Don’t count your chickens

I am afraid the boat buying journey has to start all over again! I thought the buying of Olivia Rose would be a mere formality – see this post. How wrong I was. I had been reading up all the advice about buying a second hand boat that I could find. The two main issues that were mentioned were the VAT Paid status and the ownership or title to the boat. What could possibly be the problem I thought?
Well to cut a long story short, there was almost no paper trail for the boat, certainly no VAT paid invoices and no Bills of Sale for the last few ownership changes. I did my own delving, going right back to the original builder. To my surprise I found all sorts of unresolved issues –
There is still a registered mortgage on the boat in Holland, the boat is still registered in Holland although the current owner has it registered on the SSR in the UK, and to cap it all, the documents show the boat was built 5 years earlier than I was lead to believe!
Thanks goodness I found all this out before I even put down the deposit.
So – Caveat Emptor !! – How true.
I strongly recommend going to the RYA website and using their advice if you are considering buying a boat.