Hi Jim: I'm so glad you asked this question. Because I'm actually writing a book about this type of transaction and so I have done mega-research into the process. On the face of it, the broker you mention seems to be saying that your chosen surveyor kills his deals by being too nit picky, etc. That's a good thing for you, the buyer. That would be a big plus in my estimation. The surveyor works exclusively for you. His job is to defend you from a big, sometimes catastrophic mistake. The more critical he is, the better informed and the better negotiating position you are in to deal on the boat. You can decide for yourself the importance or value you place on his findings. But, there's two other players. That's the lender and the insurance company. Both of whom will insist on a comprehensive survey before they will lend money on or insure the boat. So now you have another problem. First, your chosen surveyor must be acceptable to your lender and your insurance company. If he is not, you may have to do a second survey to satisfy these institutions. So check this out with these folks before you hire the surveyor. Sometimes, a second survey for "insurance purposes" isn't such a bad idea. The criteria of the surveyor is different for insurance. In this case, you may want to minimize some of the deficiencies (within legal and policy requirements). In any case, the insurance surveyor will be trusted by the insurance company to report what they feel is important. In this case, the surveyor is working for them (even though you pay for it <G>). If your surveyor is extremely critical of the boat in his written survey, and if that survey will be used to also satisfy the lender and the insurance company, then you may be required to make good all of the deficiencies that were reported on the survey. Sometimes that's not quite what you planned to do in the first few weeks of owning the boat. And in many cases, you will not be able to do the work yourself or at the least, the insurance company will insist on a re-survey. Surveyors are getting better at solving this issue. A good one will write the survey in a manner that breaks down the deficiencies into categories that will work for you, the buyer and also work for the institutions. The survey will report "Must be fixed now for seaworthy/safety issues", "Must be fixed within xx time or by a certain time (or at next opportunity)" and "Should be fixed at next refit or replacement". Some wording to that effect. Usually the institutions will buy the surveyor's categorizations and you can then at least defer some of the repairs. Here's an example of this in action: One deficiency in an older boat might be solid core AC wiring or a residential style AC breaker panel. The wiring and the panel have been working just fine for 25 years and they were perfectly legal when the boat was built. But the surveyor rightfully notes this on his survey. Depending upon how he notes it and depending upon how he categorizes this, the institutions could require you to rewire the whole boat to ABYC stranded wire and ABYC panel standards. That's a big chunk that you probably would rather defer. The best solution is to meet with your surveyor. Buy him a sumptuous lunch. And discuss these issues. Chances are he already knows what the lender and insurance company will accept. ^From the cheap seats in Portland. Joe & Debbie Engel Marine Computer Services & JRE Consulting, Inc. MV Freda Fly - 40' Tollycraft Tri-cabin Portland, OR -----Original Message----- From: Jim Alexander [mailto:jalexander127@home.com] Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2001 10:48 AM To: Trawler World Subject: TWL: Surveyors Recently I had posted a request for information on possible surveyors for a GB42C I have a contract on, I received many responses and for those I am thankful. It happens that I had contracts on two boats at the same time, one a 22' W/A with an outboard, which I intend to use for day trips around the local area and the second on the GB42. I had the 22' surveyed yesterday, by a different surveyor than the one I am using for the GB, mainly because the surveyor I used on the little boat specializes in small craft and was better suited to the job. The boat surveyed well and I have agreed to conclude the purchase. Here is the interesting part and the part that leads up to my question here. I am dealing with two different brokers on these deals and when I was discussing the purchase of the GB with the broker on the 22' boat he asked who I was using to survey the GB. I told him and he said, oh yes I am familiar with him. I asked what he thought of him ( I am not going to mention any names here) and he stated "well, we don't recommend him ". Of course this raised my concern so I inquired further and he told me "frankly, we don't recommend him to our clients because he has "killed" too many deals for us" I asked in what way and he stated that this surveyor "tries to re-invent the wheel" by literally picking boats apart! Well, my first thought is that this is exactly the kind of surveyor I want, one that will really protect my interest in the purchase. But then I am thinking, is there such a thing as an "over-survey"? Can a surveyor be too tough? Thought I would throw this one out for comments? Jim Alexander