Hello Martijn,

You're new and you cannot verify the positive or negative reviews? Well, I think you should just stop talking about me.

You are on this forum since february 2nd this year, so, you should know that saying bad things is out of this forum's policy (Bill, right?), moreover if you're not talking about your own bad experience but about someone else's.

Private and anonymous messages are, in my opinion, coward ways.

Saying that, on a survey, I missed osmosis, structural problems or engine issues, is indeed a bad thing.

Sometimes, my clients just don't say if they are happy of my work, but they ask a lot of technical questions that I try to answer the best I can.

Sometimes they are very happy about my work and the day (or two) we spent together during the boat's inspection.

They may be not happy sometimes but strangely, I don't recall any of them coming back to me after the survey and telling me I missed a structural problem (or osmosis, or engine or rigging). Maybe you could refresh my memory and disclose the name(s) of these people that you mentioned.

Oh, yes, I remember one man who recently sent me a list of issues that I did not discover during the survey 4 years ago(!) and that are still not repaired (!), and he's asking me what I think of his boat's value now.

But this man is divorcing and trying to lower his SM's value as he doesn't not want to give too much money to his ex wife (she contacted me about the current boat's value before he did...).

I'm not perfect. During a survey, I may miss some issues, but I always try to be thorough about the main parts of the vessel.

I would like to thank the people who gave me some support on this forum, but I also kindly ask that you don't say I'm the best (Bill...). It's not true and there are lots of good surveyors worldwide. 

There is no championship for the best leisure crafts surveyor and I'm sure that any surveyor who spends a full day aboard a 54 foot boat will discover all the main issues there are.

Martijn, you mentioned also the high fee. You're right and some people don't buy my services because of the fee, but this is another matter. 

There are very good cheap cars, and very good expensive cars. That's life.

Be careful if you choose the cheapest surveyor, but also if you choose the cheapest boat.

You may have a hard time finding a surveyor that suits your wishes.

Olivier.

On Saturday, July 16, 2022 at 12:39:27 PM GMT+2, Martijn Bolt <martijnbolt@...> wrote:

Thanks everybody for the (lengthy) posts with very valuable information. I don't know where to begin to respond. :-)

Regarding Olivier: I don't want to stir things up in here. If everybody considers him the best. That is fine by me. I just got messages of people who experienced problems (and heard about others with similar results) but rather post that to me via private message. It was about missing issues during the survey regarding the engine, osmosis, grounding, rigging, electrical and structural issues. I'm new and I can neither verify the positive reviews nor these negative ones.

David: Thanks for the great post. I have updated my spreadsheets with your tips/calculations :-)

After some phone calls, quite some emails and messages I get the feeling there is plenty of negotiation space when buying a used Amel. I see prices all over the place and when I compare boats (state and price) using Bill's lists I understand now some sales end-up with extreme percentages off the initial asking price.

Which brings me to my next question regarding 20-30 year old Amels: What percentage do negotiations tend to bring the price down from asking price, on average?