In my previous post, I mentioned that my boat broker was dragging out the escrow process. A little backstory on my boat broker: "Drew"was a thirty something year old bro. You could tell he sort of tried to be professional, but he was way too casual about everything. This didn't necessarily bother me until it began getting in the way of closing escrow. I mean, I get it, boat people are usually laid back and move slower, but Drew took casual to a whole new level. Throughout the process of drawing up paperwork, he tried to cut as many corners as he could. He was very salesman-y and would tell me things I knew for a fact were not true in order to avoid doing work. He was sneaky about what he told me, leaving out important information and treating me like a dumb girl who couldn't think for herself. Yes, it was my first boat purchase, but no, I was not afraid to trust my intuition and I stand up for myself when I knew I was being manipulated.
The main concern I had initially was that he tried really hard to prevent me from using my own survey company (most buyers get a survey done to check the boat's condition before you decide to buy it). My friend worked for a surveyor who was well known around San Diego to be very thorough and good at what he does. Meaning, Drew was scared if I potentially found out what was really wrong with the boat, he might lose the sale, which is why he tried to convince me not to use my friend's guy, Kells. Every other surveyor in town was booked for weeks, and I only got an appointment with Kells because my friend worked for him and asked for a favor. Drew tried to talk me out of using him even when there was no other options in town for the next few months. He even resorted to called a guy in Orange County (2 hours away) to do the survey, in order to sidestep using the thorough surveyor. Perhaps he was used to people doing exactly what he wanted without having any questions, but my gut warned me that I could not trust him.
The next warning sign I got was seeing things move and change in the boat in between my visits. Please keep in mind that 82 year old boat owner John lived in Arizona by now. The first day Drew took us to see the boat, it was tidy and clean. Normal. My dad and I went on our own again a few days later to check some measurements. When we got there, the door was unlocked and left open, after I personally watched Drew lock it up behind us the other day. Having had permission from John in Arizona to go take measurements, we went inside to see that the bed that was previously made was now all tussled. There were obvious signs of someone staying there. There was beer and perishable food in the fridge...lots of things to make me start to wonder what was going on. Oh yeah, and THE CARPET IN THE MAIN ROOM CHANGED, which was the most bizarre thing to me. I even went back to previous pictures on my phone to see the carpet switch. WHY?
Drew met my friends and I there later that week to finalize some paperwork. Perhaps Drew felt comfortable around all of us, since we were all about his age, and my dad was not there. He went to the fridge and took out a beer for himself and offered some to us. We all thought it was weird since it was not his beer. Even though we said no to the beers, he drank one on the job anyway. I asked Drew about all the changes and pointed out that it seemed like someone was living there. Immediately, his answer was that John's "nephew" stays there and takes care of the boat when John is away in Arizona...it made sense at the time, so I dropped it.
A week went by and I was still waiting to hear back from Drew about if escrow had closed. He was stalling and delaying on the process, and just overall seemed to have a lack of motivation. This confused me because when I first met him, he said he wanted to close escrow as soon as we could. His goal was to close within the first week, since as he put it, "this sale was much smaller than his usual sales so it didn't want to waste time on it." Because of this, I was super on top of it, getting everything on my end done quickly. I didn't want to delay either! He would give me a task to complete and I would handle it right away. Drew was never even ready for me when I came back with my task done. He would fumble and not know what to tell me next. By the end of the second week (already a week past where we were supposed to be) all the paperwork was finally done, mostly because I kept after Drew to get things done. BUT FINALLY, The papers were signed on both sides, and all the loose ends were tied. We were set to close escrow on that Friday.
That is when Drew went MIA. I did not have keys, I did not have access to the marina, I did not have any further instruction on if we actually closed escrow or not. He just stopped returning my calls. A few days went by, and he told me he was busy and could not meet until the following week to finish closing... That is when I called the boat owner John myself. John was even more confused than I was. Drew was supposed to be in communication with John as well, and John was under the impression that the sale did not go through for some reason, because he never heard back from Drew. John thought we did not want to buy the boat anymore, which could not be further from the truth! John was really mad at the broker Drew, and was yelling about what an idiot he was on the phone to me. He even called the broker company and complained about how horrible he was to work with. John and I decided to just meet on our own without Drew, since he was coming back to town to gather his belongings on the boat. John said he would give me his keys and show me around, although we did not tell Drew about this. John set out to drive to San Diego from Arizona after having not been on the boat in about 6 months.
When John got to the boat, he looked around and was perplexed. He opened the fridge and found food and beer and said they did not belong to him. I mentioned his nephew, and John told me he did not have a nephew. That is when I realized the Drew made that whole thing up, most likely to cover the fact that HE WAS SQUATTING ON THE BOAT. No wonder he was delaying the process...he wanted more time to stay on the boat.
I decided to google search Drew at that point, and I found out he was arrested 5 years ago for breaking into a porn shop and stealing thousands of dollars worth of porn videos. Jeez. What a creep!!!
What is interesting is that I never heard from Drew again. He never followed up and told me escrow closed. He never gave me keys. He never even knew I met John myself to obtain access to the boat. He just vanished, which I find so incredulous. How can he be a broker in charge of huge amounts of money at this point? Where was his boss?
I made it a point to sage and clean the boat really well before moving in to clear that strange energy. So thankful everything worked out in the end, but definitely encountered some ridiculous things to get here.
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