'Contract Before Boarding Boat!' - ?

[Whispering Star]

Just shot Mrs. Lexa (Broker) an email. Maybe she can work her majic and see if this boat is worth a look see. Sometimes things just get a little out there for me. All I want to know is if it is worth us flying out there to see her for ourselves. I would rather pay a trusted surveyor to just view her (not a survey) to let me know its worth the trip. We will go miles for the right boat.

[captain58sailin]

Most professional surveyors have a liability policy to cover them while in the yard conducting surveys.

[Hyprdrv]

In the past I did home inspections. On occasion I was asked to look at homes for out of state clients. I ran into the same thing, someone wanted a contract before an "Inspector" went in. From that point on I went in as a friend or a perspective buyer if the owner was real anel. Took lots of pictures, noted a few things and wrote a short right-up of the general visible condition with lots of clear language that I didn't "inspect" anything to the buyer. Normally only took about an hour and the buyer was happy. Can't see why the same couldn't be done on a boat. If it was a real good deal and everything looked good from the photos on line from the brokers add I'd want a contract on the boat that gave me some easy outs if I decided not to purchase it. Such as "contingent on Buyers review", "contingent on Financing", and the biggy "contingent on Inspection". I wouldn't want to buy a ticket to go see it and then have someone put a contract on the boat before I got there. Don't let a Contract issue keep you from purchasing something you want.

Steve in Solomons MD

[Curmudgeon]

Last year when I was buying a boat I had two boats surveyed that I never even saw. What's wrong with that? The survey was cheaper than the round trip airline ticket.

And in both cases, the surveyor found problems and I politely declined making an offer. And no one asked me to sign anything except the surveyor.

This looks to me like a sleazy negotiating tactic. They want to lock in a price before it gets reduced by the cost of repairing issues disclosed in the survey.