Skip Gundlach wrote:

Well, really, this is more of a preview than a report...
....(snip for brevity)
..... This offer was accepted. ....We included several conditions:

*An engine survey....
*full survey....
*sea trial...
*Financing...

Knowing that you're up against a lawyer owner here, I hope that your contract
was worded such that he will hesitate to take you to court to force you to hand
over the money, or keep your deposit. I have heard some funny (well, let's say
peculiar) stories about sellers who demanded lots o' cash because the buyer's
conditions were worded "subject to survey" and did not specify that it had to be
acceptable to the buyer only.

When we bought our boat, one of the things I did was to get a "standard sales
contract" from several brokers, go over it with a lawyer, and write up my own
sales contract which accompanied all our offers. Several brokers did not want to
play this game, to which I always replied "OK, there's a lot of other boats for
sale we want to check out, bye." The boat we eventually bought accepted our
contract the second time, although the bank tried to play some funny business.

It never ceases to amaze me the types of games people will play for money.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King