Buying in the Med - Experiences ?

[savoir]

Let's just say that a few charter boats in the Med don't get chartered too often. Some would put it down to bad management but, like Francis Urquhart, I couldn't possibly say.

They are the boats to buy.

[hoppy]

@#€%& useless Greeks

As I type I have my surveyor (English) who came from Turkey, waiting by the boat which is parked by the haul out lift. The is NO sign of the driver who was due there at 10am. I spoke to the marina manager who assured me the guy will be there. For the tone of the managers voice it did not know anything about the crane guy being late so he made up sum BS that he is probably there already.

Due to the ferry timetable we will be struggling to get anything done before the last ferry for the year goes back to Turkey.

just trying to work out how to fly the surveyor back tomorrow.

Out of the whole purchase process the Greeks have one small part and even with days of warning them and assurances from them, they screw up.

For any work I do on the boat I will either pay a foreigner to do the work or at least get them to closely supervise them

[beneteau-500]

hoppy which marina are you in at moment as i know at alimos marina the banned using cranes on a sunday recently

[hoppy]

It's in Samos

The hoist guy eventually showed up giving the surveyor just enough time. Bloody frustrating not knowing if it was going to happen. Now I have to wait for the report

[goboatingnow]

My experience firstly

On the charter / vat yes many people wrap their boat up in a company or have it in a charter operation which can defer vat. In this case get the owner to pay the vat on the financial valuation of the boat with agreement with the customs. Then you complete the sale as a vat paid boat. The financial value can option be a lot lower.

As to surveys best use a English surveyor many are based all over the med. As to fixing things ive found france quite good but expensive , italy not so good and greece and crotia patchy , some places are great and others poor.

Dave

[marina.alex]

Hi there
We bought a boat in Croatia this summer -- in some ways very happy, and in others it was nearly a catastrophe.

A couple things you need to know about buying a boat in Croatia --

1) it has a very byzantine chattel-mortgage system and the mortgages are not always on the books. Our big problem was that while the title search came up clean, there was in fact a lien on the Kapitain's book (every port-captain keeps a separate one) For us this took nearly 3 months to finally clear (most of which was the time the company needed to get the bank to give up the charge) So you need to know which port the boat is from and physically go look at the Port Captain's book, and then make sure nothing is registered in the time between when you make the offer and you get the boat. Here is the actual list of things that needed to be done to successfully export the boat:
i) Clearance from Customs from Min of Finance (they got a VAT holiday and need to prove the boat was in Charter or they owe 20% tax)
ii) Copy of clearance above sent to Kapitane
iii) Cancellation of any liens from banks
iv) Notorial deed from the banks lawyers
v) translation of that deed into Croatian
vi) Kapitain decides to remove the boat from the register and issues a certificate of cancellation
vii) then you sail the boat to the port, customs comes and verifies it's the same boat, and then a port-police person comes and checks your interim documentation
viii) you go to the Kapitain and they issue an exit permit -- you must leave the country for 24 hours
ix) if you decide to remain in Croatia you then re-enter and must purchase a vingnetta ($500), go through customs, and the normal rig-a-mar-ole.

2) If I did it over again I would have paid a minimal deposit -- like $1 or $2000 with the remainder coming at export. There is so much to do in order to export the boat and it takes forever. Good luck -- they'll ask for 100% up-front.

3) The surveys in Croatia are, in my opinion, cursory at best. I spent something like 1800 Euros (800 for the surveyor, 1000 for the haulout) to get a survey done. In Canada where I am from that would have been 5 or 6 hours of a guy crawling through all the systems, tapping out the hull, using a moisture meter, etc. The surveyor from Croatia took about 100 pictures in 45 minutes, said it's a good boat and I should buy it. I was crawling around, checking bilges, making sure the radar worked, etc. etc. My broker told me that very few people survey boats in Croatia -- now I know why. If I were to do it over again, i would have taken my friend the surveyor on a free trip to Croatia -- about the same 800 Euros for airfare, and would have gotten more piece of mind.

4) There are lots of boats for sale in Croatia -- lots of boats in Charter and the prices tend to be all over the place. I looked at a number of boats before I chose the one we took and basically it's a lot like houses. Good product, well priced sells, crappy product at any price doesn't and you have some guys that want a price that is unrealistic ... so you just have to go look at a lot of boats.

5) Having cruised through Croatia, Montenegro, Greece, and now Turkey, I would suggest the condition of the Croatian boats is a fair step up from those in Greece. I think it's primarily because it's way less windy and wavy in Croatia (Istria notwithstanding). Boats from Greece will have seen a lot of wind -- plus lots of med-mooring. Croatia is 90% mooring buoys and laid moorings -- and that's a lot easier on equipment.

I wasn't too fussed about buying an ex-charter boat for two basic reasons: the first is that price wise they're roughly 30% lower than a private yacht (though my son has made us promise never to charter our boat out after seeing what people do to them) -- and the second is that in all the years I've owned boats, I have rarely ever worn anything out ... it's all corroded or siezed or stopped working because of lack-of-use. Charter boats have to 'show up' every week for 30 weeks and then they're pulled out of the water. That level of use means that stuff generally works and things like the engine get serviced 15 times a year.

So -- if the cosmetics are good then you're probably going to be OK with the majority of the other systems.

In the end we're delighted with our boat and the price we paid for it -- probably saved 30% over the next best priced and equivalent age / equipped boat, plus not being from Europe the VAT paid status doesn't matter to us. So ... in the end we were happy, our broker was helpful, though I would have liked to have known more (like what I put above) about the process before we started.

Marina's husband Matt wrote this entry.

[stevclem]

Buyer beware I think is a good motto. We have successfully bought a boat in Greece. It was a private sale and we used a UK surveyor who is semi based out there. We also looked at many other boats. From my experience many UK owned boats are in better nick than UK counterparts, I think down to the fact that they are used a second homes. There are also some UK brokers operating out there, some with partners in UK who in many cases have seen the boats offered and offer an intro service before you commit yourself. All i can say is, don't be put off by some negative comments. With care and common sense your dream can be realized

[simonmd]

Seems the the further East you go in the Med', the more carefull you need to be. Personaly, i'm based in the West in Southern Spain. I bought my boat here and had no trouble with local brokers or authorities. Most brokers in this part of the world are either ex-pats or speak English as a second language so are easy to deal with. Southern Spain is well linked with the British since the package holiday boom of the '70's.

The used boat market in the whole of Europe is very quiet at the moment due to this 'ecconomic crisis' thingy so as a buyer you are in a VERY strong position. Prices at this end are certainly a bit higher than in the Eastern Med' but every boat is negotiable and some people will just take ANY half decent offer as they literaly don't know when or if the next one will come along.

As for survey/maintanance this end- it's common for a sale to be 'Subject to Survey and Sea Trial'. You will be expected to pay for the Survey but at least if a major fault is found then you can walk away. Also, any seller that refuses this condition should be treated as having something to hide so you should walk away.

Maintainance is not cheap in S Spain but Morocco is only a short hop away and is VASTLY cheaper if you have major work to get done. As always, it pays to shop around and get quotes as each marina will charge differently.

[Kojiro]

Originally Posted by dmgf

Has anyone had any recent experiences buying in the Med. eg Croatia, Italy, Greece, Turkey. Just wondering how negotiable asking prices are? Planning to go there early 2011 and hoping to buy in the 40ft-46ft mono range. Any comments welcome. thanks.

Did you end up buying?

[dmgf]

No, we didn't end up buying in the Med. Mostly looked in Croatia, a little in Italy also. We probably went at the wrong time (Feb-May)- Sept-Oct would be better. After looking at many boats -private/ex charter, we found the excharter boats to be very well used with big engine hours for their age, also fairly knocked about. Got a very good offer on a new Jeanneau 42i but decided we didn't want to spend that much. We did find a great private boat - Jeanneau 42i in Croatia. Long story but ended up dealing with the Polish owner himself and negotiated/agreed on price/inclusions etc but the boat had Rafaissen Leasing. We were advised to go to Krackow, Poland to close the deal etc. Unfortunately it just got in the too hard basket so we had a travelling holiday instead.. Loved Croatia - would go back in a heartbeat. In the meantime our Aussie $ was going great guns so new imported boats into Oz were now priced lower, that inturn meant 2nd hand boats took a dive as well. So we came back home and bought a Dufour 425 grand Large in Sydney...private boat, ex cond - for close to the same all up amount buying in the Med. Sadly we don't get to sail the Med. as hoped, but Australian East Coast & beyond should keep us busy. Funniest thing tho- the boat we bought we had looked at last year (in our fact finding missions) and really liked it except for the high price. When the price had dropped significantly it was ready for the 'picking'. So we did and have lived aboard for 3 months now getting used to her.
What are your plans?
cheers
Denise

[Kojiro]

Well done.

I go in February or March (haven't decided yet) to pick up a 2007 Bavaria 44 Vision. Ex-charter but in very good consifitin weith just aboiut everythi I need on board....except solar, crusising chute, and maybe scuba at some time.

Maybe see you i 2 - 3 years time.