Buying a boat nightmare...

[Kai Nui]

That would be my guess, but it is hard to tell. People do really wierd things to boats to suit their personal tastes.

[micoverde]

I was still so unhappy about our buying/surveying process two years after it happened I was compelled to write a 'how-to' guide from Polynesia a couple years back:

December 31

[Razman23]

Originally Posted by Strygaldwir

Chris;

If you'd really wanted to be "aggressive" you should have called the police and filed an assault charge. He did slap the camera out of your assistant's hand. This makes for GREAT substantiation and credibility at a civil proceeding! It also puts a LOT of fear in them, when the police show up and they can see you're serious.

Good luck.


Keith

With his luck, the chief of police would have been their cousin.

[CSY Man]

I do that kind of pre-survey inspection on the side.
Living in Ft. Lauderdale, this comes up now and then due to the number of boats for sale around here.

I have done a few free-bies for members of this board:
Meeting with the brokers, inspecting the vessel and shooting a few pictures, then sending the stuff to the buyer with a brief report of my opinion.

The second trip for more pics and more details if needed cost $100.00 or so, depending on how much crawling around in bilges and stuff is needed.

Let me know if ya find one in my area I have will be happy to take a look....

(Not a surveyor or a broker, just a picky guy that can save the owners an airline ticket and some time.)

[capt lar]

I have shopped long distance for boats. Before I fly, I get the name of an honest surveyor in that immediate area and call him up, asking him to do a quick check on the boat, comparing it to the listing and looking for serious problems. I have paid two strangers (surveyors) $100 and $200 to do a quick check. They both responded quickly, trusted me to pay them, and gave me an initial opinion. One was a "run for your life" boat with massive blister problem, the other was a nice boat but I could not secure dockage.
I find you can meet honest folks anywhere, but you will do better if you pick 'em. As to your local broker - fired ! He was "your man" in this deal and he clearly did nothing. The broker community is a pretty tight knit group and the good guys know each other, or can find someone that does. It is my opinion that if a boat is being brokered by a snake or flake - there is a reason the real professionals did not want the listing. Good brokers usually will not list bad boats.

[cruisincanucks]

Just to ad my 2 cents as I am a broker as well. I do mostly long distance purchases for my selected clients. The first thing that I request from the selling broker are current date stamped photos. If satisifactory we proceed with a survey from a surveyor whom WE chose. If all is satisfactory we then will either visit the vessel or make an offer subject to a personal inspection. Your broker makes commission on this deal if it went through and he should have worked a bit harder to make sure you were not going to find what you found. If he would have followed those basic steps you would not have had such a tragic albeit amazing story.

[TaoJones]

. . . on Click 'n Clack, the Tappet Brothers, an NPR radio program. Of course, that's a car show, but just stay with me here.

A guy was offering an old, high-mileage car for sale for $250, and another guy who looked at it asked why it was so cheap. The seller said it was because the car was a piece of junk that he didn't think would last a week, and he was only asking for the $250 because the radio was new.

So the second guy buys the car for $250, then quite some time later gives the seller a call. The seller braced for the worst, thinking the guy was going to demand his money back because the junker must have broken down by that point. Instead, the buyer told him he had put another 10,000 miles on the car! So, in gratitude, he was going to send the seller another $100. And he did so! And every 10,000 miles after that he sent him another $100. This happened five times!

Now, such honesty on both parties part is exceptional under any circumstances, and car deals are at least as fraught with deception as boat deals, but somehow I just can't see anything like this ever happening in a yacht transaction. Am I being too skeptical, or just realistic?

TaoJones

[BBill]

Originally Posted by cruisincanucks

Just to ad my 2 cents as I am a broker as well. I do mostly long distance purchases for my selected clients. The first thing that I request from the selling broker are current date stamped photos. If satisifactory we proceed with a survey from a surveyor whom WE chose. If all is satisfactory we then will either visit the vessel or make an offer subject to a personal inspection. Your broker makes commission on this deal if it went through and he should have worked a bit harder to make sure you were not going to find what you found. If he would have followed those basic steps you would not have had such a tragic albeit amazing story.

A buyer should NEVER have a broker involved on surveyor selection. It doesn't matter whether he's the seller's or buyer's broker. There's too much conflict of interest.

[unbusted67]

Originally Posted by Weyalan

I really don't understand some people! Even though I have bought all the boat I can handle/afford, I still like to browse the borkers on the net. I must look at a couple of hundred boats every week (I love my boat, but hey, if money were no object... a gu can dream.

If your boat knew you did this it would dump you. Deplorable.

I too am addicted to boat porn.

[never monday]

I'd have offered then $2500 to get it out of their hair.

[Connemara]

Originally Posted by unbusted67

If your boat knew you did this it would dump you. Deplorable.

I too am addicted to boat porn.

LOL....my wife will love you...She thought I was the only person in the world to use the term boat porn.


Connemara

[unbusted67]

It's a little weird but me and my girlfriend look at boat porn together. I'm ashamed. It's sick and twisted but oh god those lines...Wheew! Hah!

[purdue512]

Originally Posted by micoverde

I was still so unhappy about our buying/surveying process two years after it happened I was compelled to write a 'how-to' guide from Polynesia a couple years back:

December 31

Thanks for the link... Interesting stuff.

[dennisail]

This story is out there! I don't know if I would have been so diplomatic.

[purdue512]

Originally Posted by TaoJones

. . . on Click 'n Clack, the Tappet Brothers, an NPR radio program. Of course, that's a car show, but just stay with me here.

A guy was offering an old, high-mileage car for sale for $250, and another guy who looked at it asked why it was so cheap. The seller said it was because the car was a piece of junk that he didn't think would last a week, and he was only asking for the $250 because the radio was new.

So the second guy buys the car for $250, then quite some time later gives the seller a call. The seller braced for the worst, thinking the guy was going to demand his money back because the junker must have broken down by that point. Instead, the buyer told him he had put another 10,000 miles on the car! So, in gratitude, he was going to send the seller another $100. And he did so! And every 10,000 miles after that he sent him another $100. This happened five times!

Now, such honesty on both parties part is exceptional under any circumstances, and car deals are at least as fraught with deception as boat deals, but somehow I just can't see anything like this ever happening in a yacht transaction. Am I being too skeptical, or just realistic?

TaoJones

Sad to say, I think that is the reality of things today for the most part. Honesty, integrity and decency are just not valued as they used to be.

While not about cars or boats, I'm happy to share a story about a recent real estate transaction I completed. There were significant problems with the house I sold well after settlement. The realtors were positioning for legal action, covering the butts with nasty emails, etc. It started to get fairly tense. I finally just reached out to the buyer on a personal level and asked to simply talk it over. We did. We agreed the situation was really nobody's fault - just an unfortunate turn of events. We agreed to split the costs as a compromise and we parted friends.

Like your story about the $100 per 10,000 miles, there is hope that some people are really more interested in being good neighbors and bringing happiness to the world more than money.