Yacht Brokerage Editing and Proofreading Services

A purchase agreement includes a single line stating the sale is "subject to survey." A survey then finds osmosis blistering in the hull, worn standing rigging, and a generator nearing the end of its service life, and the buyer and seller discover they have never actually agreed on what "subject to survey" was supposed to mean when the findings turned out to be real problems rather than a formality. The buyer believes any adverse finding lets them walk away or renegotiate freely. The seller believes only a finding that affects seaworthiness triggers anything at all. Both readings are plausible under the clause as written, which means the clause was never actually doing the job it was there for.

We edit what yacht brokers produce to define what happens after a purchase survey — survey contingency clauses and their trigger conditions, purchase agreement and deposit terms, equipment inventory and condition listings, sea trial and acceptance documentation, and the correspondence negotiating a price or repair credit after adverse survey findings. Our editors work on the clause that has to convert a survey report into an actual, predictable next step.

The defined survey contingency is what determines whether a purchase agreement's "subject to survey" clause does anything, and its failure is a phrase left to mean whatever each party separately assumes until an actual finding forces the question. Subject to survey without stated conditions is not a contingency; it is a placeholder for a negotiation that has been deferred rather than defined, and deferring it to the moment a real finding is on the table is the worst possible time to discover the two parties never agreed on the same thing. We work through these so the contingency states specifically what kind of finding triggers a right to renegotiate, request repairs, or withdraw — any adverse finding, a finding affecting seaworthiness, a finding above a stated repair cost threshold — rather than leaving the trigger to be argued about once a real finding exists; so the process following an adverse finding is stated with actual steps and deadlines, given that a buyer and seller need to know how many days they have to respond and what happens if they do not, rather than an open-ended negotiation with no structure; so the equipment inventory and condition listing that the sale is based on is specific enough that a survey finding can be checked against what was actually represented, because a generic listing makes it hard to tell whether a finding contradicts a specific representation or simply describes wear that was always disclosed; so a repair credit or price adjustment negotiated after a finding states its basis specifically, rather than an agreed figure with no stated connection to the actual cost of the finding; and so a deposit's return conditions are tied explicitly to the survey contingency's actual terms, given that a dispute over a deposit is, underneath it, usually the same undefined contingency dispute wearing different clothes. Agreements written this way mean a survey finding leads to a process both parties already agreed to, not a negotiation from scratch.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including survey reports, purchase terms and negotiation correspondence. We are editors rather than yacht brokers, marine surveyors or maritime attorneys, and we offer no view on survey findings, purchase terms or contract enforceability. What we can do is make sure the contingency actually defines something.