Buying at a boat show: no cooling-off, and when the boat becomes your risk

boot Düsseldorf runs from 23 to 31 January 2027, and with it starts the part of the year in which boats are bought under hall lighting and not on a pontoon. The show price ends on Sunday, the contract is on the counter and the motor boat is standing next to it, polished. Two questions tend to come up on the way home after buying. Is there a cooling-off period? And from when is a boat that will be delivered in April actually my risk, so from when do I need insurance for it? British and Irish buyers will find that the answers are much the same on both sides of the Channel, because they go back to the same European rules.

First, cancellation. The fourteen day right to cancel exists for distance contracts and for contracts made away from business premises. Under regulation 5 of the UK Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, business premises include movable retail premises where the trader carries on business on a usual basis. The EU directive behind this definition, Directive 2011/83/EU, says in its recitals that market stalls and fair stands should be treated as business premises if they meet that condition. The Court of Justice of the European Union held on 7 August 2018 (C-485/17) that a trade fair stand counts where a reasonably well informed consumer could expect to be approached to buy there. Germany's Federal Court of Justice applied this on 10 April 2019 and refused a right of withdrawal (VIII ZR 82/17). On a stand where boats are plainly being sold, a signature is therefore normally binding at once.

Second, risk. Signing does not make the boat yours to lose. Under section 29 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, goods remain at the trader's risk until they come into the physical possession of the consumer or of a person the consumer has named. German law says the same in section 446 of the Civil Code: risk passes on handover. If the dealer's shed burns down in March, that is the dealer's loss. The picture changes when the buyer personally commissions the carrier and that carrier was not one the trader offered; then risk passes when the boat is delivered to the carrier. So the boat becomes your risk on the day of handover, and that is the date that matters to a hull policy, not the day of signature and not the first launch.

What follows for the contract of insurance? Ask the insurer to put the handover date in the schedule as the start of cover, and to move it if delivery slips. Check that the policy applies ashore and in transit as well as afloat, because a new sports boat often spends its first weeks on a trailer or in a yard. If a haulier delivers the boat, find out whose insurance answers for the journey and get it in writing. And note the difference between the two contracts signed that week: the purchase on the stand is usually final, while a consumer insurance contract normally comes with its own cancellation period.

Then the sum insured. Find out whether the wording pays an agreed value or the market value at the time of loss, because for a new boat the invoice is the evidence either way. Use the whole invoice. Show packages tend to arrive on a separate sheet, and in many policies a trailer, an outboard engine, a tender or water sports equipment are insured only if they are declared with their own values. An item that appears on the invoice and not in the schedule may simply not be insured. Send the hull identification number and the engine serial number as soon as they are known, since those are the first things asked for after a theft.

In our experience a purchase at a show is not a bad purchase, but it is one with fixed consequences, and they are the same for a motor boat, a sailing yacht, a RIB or a jet ski. Put the date and place of handover into the sale contract, say who arranges transport and list what is included. Which law governs a contract signed with a German dealer in Düsseldorf depends on the contract and on where the trader directs his business, so read that clause before signing. And take the insurance quotation home from the show with the handover date already entered, while the figures are still in front of you.