Doesn't sound right to me and I would be a little hesitant as well. My experience with buying through brokers was that a 10% deposit was paid after the offer was accepted and before sea trials and other checks and the like were considered.

Perhaps the Broker has other ideas who will own the boat in the end
personally Id try and ask around so you could contact the owner personally and after that maybe the broker might end up with a different idea

Utterly unacceptable!

When l bought mine l was not asked to pay any deposit, whatsoever. Sea trial or not, l would not have paid a brass razoo, anyway. (the dealer, during the sea trial melted the pong box by not turning on the sea cock - so what about the ten% then?)
I thought Eddie Obeid was Mr Tenpercent?

The 'suitable buyer' requirement might be acceptable if the subject is of historical interest. But even then...???

I've never heard of that sort of deal. We put in an offer last week, had it accepted, and then paid 10% as a fully-refundable deposit subject to survey.

thanks every one for there input its good to know what other boaters think and just as I thought it stinks.
seams like away to lock me in to the bargaining proses to spend more so I don't loss my deposit.
they are a well known brokerage (I'm not going to name them)
I will offer the normal way deposit after offer accepted then sea trials and survey and see how I go
I will keep you all updated
thanks again

cheers toph
I will give it a ago should know on Monday
yeah i would walk away rather than pay a deposit for a offer that hasn't been accepted/looked at by owner even though I like the boat seems like bad policy to me

Sounds totally dodgy to me, I'd ask him if he wanted to earn his commission or not and tell him where exactly he could stick his 10% deposit until after the offer had been accepted, even then I'd hold onto the deposit until the receipt showed clearly that the sale was dependant on the surveyors report.

If I had my yacht listed for sale with a broker and he came to me with a verbal offer, my response would be "Verbal Contracts are not worth the paper they are written on.

Verbal offers are just fishing to see if you will bite.

Contracts are based on "offer and acceptance". An offer is constituted by a purchaser signed contract with whatever conditions are required by him/her and is accompanied with a consideration ie a deposit of substantial value be it cash or car or another yacht.

Acceptance is an executed contract ie signed by the vendor with whatever conditions he/she wants which if any are added will have to be counter signed by the purchaser.

You buy yachts the same way you buy real estate.

Any broker I deal with will know not to bug me with "verbal offers".

You would think that a good broker has already sounded out his vendor to establish if the vendor would consider an offer. Hence he could say if he thinks it would receive consideration.

However, we know that many vendors have no idea of a market place, and are locked into ideas of the worth of their boat based on history, or how much they have spent on maintenance. The broker then has to wait months, sometimes years, for reality to set in. This is very frustrating, so it is understandable if the broker then is reluctant to bother with an offer. Some brokers do not accept a listing if they think the vendor is totally unrealistic.