Pre-Purchase Inspections to save time and money

When it comes time to buy a boat you will have a lot of excitement and emotion involved. It’s easy to scan through on-line listings, weed out the lemons and short-list a few boats to go look at.

On a recent pre-offer inspection, we found a number of issues with a ship that was otherwise in great shape. For the buyer, these issues were a deal breaker because while the seller was using the boat in-shore, the buyer was looking for a blue water cruiser. We identified about $25,000 of work that needed to be done to prepare the boat for the buyer’s intended use.

Unlike buying a house, or a car, buying a boat in the U.S. often lacks many buyer protections that you may expect to exist if you are comparing it to a home or car purchase. That’s why we also recommend a written contract if you decide to move forward, and a full haul-out survey with a licensed and experienced surveyor, and doing your own due diligence at every step of the way.

Even with all of this, make sure that once you are ready to make an offer, you specifically state in your contract that you expect the buyer to let you out of the contract if the boat does not pass the survey.

A this point, if you’ve made an offer, spent time on the contact, interviewed and hired a surveyor, scheduled a haul-out, taken time off from work, and lined up crew to help, the cost of this survey could easy top several thousand dollars and one or more days of your time.

This is why the pre-purchase inspection is such a time and money saver. On a typical 35 foot sailboat there may be a dozen systems and components to go through and you can make an excellent assessment before you make an offer and go down the path of a full survey if you know what you are looking for or bring along someone who does.

A responsible seller will allow you time and space to do a thorough inspection and you should take them up on that offer. After your initial visit(s) to the boat, if it looks like this is the boat for you, it’s time to separate the emotion from the logic.

At Sail Training our pre-inspection service is a great way to save time and money. We’ll come out to the boat, inspect it, and provide you with a detailed report of our findings if you decided to move forward. We’ll also provide you with a list of recommended repairs and maintenance items which will help you make an informed decision about whether to move forward with the purchase.

If the answer is yes, at that time a full survey can be scheduled, which will involve a haul-out and a more detailed inspection. A process which will be necessary for insurance, a lender, and even possibly a marina slip. In short, the pre-offer inspection is NOT a substitute for a full survey.

The difference between a pre-purchase inspection and a full survey is that the pre-purchase inspection is just answering that question of whether the boat is worth looking at more closely.

First you invest your time finding a boat and “kicking the tires.” Next you can put a small investment with a pre-offer inspection. If that goes well, you can step up to the full survey, and finally, complete the purchase. By breaking it down into these steps you will save time and money.

Additionally, during pre-inspection we have the opportunity to go into more detail about certain systems and components that may be of concern to you, whereas a full survey is focused on the big picture.

If you’re interested in a pre-purchase inspection, please reach out to us and we’ll be happy to schedule an inspection and discuss it in more detail.