Kerry:

I stayed at the ex-wife's apartment last night and slept on a LayZBoy rocker.

With that out of the way...

A few years ago, I sold a Monte Carlo, for $400 cold, to an acquaintance. I removed the plates, signed the title over and THEN, I took all the paperwork down to a local store where they had copier-service available, COPIED EVERYTHING-INCLUDING THE $$$$BILLS, THEN I gave the person the keys, title and a blessing and wished "it" well.

A few months passed and I get a letter from the city to my south asking me to either pay my parking tickets or the whole matter is getting sent to Madison for all sorts of fun.

I picked up my file of "Monte Carlo" and headed down to the cop-shop and the ADA that sent out the nice notice.

I showed them everything, in chronological order and even gave them copies of my copies.

Turns out, my acquaintance never registered the vehicle, just slapped a "LAF" card-board on the plate holder and drove it into the ground...all the while running up PTs and such. And since I had the BOS, I was able to provide them with a name and address to go along with the misdeeds.

They couldn't believe I had the paperwork, but I knew who I was selling it to and I had this "feeling" that I should expect some stink being possible. Thank DOG I had "masked up" for that.

Now, in your case, as long as you have some semblance of paperwork to prove you no longer own said boat, and you, hopefully, have paperwork to show the transference of the storage obligations to "new owner" of the parts-ship, it sounds like you're on stronger footing then the NO or the marina.

HOWEVER, one thing that no one else seemed to mention here...

Are maritime-laws, being that we're talking ships and such, the real players in deciding what gets scuttled and who get keelhauled?

A few years back, our company spent 3 days doing depositions concerning the "illegal harvesting of timber" - and in Wisconsin, considering that fact that the majority of this state was nothing more than timber, alot of laws from the 1700s-to-the-present are still on the books about lumber and its disposition...sorta' like cattle-rustling in Texas and out west and probably, shipping and the like along the East and West coasts. Those lumber, cattle and shipping Barons didn't get to be barons because the law was on the side of the common man. You might want to make sure an attorney or "thrix" is looking out for your backside.

Remember, no good deed goes unpunished and in your case, Mr. Scavenger is leaving your good name all over the eastern sea-board. And the handshake isn't all it's cracked up to be.

This isn't your grand-daddy's world anymore.

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M. G. Burg
'10 - Dakota SXT - Daily Ride / ≈ 172.5K
.'76 - 450SLC - 107.024.12 / < .89.20 K
..'77 - 280E - 123.033.12 / > 128.20 K
...'67 - El Camino - 283ci / > 207.00 K
....'75 - Yamaha - 650XS / < 21.00 K
.....'87 - G20 Sportvan / > 206.00 K
......'85 - 4WINNS 160 I.O. / 140hp
.......'74 - Honda CT70 / Real 125
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“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~

It's a win-win for the op and the buyer. The op gets some $$$ and washes his hands(he hopes) of the boat and the buyer gets some parts on the cheap.

The loser is the marina, someone has to pay for the storage and disposal. The old and new owners are going to point fingers of blame at each other while the marina keeps getting shafted. I don't know the numbers involved, but logic dictates that the new owner wasn't going to pay for storage and never had any intention of doing so. All he wanted was some cheap parts, not to pay storage on a worthless hull.

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"I was a dirty bird, Carol's not grungey - she's *****in" John Milner....American Graffiti