Life stranger than fiction...Viper coming home

[69MyWay]

You may want to check on the title thing. My aunt use to work at the DMV . She said that the original title always Trumps a duplicate title. She said that if the original is produced and has been filled out and sighned by both ( buyer and seller)in the appropriate section on the back,( or bottom front on newer titles) then that title is the legal one and the person who is the buyer just has to go to the DMV and pay title fee. The title they recieve in the mail will then be the legal title with that person being the legal owner of the vehicle or vessel. So unless the laws have changed the guy you sold it to is the legal owner even though he has not payed the title fee and had the new title with him listed on the front of title as owner. He posseses the original with his signature as buyer, and your signature as seller ( I am assuming). So that makes him the legal owner. According to my Aunt, there is no time limit as to when he has to pay title fee and register boat as long as he is not using it. Not being negative, just check into it and be sure.

Hydro

Good points, and I admit I don't know for sure either way.

As of this moment, he rejected my offer to buy as is, and has no immediate plans to come get it from my garage and will be out of town several states away for the winter with no way to get it or store it as is.

[kevindw]

Hey Thnat's my F*ckin Boat!

[69MyWay]

Hey Thnat's my F*ckin Boat!

Yep - but you sold it back to me - then I sold it to this other guy, that sold it to his brother's roomates uncle...then back to me - and to you...then back again. BUT NOBODY EVER FILED THE TITLE! LOL

[kevindw]

Lol!!

[hydroholic]

If he has no plans to come get it anytime soon and won't accept your offer, keep up with how many days you have to store it. Check with a few local storage places and find out how much they charge for storage. Average those prices together and present him with a bill along with your cost for picking it up to start with, when and if he comes to get it. After a certain while there are legal ways to file for an abandoned title. You have to place an add in the local newspaper and maybe a few more things, (try and contact him again). Don,t know exactly how it all works, but im sure legaly he should owe you for storage and pick up fee being it is still titled in your name being he has not payed title fee and had it put in his name, making you responsible for removing it from its abandoned state or saying the new landowners could claim ownership.

Hydro

[69MyWay]

Great news - I've worked things out with the fellow that I had sold it to.

Everything is back square. He is going to be keeping the boat - and he has reimbursed my costs to this point.

I did get the bug again though - so I'll be on the lookout for another one!

[69MyWay]

UPDATE! This just gets more and more strange (and cool). Turns out the fellow I sold it to never did anything with the local boat shop and it has been sitting OUTSIDE now the most part of the time since 2011!!!!!! He and I worked out a deal and it is now in my garage to stay. We are doing this. It is ROUGH. I've got a ton of clean up and resetting. The bummer is somebody at the boat shop...and or an unwelcome trespasser stole the SS prop.

Not sure where to start. If I keep the current 1979 115 merc, I've got to get an all new inner cowl and cowl to control wire harness. One of the spark plugs has been out all this time and no telling how nasty the inside of the motor is. The cowling was left off.

The boat is rated to 120 hp. I can't swing a new motor, but I'm seeing many possible used options. My son is now 14 and he is digging it. He came out in the shop last night and tried to polish some of the gelcoat out...and was able to get a shine on in a few spots. He wants to go tubing and knee boarding behind it - and has NEVER done that before.

He was like two years old when we last had it officially.

I'm pretty pumped up about it.

If I salvage this motor...anybody got a good used killer deal on a prop? Seems to me it was like a 24 or 27" pitch...I can't remember, but whatever it was it would hum along nice at top speed.

[dgscroggs]

Wow that's one heck of a story congrats

[nitro_rat]

You’l have plenty of time to straighten out the motor and get a prop while you’re working on the re-core! Good luck!

[tdogcarter]

Wait..it sat at your place for almost 7 years? They never came and picked it up?

[nitro_rat]

Wait..it sat at your place for almost 7 years? They never came and picked it up?

the fellow I sold it to never did anything with the local boat shop and it has been sitting OUTSIDE

The way I read it was the guy got it and took it to a shop and left it there...

[69MyWay]

The way I read it was the guy got it and took it to a shop and left it there...

No - I had hauled it to a boat shop about 7 miles away for him and the shop to work out details on finishing the work the first shop was doing when it all went bad in 2011 - but it had stalled out there.

[69MyWay]

Here is what it looked like over in the boat yard where it had been left this last time. Makes you want to cry. There was organic material growing on the floor! And...yes, the stolen prop.

I'll post some more pics later...the good news is...much of this cleaned up nice. Since the seats are plastic backed...getting them recovered will go smooth. Paint looks to buff out as well.

[nitro_rat]

Well, glad you got it back!

[69MyWay]

Just found a guy about an hour from where I am that has like 70 old mercs and it is his hobby and pastime playing with them. I found a place on-line that sells new wire harnesses. Need to start there after I do a compression test