Boat Repossessions And Dealing With The Builder

Because you are taking a thorough approach to boat repossessions, you will not rely on the dealer to be your exclusive source of information on your prospective boat and its builder. Do some research of your own.

• Establish communications with the builder of the boat even before you place an order for his product.

Talk with a member of the builder's sales or customer service department. When you have signed an agreement to buy a boat, check with the builder to make sure the dealer passed that order on—in short, that he took your money and ordered a boat with it. The same with a warranty claim. Send a copy of your claim to the builder with a covering letter and ask the builder to acknowledge to you receipt of the claim from the dealer.

• With either an order for a new boat or a claim, periodically check its progress. Most builders regard customer visits to the plant as a nagging ache at the bottom of the back. But also most builders recognize that a boat is one hell of an investment that no sensible buyer is apt to take lightly. Again, builders may not have a legal responsibility to you as buyer, but they do have a moral one—which happily coincides with good business.

• Contrary to widespread belief, a dealer is not a legal representative of the boat repossessions builder whose boats he sells. Most dealers do not have any written contractual agreement with a builder. There are, however, certain terms they do agree on. For instance, the builder may agree to take orders for boats from that dealer and not take orders from other individuals within a geographical area.

They may agree to share local advertising costs, to order and deliver boats on certain dates, to arrange methods of payment, to provide and install optional equipment, to commission boats in a particular way, and to settle war­ranty claims. Yet the sales contract for a boat is bet­ween a buyer and the dealer; the builder sells the boat to the dealer and the dealer adds his commission and sells the boat to the buyer. The boat buyer has no legal contract with the builder. (Exceptions: those major boat builders doing factory-direct sales, and occasional custom builders, discussed below.)

Variations in the buyer/dealer/builder relationship make it essential to keep records at each step of the way. The complexity of the web of responsibilities is illustrated by the following case, where the buyer ordered one thing at one price and received a slightly different thing at a higher price:

The boat, a Hunter 22, was ordered at a January, 2004, boat show.

It was delivered later than the dealer had "suggested" it would be and, in addition, the price was $787 more than the agreed price because of a builder's price increase that went into effect between ordering and delivery.

The buyer was further unhappy with a few cosmetic changes from the model he saw when he ordered and with some changes in specified equipment. The fault in this instance lies with the dealer although not apparently to the extent that the buyer can expect recompense.

According to Hunter Marine, the boat repossessions dealer (who is no longer a Hunter dealer, incidentally) knew-of a scheduled price increase slated for February 1, but it is unlikely he could do more than guess about a delivery date. If the delivery date was after the date of the price increase, he would have to either pass part or all of it on to the buyer or reduce his own commission by that amount.

If the contract calls for the boat to be delivered before the date of the price increase and builder delay carries it beyond, then Hunter claims the price would remain as it was before the increase. This is standard (but by no means universal) policy in the industry; only a builder (like Hunter) with a firm production schedule can operate with such a policy. If there might be a doubt buyers should have the terms in writing when ordering the boat.

The implication is, of course, that in this instance the dealer, in the way of making a sale, kept talking the cur­rent price and did not see fit to clutter his pitch with mention of any kind of increase.

His suggestion about delivery date similarly was optimistic; there was plenty of time to discuss realities after the buyer was sold.

As to the changes in styling and specifications, it is standard practice that these are subject to change by the builder. Again, the boat repossessions dealer probably knew of the changes and chose to forego spelling them out in the face of a hot prospect.

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