Curious, Cashiers or Certified check?

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PhilPB

PhilPB

Guru
Joined
Oct 5, 2021
Messages
777
Location
Palm Beach County
Vessel Name
Sun Dog
Vessel Make
Mainship 34
To make a short story long, I don't want to put my boat up for sale, but I may have to as I don't want to own a boat and not use it. I use it weekly and very much enjoy it but I have come to the realization that very soon I will not have the time due to both my 90 year old parents and 90 year old in-laws requiring more and more of my time and assistance. It's amazing how exponentially needs increase as people age, but I'm grateful that I can help when they need it and I live within 10 minutes of both sets of parents. So, I think that the boat needs to go sooner rather than later and I'll get another in the future. I figure that selling without a broker is the path I will take since it's not going to be a high price sale. I'm curious, which is the safest path to ask for payment when I finally do put it on the market and eventually sell it?
 
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Ugghhh.....sorry to hear you'll be unable to use your boat but certainly understand the situation.

As to your question, neither.
Cashiers/certified checks are fairly easy to counterfeit and are also easy to scam. Briefcase of cash or direct bank-to-bank wire transfer is your best bet. Careful, tons of sad stories out there.

Best regards

Peter
 
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It was surprising to me to learn recently that real estate closing agents (e,g., title insurance companies) no longer accept cashier's checks or certified checks for payments at the closing. Apparently scammers have mastered the art of 1) creating fraudulent "bank" checks, and/or 2) arranging for funds balances to appear to be sufficient right up until the moment when the cashiers / certified check is presented for payment.

The customary practice nowadays is for final funds to be paid at closing by wire transfer. If you handle the sale yourself, I suggest engaging a local law firm that is accustomed to processing commercial transactions, and let them make sure the money is good before releasing the title.

Regret that you have to leave boating temporarily.
 
mvweebles said:
Ugghhh.....sorry to hear you'll be unable to use your boat but certainly understand the situation.

As to your question, neither.
Cashiers/certified checks are fairly easy to counterfeit and are also easy to scam. Briefcase of cash or direct bank-to-bank wire transfer is your best bet. Careful, tons of sad stories out there.

Best regards

Peter
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Thanks. At last the next owner will get a nice updated boat. When I bought it I just wrote a personal check.
 
Blissboat said:
It was surprising to me to learn recently that real estate closing agents (e,g., title insurance companies) no longer accept cashier's checks or certified checks for payments at the closing. Apparently scammers have mastered the art of 1) creating fraudulent "bank" checks, and/or 2) arranging for funds balances to appear to be sufficient right up until the moment when the cashiers / certified check is presented for payment.

The customary practice nowadays is for final funds to be paid at closing by wire transfer. If you handle the sale yourself, I suggest engaging a local law firm that is accustomed to processing commercial transactions, and let them make sure the money is good before releasing the title.

Regret that you have to leave boating temporarily.
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I was wondering about finding a local attorney. I was also wondering about PayPal or Venmo as an option.
 
How about go to their bank with them, open an account and have them transfer funds into the account while you stand there.
 
A good boat broker can insure a wire transfer goes well. The good ones I know handle dozens of sales per year doing it this way. No lawyer needed.
 
There are also marine escrow companies that specialize in transferring boat. If you don't use one, wire is the only way I would accept payment.
 
mgreen said:
There are also marine escrow companies that specialize in transferring boat. If you don't use one, wire is the only way I would accept payment.
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I too would recommend using an escrow agent. They carry insurance should something go wrong.
 
When I sold my last boat we met up at the bank with all the paperwork. Money was a combination of cash and a wire transfer. When the bank confirmed receipt of funds we signed all the paperwork. But an escrow/title agent is the cleanest way to do it. Whether that’s worth the money depends on how big a sale we’re talking about.
 
another vote for a Title and escrow company. They hold the title, they take the cash. They typically only accept wire transfers. They won't take cash, check, bank check or even an ACH transfer.
 
Unless you are talking big money I would go the wire Xfrr route.
Hard to count on going to the buyers bank when you have no idea who will be buying it. Talk to you local bank / credit union and ask them how secure a wire xfer is. Mine told me it was the safest method and couldn't be reversed unless very extreme case and Fed Govt gets involved.
 
tiltrider1 said:
I too would recommend using an escrow agent. They carry insurance should something go wrong.
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This.

When we sold our boat a very good broker worked with escrow agent Pacific Marine Title from Seattle. The transaction was seamless.
 
Bacchus said:
Unless you are talking big money I would go the wire Xfrr route.
Hard to count on going to the buyers bank when you have no idea who will be buying it. Talk to you local bank / credit union and ask them how secure a wire xfer is. Mine told me it was the safest method and couldn't be reversed unless very extreme case and Fed Govt gets involved.
Click to expand...
Definitely not going to sell for a lot of money. From looking around at prices for my boat model, I will definitely be on the lower end of the pool price-wise. I'll be asking less than the cost of my first haul out. Granted, I had new running gear installed, new bow thruster with remote, awlgrip decks and house, bottom paint, ect. Those were my first expenses, aside from buying the boat of course.
 
Don't undersell yourself, you have done a lot of work and recent upgrades. If I was in the market, I would be in your in box already.
We bought our boat with a bank check. Seller didn't bat on eye, just put it in his folder and signed over the title.
 
PhilPB said:
Definitely not going to sell for a lot of money. From looking around at prices for my boat model, I will definitely be on the lower end of the pool price-wise. I'll be asking less than the cost of my first haul out. Granted, I had new running gear installed, new bow thruster with remote, awlgrip decks and house, bottom paint, ect. Those were my first expenses, aside from buying the boat of course.
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If you’re looking at less than $10K I’d just use cash. Meet at the bank, have them pull out the cash on the spot and sign the papers there.
 
As you may need a notary if a documented vessel, go to your bank, wait for notification of the wire transfer, and then sign and notarize the documents. That's what I did on my boat sale.

Ted
 
O C Diver said:
As you may need a notary if a documented vessel, go to your bank, wait for notification of the wire transfer, and then sign and notarize the documents. That's what I did on my boat sale.

Ted
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Wire transfer definitely sounds the way I'll go. Boat is titled and since it is >30 years old the registration is only $5/year in Florida.
 
Career banker

The world changes and does it fast. This answer expires immediately, without notice. Readers in the future should not rely on it.

At the moment, use a wire as others have said.

Having said that, be patient with buyers since a shocking number of banks either won't do a wire or are making it very difficult. Banks are being slammed with losses on wire fraud. You want to receive a wire, but banks don't want to send them.
 
Neither is worth the paper its printed on and hasn't been for some years.
Time for banks to figure this out instead of just charging high interest, paying nothing on savings, and making everything paperless.
 
PhilPB said:
I was wondering about finding a local attorney. I was also wondering about PayPal or Venmo as an option.
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Definitely not. Many horror stories about PayPal abuse by buyers - who are protected more than sellers. Hell I won't even accept PayPal for expensive items on eBay.
 
I totally get where you're coming from. I had to sell my boat a couple of years ago for similar reasons—just didn’t have the time to use it anymore with family obligations piling up. When it came to payment, I went with a bank transfer. Felt a lot safer than a cashier’s check, and I made sure it cleared before handing over anything. It worked out smoothly for me, so I’d recommend that. Selling without a broker should be fine, especially if you know the value and feel comfortable dealing directly with buyers.
 
PhilPB said:
Wire transfer definitely sounds the way I'll go. Boat is titled and since it is >30 years old the registration is only $5/year in Florida.
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Be careful, the fine print about the engine can disqualify it as an antique unless it's the original engine.
 
Your bank can wire transfer money. MAye charge you $25 for the service like mine recently did. Just make sure the wire transfer info is correct!
 
I'm with SeaDogAK -- if it's less than $10K, I'd take cash and not bother with a wire. The Buyer is not going to knock you over the head and steal the money back after you hand him the bill of sale (notarized if its documented), so you can just take it to the bank.
 
Don't know about how much you are selling for but this is the usual process for selling on your own.
Buyer hires a closing agent. NOT the seller.

The closing agent handles the money sometimes. After the closing agent receives all the appropriate paperwork from the buyer and seller and does all the due diligence, the closing agent will direct the seller to send you the money. This is how you want it, usually direct deposit or wire transfer to your bank. Sometimes the closing agent will handle this but not always.
 
I listed my woodie Grand Banks 42 for $64k on boattrader.com nine years ago when it was 43 years old. I was deducting the broker fee out of the asking price and more or less guessing at it having boat it for $89K twenty-nine years earlier. A web designer friend helped me to set up a site where every bit of information and all the photos I wanted could be displayed. Boattrader.com would not allow links to be posted in the ad, but I could certainly place the text of it in the writeup for anybody smart enough to block and copy to a browser. A week later, the boat was gone after my bank verified the wired money was there. That sort of money was not going to break me, but in retrospect, it's kind of humorous to think of the buyer sneaking off without paying since he and his delivery crew were sleeping aboard my boat (holiday weekend with NO hotel rooms available) at my pier. :) It did pay for about 75% of my MS Pilot.
 
I decided to cleanup and fix the last of the items that I wanted to attend to that bothered me. Scheduling to have the engine painted with the official Perkins Blue and replacing the tachometer that acts a bit wonky but then settles out. There will be nothing left on the boat that I know of that was either needing attention or just bugging me. Soon it will go up for sale.
 
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