The deal was agreed. Now what?

A thirty-eight foot sailing yacht, lying on the south coast. The owner had decided to sell privately. He knew the boat, he knew what it was worth, and he found a buyer within a month through word of mouth in the marina.

They agreed a price on a Saturday afternoon. Both were pleased. Both assumed the hard part was over.

On the Monday the questions began. Who writes the contract? What does a proper bill of sale look like? The buyer wanted to pay a deposit, but neither of them wanted the money sitting in the other's personal account. The buyer's bank asked where the funds were going and why. The seller had a mortgage on the boat that needed to be discharged before title could pass. Nobody had thought about VAT paperwork.

Then the survey found a soft patch in the deck. That is normal. What is not normal is two private parties trying to renegotiate a price with no agreed process for doing it, no neutral place for the deposit to sit, and no idea who should move first.

The sale took four months. It nearly collapsed twice. Both parties were reasonable people. The problem was never trust. The problem was that neither of them had ever done this before, and the person who normally does it, an experienced broker, was not there.

The stage between an agreed deal and a completed ownership transfer has an established professional process. Contracts, deposits, survey outcomes, outstanding finance, registration, completion statements and handover. Brokers have run that process for decades.

BoatClose gives buyers, sellers and marine professionals access to that process on its own, whether or not a broker is involved. It complements brokers rather than replacing them. Many brokers use it to handle the administration of their own sales.

The same yacht, run through BoatClose, would have had a contract on day one, a clear place for the deposit, a defined route for renegotiating after the survey, and a completion date both parties could plan around.