Selling a Mooring

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If you are the owner of a mooring, which is a piece of land where boats can be secured when they’re not in use, you might be thinking about selling the property. Moorings can be leasehold or freehold, and there can be some extra hurdles involved with trying to sell them. But you could still get a fair and fast offer when selling your mooring by following the advice in this guide.

1. Selling your mooring as property
2. Why buyers may want to own your mooring
3. Potential hurdles with selling a mooring
4. Selling a mooring with a right of way
5. Capital Gains Tax when selling a mooring
6. Four ways to find a buyer for a mooring
7. Questions and answers about selling a mooring

Selling your mooring as property

Along waterways throughout the UK, you’ll find moorings (see this Wikipedia article), which are permanent structures of varying types that all provide the same basic element of being a space where canal boats and ships can be secured whilst not in use.

Moorings are essential because boats and other water-based vehicles are not used 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so owners need somewhere to effectively park them at other times. They provide security and a guaranteed spot for placing a boat on almost any waterway.

When moorings are sold as property, it typically refers to a structure onshore that can range from a simple patch of grassland through to a full-service marina that includes various services for boat owners. Moorings can be freehold, which means that you own the entire property outright, or they can be leasehold, in which case you own the mooring for a specific number of years with an expiration date and you pay the freehold a ground rent on an annual basis.

If you are the owner of a mooring, there can be many reasons why you might now be thinking of selling it. Perhaps you inherited the property and do not want to own it. Maybe you found your dream job in another part of the UK and want to sell the mooring before relocating. Or you might need to sell the property to raise funds for a specific purpose. Whatever your explanation for selling, this guide will help navigate you toward hopefully getting a fast and fair offer for the mooring.

Why buyers may want to own your mooring

As with almost any other type of property, there are several reasons why a buyer might be particularly interested in owning your mooring (read more in this Canal River Trust article). Knowing what these factors are might assist you when talking with potential buyers to encourage them to make an offer.

In-demand location: Moorings that are located on busy waterways and are very convenient to access will typically always be among those in the greatest demand from boat owners. If your mooring is in an area where demand is high for buying such properties, it’s likely that you’ll find it easier to attract offers quickly compared to a mooring in a less-popular location.

Additional services: Some more elaborate moorings include those that are located within private marinas, and these often have extra amenities for boat owners including a restaurant, bar, supply shop and more. If you own this type of property then you might find a lot of interest from boat owners who are specifically looking for a mooring with enhanced services.

Potential hurdles with selling a mooring

Although the previous section of this guide explains some of the reasons why buyers might be interested in your mooring, there are some factors that might make a sale more difficult.

In the same way that knowing reasons why buyers might be interested in your mooring could help you with responding to their queries, understanding issues that might make potential buyers look less favourably on the property is equally important. Even if you can’t fix an issue, such as the mooring’s location, you might be able to explain to buyers why their concerns over the factor should hopefully not make them lose interest in making a fair offer.

Unpopular location: Because moorings are used to effectively park boats when they’re not in use, properties that are located closer to major waterways are likely to generate more interest from buyers than those in remote locations. But an unpopular location could also include a mooring that is situated in a high-demand area yet is very difficult for boats to access.

Poor condition: Your mooring might not be in a good condition, for example if the land is overgrown or unsafe. This might lead some buyers to view your mooring as less valuable than similar properties in better condition, and they could either lose interest in buying it, or significantly reduce their offer price.

Selling a mooring with a right of way

Another complicating factor when trying to sell a mooring can occur if there’s a right of way with the property, which means that in order to access the mooring, you have use a pathway located on someone else’s property for which a pre-existing permission exists for boat owners get to the mooring.

Rights of way can sometimes lead to disputes between people using the pathway and the owner of the property that they have to pass through, and this fact alone can be enough to deter someone from wanting to make an offer on your mooring. There’s not much you can do to prevent this outcome, but one suggestion is to be open and honest with potential buyers about the right of way – and be sure to tell them if there have never been any problems with it.

It’s important that you disclose a right of way to anyone who expresses an interest in buying your property, because this situation is considered one of the many different types of information that owners are required by law to tell prospective buyers about. If you withhold this fact and someone buys your mooring and then discovers the right of way, they could sue you for hiding the information if knowing it would have made them lose interest in owning the property. And if the lawsuit is successful, you could be liable for paying significant penalties.

If you’re struggling to find a private buyer for a mooring that involves a right of way, one solution is contacting a quick property buying company like LDN Properties. These companies have plenty of experience with buying so-called problem properties like those that are affected by a right of way, and they will make a fair and fast offer even knowing about this scenario.

Capital Gains Tax when selling a mooring

Whenever you sell a tangible asset like property, a car, artwork or similar items, you might be liable for paying Capital Gains Tax depending on the sale price and proceeds. This is a tax that the UK government charges on the profit, also called gain, that you might make on the sale.

By way of example, this means that if you first purchased your mooring for £75,000 and then manage to sell it for £125,000, you will have made a £50,000 and if Capital Gains Tax applies in your situation it will be assessed on that £50,000 profit and not the £125,000 sale price.

You should consult with a financial professional to fully understand your potential Capital Gains Tax liability when selling your mooring. There are some ways that you can eliminate or reduce your burden for paying this tax, so you should also enquire about those options, as discussed in this Express article.

Four ways to find a buyer for a mooring

When you are finally ready to sell your mooring property, you will need to make a choice among the four typical options for finding a buyer. Your options are selling to a quick property buyer, selling on your own, selling with an estate agent or selling at a property auction.

There are distinct benefits linked with each of these approaches, and you’ll find that a few of the methods also come with significant drawbacks, such as requiring that you pay a high rate of commission for selling the mooring, or that it might take more than a year to secure a buyer.

To help you identify which of the four methods of selling is best for your own situation, you should write down your main priorities with trying to find a buyer, such as your preferred sale price, whether you want to pay any commission, and how long you can wait to sell. Then compare all of these details against the specifics of the four methods outlined below, and this should make it easier to find the approach that is most suitable for selling your mooring.

Selling to a quick property buyer

By far the most rapid way to sell a mooring is usually contacting a quick property buyer, like LDN Properties – this company was founded in 2003 and has been making competitive and speedy offers to buy all types of leasehold and freehold properties throughout the UK, regardless of the age, condition, shape or size of the property being sold.

These companies are called quick buyers because of their available financial resources that allow them to purchase properties right away, without having to wait for several weeks or months before they get approved for a mortgage to cover the cost of the purchase. Instead, quick buyers are generally able to finalise the purchase of a mooring in just a handful of weeks, and that includes paying owners the proceeds and exchanging contracts.

In addition to the fast timeline with selling, quick buyers are a great choice when selling more unique properties such as moorings because of their broad experience making a wide range of purchases. LDN Properties, for example, in the last 15+ years has looked at not only moorings but also houses with solar panels, flats with storm damage, properties where the owner has misplaced important documents such as the title deeds, vandalised homes, flats located underneath noisy airport flight paths, maisonettes, commercial properties, homes that have low Energy Performance Certificate rankings, takeaways, flats with short leases, and more.

Another advantage of selling your mooring to a quick buyer is that the honest companies will never make you pay any commission, so you can plan on keeping the full sale proceeds. That compares favourably to selling via an auction or estate agent, where you’ll have to pay commission and this charge will be taken out of the eventual sale proceeds immediately.

Selling to a quick buyer is also a hassle-free, straightforward and zero-stress process, starting when you get in touch with them to ask about selling your mooring. They’ll give you an initial quote for buying the property and you’ll usually have at least a week to think about it.

If you decide to accept the quick buyer’s initial offer, the next step is for the company to send one of its representatives to your mooring so that they can assess it in person. This is the only such viewing you’ll need, and the quick buyer will make a final offer after this happens.

Should you opt to accept the quick buyer’s final offer on your mooring, they will then work quickly with your solicitor or other legal representative to sign all the relevant legal documents and complete the other steps required to finalise the sale. The entire timeline from first contacting them to receiving the sale proceeds should take no more than a few weeks.

Selling on your own

Perhaps the slowest method of selling your mooring is without any assistance, because you’ll have to do all the work and it might be more than a year before you find a serious buyer.

This work includes preparing a listing that describes the mooring and features photographs of it, and then advertising the listing online, in local newspapers and elsewhere. Then you’ll have to organise viewings to show potential buyers around the property, and also field any offers. This will require a lot of effort, money and time and isn’t something you can do in your spare time.

Remember also that someone can make an offer to buy your mooring and then walk away from the purchase any time up until just before contracts are exchanged. If that occurs, then it will effectively reset your search for a buyer and likely add many more months to the schedule.

For that reason you should only consider selling on your own if you have successfully sold a property in the past, or have a skilled family member or friend willing to help you for free.

The clear advantage of selling this way is that you won’t have to pay a third party, like an auctioneer or estate agent, any commission for finding a buyer. But you can get this same positive outcome and also secure a much more rapid sale if you contact a quick buyer like LDN Properties, because they won’t charge commission and they can also finalise the purchase of your mooring in a few short weeks, and that includes the time it takes to exchange contracts.

Selling with an estate agent

Another way to sell your mooring is through an estate agent, who will be responsible for the vast majority of the work involved with finding a buyer for your property. Read more about how to sell al house in this guide from MoneySavingExpert.

This effort includes preparing the listing for your mooring, advertising it in local newspapers, online and in their office, organising viewings and hearing offers from potential buyers. Not having to do any of these steps will help to greatly reduce your stress when selling.

However, estate agents will charge you commission for doing this work and this will increase your selling costs because the commission will be taken immediately out of the sale proceeds, so be sure to plan for this expense when writing your selling budget.

Selling via an estate agent is also not the fastest way to find a buyer, and you should be ready to wait more than an entire year before you get a serious offer. Note also that even if someone makes an offer, they can withdraw without any repercussions right up until contracts are exchanged. If that outcome happens then you will have no choice but to begin again with finding a buyer, which could potentially add many more months to the selling process.

You should ask individual estate agents whether they have managed to successfully sell a mooring in the past, because if they have not, they might find it difficult to get potential buyers interested in your property, which could delay the selling process even further.

Selling at a property auction

It’s can be considered a bit of a gamble when selling your mooring through an auction, because you don’t know if anyone will even bid to buy the property. If that happens then the mooring is deemed unsold and you will have to start over with trying to find a buyer, adding much more time to the process.

You might be asked by the auction house to choose between the traditional or modern method for selling your mooring. Using the traditional method, the auctioneer will create and advertise a listing for the property that will last for at least several weeks, and then they will host the auction, at which time people can place bids of ever-increasing value on the mooring for a limited amount of time. Alternatively, using the modern method, the auctioneer will advertise your listing for several weeks or longer and people will be able to place bids 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The highest value bid at the time the listing expires will be deemed the winner.

The auctioneer will ask you to select a reserve price, and this is the lowest value at which you agree your mooring can sell. It’s essential that you choose a price that will produce a profit from the sale even after you have paid the auctioneer whatever commission they charge. Otherwise you run the risk of selling at a loss or only breaking even on the sale of your property.

Auctioneers often charge commission as a percentage of a property’s sale price, and this fee will be subtracted from the final sale proceeds immediately, creating another cost for you.

Some auction houses might set higher or lower rates of commission, or they could be open to either lowering the fee that they charge you or making the winning high bidder responsible for paying some of your expenses, so you should ask individual auctioneers if this is possible.

This is far from the fastest way to sell a mooring, because there will be a delay of many weeks or months from when you list the property for sale and when the auction happens. And even if someone bids at the reserve price or higher and your mooring sells, the buyer will usually have about 28 days to sign their legal paperwork and complete their other mandatory tasks. Adding up all the time taken, it means an auction will generally take at least several months.

You might be able to negotiate a shorter deadline for the buyer to complete their tasks, so it’s always worth inquiring with individual auctioneers about whether this might be feasible.

Top queries and answers about selling a mooring

Property owners thinking of selling their home fast may have some urgent questions that need answering, ranging from the types of property we can buy through to the types of property they can sell on the coast. Here are some of the top questions we’re asked about selling a mooring: