A boat falls out of contract, comes back on the market, and the listing reads exactly as it did before. What does the selling side have to tell the next buyer? Less than you hope, more than nothing — and the gap is the part worth understanding.
We're not brokers or lawyers, and nothing here is legal advice. The statutes and ethics codes below are linked so you can read them yourself, and a question about a specific deal belongs with a maritime attorney.
Disclosure obligations attach to what the selling side knows and can be shown to know. In the states that license yacht brokers, and for members of the industry's professional associations, known defects must be disclosed. But the pre-purchase survey that killed the last deal belongs to the buyer who paid for it — and unless its findings were documented and shared, what the broker formally "knows" can be far less than what the boat's short market history would suggest.
Most states do not license yacht brokers at all. Florida is the standout: its Yacht and Ship Brokers' Act requires brokers to hold a license and post a bond that stands behind their written contracts, with recovery available to a person who suffers a loss from a violation. Elsewhere, the framework is general consumer law plus whatever the contract says — which makes the second layer matter more.
The industry's associations bind their members to disclosure. The YBAA code of ethics and the IYBA's equivalent require members to deal honestly with buyers, disclose known deficiencies that would affect a purchase decision, and recommend an independent marine surveyor to the buyer. Membership is voluntary — plenty of good brokers belong, and nothing requires any broker to. Whether yours does is a fair, easy question to ask.
A pre-purchase survey is commissioned and paid for by the buyer, and the report is that buyer's property. If the deal dies, the report leaves with them. A reputable broker shares what they have — but what they formally have is what was documented for them or shown to them, and a finding mentioned once at a haul-out, never put in writing, decays into he-said-she-said. The structural consequence, no villain required: a boat can fall out of contract over a survey and return to market with no paper trail the next buyer is entitled to. Our whole approach to homework exists because the last buyer's diligence does not come with the boat.
All of it is askable, in writing: Has the boat been under contract before, and what ended it? Is there a seller's disclosure statement, and will the seller complete one? Have there been prior surveys, and will the seller consent to sharing anything they hold? Is the broker a YBAA or IYBA member? None of those questions accuses anyone of anything — they convert "what does the selling side have to tell me" into "what did I ask for in writing," which is the version you control. Then your own survey does what no disclosure regime will: finds out for you.
Sources: Florida's Yacht and Ship Brokers' Act ( Fla. Stat. ch. 326), the YBAA Code of Ethics, and the IYBA's published ethics materials, all public and linked; plus how brokers publicly describe survey ownership and disclosure practice, stated here as practice rather than law. We haven't practiced under these statutes and we did not survey all fifty states' rules — where your state differs, the statute wins and we'd like to hear about it: support@caniloop.net.
If we've got something wrong, tell us and we'll fix it — support@caniloop.net. A correction from someone who has actually run it is worth more than anything we can write.