thread some months ago but if the obligation is too long the unfair contract terms act may well be able to cut it down.

Nick
ps my clock is running now too!

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Interesting. To be honest I can see the broker's point of view. He originally 'introduced' you to the seller so he thinks he's due a commission. Its certainly a point worth bearing in mind