What happens if a marina goes bust?

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Personally I have always hated the thought of paying upfront a years moorings in advance , people’s circumstances can change Which in some cases they need to sell the boat , the big players offer very little back on the time left to run yet fill the berth straight away .
I was once in that position with Premier when I was between boats , I swore I’d never put myself in that position again and moved to a marina where you pay each month . I would guess that if an operator did go bust the company sold on to would not want to honour the term already paid for to the previous owners , which quite rightly makes you a creditor with very little chance of making any sort of claim .
 
TwoHooter said:
That's what I think, but truly I don't know.

If I pay in advance for anything else (building work, car, holiday) and the supplier fails then I have lost my money unless there is a protection scheme like ATOL/ABTA for travel. No such scheme for berthing fees :(. But do special arrangements apply if a landlord fails after accepting advance payments?

On the other hand, Volvopaul is right, none of us have ever seen a marina go bust. So why am I asking? Probably just being over-cautious.
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May not these days, but back in the 1980's nearly every marina went bust at least once.

One thing that strikes me, having had it twice with big boat builders going bust, would you have to prove it was your boat / property to the administrator ?

Brian
 
If you pay by credit card you’ll be covered.

Unfortunately the marina im in will not accept credit card payments
jrudge said:
Unless there are other factors why would a UK marina go bust at this time. They have lots of paying customers, they are not paying rates ( which will be huge) and many staff will have been on Furlough .
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it is a possibility if the holding company has their own financial problems.
 
bigwow said:
Did you get your berthing offer, at the increased rate, for next year today in place of a Christmas Card, Roy?
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Yes we were down at the weekend , your boat looked fine , i am not doing annual going monthly as might move to england
 
halcyon said:
One thing that strikes me, having had it twice with big boat builders going bust, would you have to prove it was your boat / property to the administrator ?
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Having been through this in my teens when the yard my dad was in went bust, this is a big issue. The administrator wanted proof of ownership of every tool in their personal toolboxes, some of which were handmade as apprentices. Without these they couldn't work elsewhere.
 
halcyon said:
May not these days, but back in the 1980's nearly every marina went bust at least once.

One thing that strikes me, having had it twice with big boat builders going bust, would you have to prove it was your boat / property to the administrator ?

Brian
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It depends on what you agree with Stage Payments.

Unless you agree otherwise you are simply making a payment to the builder and have no more rights than anyone else.

When we got ours built we agreed transfer of title on each stage payment. The builders done like this as they tend to have all monies debentures with their bank and if the assets are sold they cant use them in their debenture cover statement to the bank which reduces their borrowing capacity.

If you visit boat builders then pretty much everything has the build number of the boat on it. 55 in our case. As such with each stage payment we owned everything with 55 written on it including the hull and part build boat. If they go bust you still have to get it finished, but the buyer ( assuming there is one) is usually happy to do that as they get the final profit. Worst case you remove a large pile of boat and bits and hope you can find someone to complete it. Far from ideal but better than the alternative.
 
jrudge said:
It depends on what you agree with Stage Payments.

Unless you agree otherwise you are simply making a payment to the builder and have no more rights than anyone else.

When we got ours built we agreed transfer of title on each stage payment. The builders done like this as they tend to have all monies debentures with their bank and if the assets are sold they cant use them in their debenture cover statement to the bank which reduces their borrowing capacity.

If you visit boat builders then pretty much everything has the build number of the boat on it. 55 in our case. As such with each stage payment we owned everything with 55 written on it including the hull and part build boat. If they go bust you still have to get it finished, but the buyer ( assuming there is one) is usually happy to do that as they get the final profit. Worst case you remove a large pile of boat and bits and hope you can find someone to complete it. Far from ideal but better than the alternative.
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We arranged a guarantee (with the boat builder's bank) that our deposit was ours and would be paid back to us in the event of the builder going bust.
And to do that, we had to pay extra to the bank.
IIRC it wasn't cheap either.
It also got complicated when the boat was finished because the boat builder didn't own the boat any more - the broker did.
The easiest way then was to pay for the boat in full so that even though the broker still hadn't actually delivered the boat, it actually belonged to us - a bit like you owning bits of yours during the build.
 
Careful readers of this thread will notice that I did not mention Sutton Harbour.
However now that the name is out in the open I will add a comment.
The marina is owned and operated by Sutton Harbour Company (SHC) which is the statutory harbour authority - SUTTON HARBOUR COMPANY - Overview (free company information from Companies House)
I assume that berth holders are contracting with SHC.
The most recent accounts for SHC (31 March 2020, https://tinyurl.com/y9ub92rx) show:
  • positive income from trading activities - the way the Income Statement is laid out obscures this but it is a fact that they traded at a profit
  • negative comprehensive income - the principal cause is downward revaluations of properties, and finance charges, not losses from trading activities
  • substantial net equity, also tangible assets which exceed debt
  • a positive cash flow
SHC is an operating subsidiary of Sutton Harbour Group plc, a listed company (on AIM, ticker SUH).
The Group has (by my count) 9 operating subsidiaries including SHC.
The Group's accounts are perhaps not as strong as one might wish, depending on how you interpret them. This is sad because the Group has worked hard to regenerate Plymouth. I have no knowledge of what the Sutton Harbour area looked like before they developed it but so far as I can see they have done a good job. Unfortunately some of their other projects have not been as successful as they expected, at least not yet.

I have concluded that it is unlikely that berth holders in Sutton Harbour will be at risk of losing pre-payments. If the worst were to happen (and I am NOT saying it will) and the Group were to enter administration, then I think that the debts of SHC would be re-structured and the company would be sold to a new owner as a going concern. If I am right about that I think the last thing a new owner would want to do is alienate their customers and tarnish the reputation of the marina by dishonouring pre-payments for berths.

There is no first-hand account in this thread, or anywhere else I have looked, of any British berth holder ever losing money as a result of a marina owner becoming insolvent. Obviously creditors as a class do lose money when insolvencies occur, but there is nothing to stop creditors of the insolvent company, or a new owner, from honouring pre-payments for berths, and I think this is what has happened in the past.

Therefore I think the answer to my original question is that there is a theoretical risk of losing pre-payments if a marina were to fail, but in practice this is not what has happened and it is quite a low risk.
 
Surely its risk vs reward. If your fees are £5000 and the discount is 1% for paying up front, you are risking £5000 to save £50 - whether its worth it is up to you. To my mind it isn't if the saving is that insignificant - were it a 25% saving that might be different. Pay it by debit card but pay AT LEAST £201 on a credit card (split the bill essentially) and the whole purchase is covered. I can understand marinas not taking a CC for the whole balance, but if they won't take £201 on a credit card (£2 fee if that) then I'd be even more concerned and certainly wouldn't pay up front. If they say "debit card only" offer to pay the credit card fee as well ( usually 1% or so)
 
ontheplane said:
Surely its risk vs reward. If your fees are £5000 and the discount is 1% for paying up front, you are risking £5000 to save £50 - whether its worth it is up to you. To my mind it isn't if the saving is that insignificant - were it a 25% saving that might be different. Pay it by debit card but pay AT LEAST £201 on a credit card (split the bill essentially) and the whole purchase is covered. I can understand marinas not taking a CC for the whole balance, but if they won't take £201 on a credit card (£2 fee if that) then I'd be even more concerned and certainly wouldn't pay up front. If they say "debit card only" offer to pay the credit card fee as well ( usually 1% or so)
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How does paying for part of a purchase by credit card cover the value of the whole purchase?
 
TwoHooter said:
How does paying for part of a purchase by credit card cover the value of the whole purchase?
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Because you paid for (some) of the purchase using credit, it covers the whole purchase.

Purchases up to £30,000 paid or part paid on a credit card are covered irrespective of how much was paid by the card.
 
TwoHooter said:
How does paying for part of a purchase by credit card cover the value of the whole purchase?
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For us it’s irrelevant. Sutton don’t accept credit cards.
Just as an aside it seems they’re having a purge on live aboards. Not sure why. I bumped into 2 today, both have been told their contracts will not be renewed next year. One has a Princess 46, the other a sailboat, both in good condition.
 
I wouldn't pay annually then.... I'd pay monthly and try and negotiate the annual discount - and say you'll pay it in one go if you can pay at least £200 on CC. They CAN take credit cards, they choose not to
 
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