What Can Blow up a Sale?

There is a very good piece of old-fashioned advice when selling a boat: “Never celebrate until the money’s in the bank.”

It can be gut-wrenching; particularly for the seller, when a buyer has said “yes”, signed on the dotted line but the boat sale doesn’t complete.

It happens surprisingly more often than you might think.

Another line in the boat brokerage trade is the somewhat unflattering “buyers are liars” – though it’s worth remembering that there is often much excitement in the moment. Completing any sale successfully to “money in the bank” can involve ups and downs, and can blow up at any time, even when you think the deal is done.

There are several reasons why sales typically turn sour;

The first reason is that the boat fails the survey because of the boat hull or any other issue, or the survey highlights problems that need to be fixed.  This can also be a shock to the boat owner and in such a case, it is often possible to factor the cost of repairs into the price negotiations.

Sometimes the survey report is a deal-breaker and the buyer walks away.  In this situation, an option is to reduce the price significantly, or remove the boat from the market, complete the repairs and subsequently sell the boat a few months later.  While this can work, many boats are still on the market long after the repairs are completed.

The second case is the buyer gets cold feet and reneged on the contract.

When this happens, being bitterly disappointed is an understandable reaction of the seller.  What went wrong and what caused the problem are issues for investigation.  If it was your only buyer, then it can be an agonising wait for the next offer to come along.

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