LIFES A DRAG…
It felt like ages ago we had engaged the services of a conveyancer to arrange the house sale and after the initial flurry of messages, documents and surveys, time seemed to drag on and on with no sign of us exchanging contracts. Frustrating wasn’t the word!
Our completion date was set – January 8th 2021 – and what a landmark date that would be. Not only our youngest daughters 24th birthday (who just happens to be buying the house) but the day we say goodbye to brick, mortar and solid foundations and move onto a steel tube in water!
Suddenly, messages started appearing on our solicitors online portal for us to read…..exchange was imminent……
Just as well. The boat buying process shares some similarities to house buying – you go and view. You make an offer and haggle a bit. You get a survey done. You haggle again. You pay a deposit. You finalise the payment. You complete the purchase.
However, there is a snag if your boat purchase is being funded from the sale of a property. In order to secure your boat of choice and pay a deposit, you have to satisfy the boat broker (assuming that’s who your purchasing from) that you have actually exchanged contracts first. And with us having planned to spend a few days away to go and view a good handful of boats, the grey cloud over us was that we were agonisingly close to exchange, but hadn’t actually done so!
We threw caution to the wind and went away anyway because there were some boats we just had to view and we knew that they would be gone if we prevaricated any longer.
Armed with a smart motorhome that Tony had originally booked from a lovely couple who he had used many times before and had always looked after us, we set off for our first location – Mercia Marina in Derbyshire.
In total we viewed more than 10 boats, mostly being sold through brokerages. If you want to see the ones we viewed then hop over to our YouTube Channel or click the link HERE.
We had a wonderful time together, discussing between us the whys and wherefores of each boat. It was surprising to see so many up for sale and even more surprised that boats were selling fast – one we had planned to see was sold the day we were going to view it!
There was a vast difference in quality and fit out in just a £10k price bracket with some at the top of our budget looking a little less favourable, which made us wonder – who sets the prices…?
Having spent four days away and travelling almost 1,000 miles (and before you ask, yes, buying a boat to live on is no different under the Covid rules than buying a house.) we did finally see a boat that caught our eye and made us excited enough to make an offer, and pay a deposit.
This was it. No turning back now….but we would have to wait for the Christmas holidays to be over before we could do anything further…
