Ok I don't own it

I'm surprised you didn't show up earlier but glad your on board. My position has always been that I accepted the churches counter offer in writing and with a check. Numerous lawyers have advised me to file a complaint, await the outcome of the investigation and based on that outcome make a decision on a court action to determine ownership. Which is exactly what my freedoms allow me to do. You are free to react as you wish but I believe I have the earliest bill of sale on the vessel in which case if its proven valid I own the boat.

I thought you didn't want to discuss this when you mentioned any further communications going through your lawyer ?

I'd be happy to discuss the mater further however I do intend on filling a proper complaint ( already have once actually ) and letting the authorities decide how to best proceed.

let freedom ring

cheers
B

 

Jim Irwin,
I think that it is a very good thing that you joined the thread to defend your, the seller's, & the new owners' integrity. I also appreciate that you may not wish to discuss details from your perspective, due to possible impending legal issues. You do, however, baffle me in bringing up Memorial Day or the fact that members of your family, including yourself, have served in the U.S. military. I'm not even going to suggest why I think you felt the need to do this, as I'm sure other readers see it for what it is, as well. As well, a small point, while you may feel that some comments on this thread defame you and, therefore are considered by you to be libellous, slander only exists when the defamation is spoken, an impossibility on a forum, although not in a chat room.

Hopefully, when the dust settles, you'll come back & tell us how events transpired from your perspective. I believe you'll find that most, if not all, members of this forum appreciate that there are always two sides to a story & will be accepting of whatever the final outcome is.

Mike

 

Well said Fitter
I'm thrilled you showed up Jim and frankly kinda baffled as to how you think you have been slandered, maligned, libeled or whatever. Till you spilled the beans your name, the churches name nor the other buyers name doesn't appear in the thread as far as I can find, right up until Chris arrived and identified you just a few pages ago, I specifically kept your name out of it till the mater was investigated and settled through the proper legal channels, I also have kept complete records and will be turning them all over to the DA's office when requested for there investigation, you are welcome to tell us all your side of the story but my records clearly indicate that my initial offer was rejected by the church and there counter offer to me was what I agreed upon, you made me an offer and I accepted it. My records are right in front of me and I'm reading your exact words. Who knows maybe you and Chris are palls and he mentioned your name specifically so you might have some leg to stand on, which I don't think you do since it wasn't I or any other forum member but Chris who sought to identify you, which in my mind is a rather obvious effort to protect all involved until the mater is resolved legally. Might want to talk to Chris though if your thinking someone has wrongfully associated you with the events described in this thread. I asked Chris where he saw the boat and he ignored me for some reason. Maybe you are aware of why he wouldn't want me to know of the location. Are you and Chris friends ?

Best of luck but you made a whopping error on this one
cheers
B

 

Jim:

Welcome to the forum. We all enjoy a good exchange of views, contrary or otherwise. I look forward to getting your views on the topic of this thread and I hope you will remain with us and take part in other discussion of interest to you. While not an American I am aware of, and fully applaud article 1 to the US Constitution. I invite you to take full advantage now to represent your own point of view and that of the church.

Some strange ways of doing business have been reported which would seem to violate the concept of equal rights for all would-be purchasers, and I for one would like to see both sides of the story and understand how such a situation might affect me in the future.
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An offer was agreed on a property by potential buyer “A” and owner“B”.
Within a mutually agreed time period a down-payment was made by “A” to “B”.
"B" did not return "A's" payment or commitment to pay which would have allowed them, in my view, to pursue other options in good faith.
“C” made a higher bid to “B” which was not disclosed to “A” and was accepted.
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It seems likely that the bid of “A” was disclosed to an unknown third party “C” or some kind of auction was subsequently conducted.
I do not know if “A” was provided with an opportunity to counter the bid of “C”.
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This is my understanding of the salient points. If correct, it is a new insight on the conduct of business to me. I would have thought acceptance of an offer and an exchange of monies to secure the bid effectively closed the market for subsequent offers no matter how high, leaving a third party free to make an offer to the new owner. I look forward to your further input.

 

After a quick look at old "Jim" here, he is a classic used car salesman. You'll not get much help from him without the aid of an attorney, which I would have aggressively engaged immediately after the apparent problems arose. He'll use every "Carnegie" debating tactic at his disposal, including his above attempt to "defend" the poor maligned church (a classic misdirection) or the buttering of the "intelligent, articulate contributors" on this thread. Dan your best advise, which I've suggested all along, is to aggressively pursue, with court costs and attorneys fees payable by the loser.

He knows he did a client kiting and you have the documentation to prove it, except the 'ol Jim boy here is well connected, which means the SA will likely have already have received a lunch or round of golf over the issue already and likely why he's been dragging his feet. The only way to relieve these types of issues is with lots of well placed noise, which usually requires lawyers, politicians and of course some money. A newspaper ad is often helpful too.

 

I'm just going to sit tight, follow the course prescribed by my lawyer and eventually hope to receive some form of justice. Jim is welcome to explain his side of the story to the group and I welcome his attempts to do so. I have complete documentation of all our interactions and am completely confident that I accepted his counter offer both in writing, with a cashiers check and verbally over the phone. ( guaranteed funds ) before he then sold the boat to someone else. Regardless of price.

I believe that places me as the rightful owner of the boat and I think it completely reasonable that I be awarded the boat through whatever legal avenues are available to me. I'd like to chalk up the delays in the system to simple incompetence and not the result of any type of collusion. I would however love to hear from Chris and find out what exactly his involvement in things are, if he knows Jim, has had business dealings with Jim or if he is perhaps in possession of the boat or knows its whereabouts.

I'd also like to suggest that we give Jim a chance to explain himself. I'd like to believe he made a mistake and that he should correct that mistake. Intentional or not it was an error that is easily rectified by simply turning over ownership of the boat to me the rightful owner as the person holding the earliest contract on the boat. If Jim would prefer to maintain that his contract with me was not valid IE that somehow my accepting there offer to me both in writing, with a check and over the phone does not constitute a valid sale then I think we have a problem.

Terry your understanding is by and large correct other than a few details, Jim did offer to return my deposit check, I however canceled the check the day following his telling me, out of the blue by the way, he had sold the boat to someone else. You are correct in that I was never allowed or offered the opportunity to make a counter offer nor was I ever informed there were other potential buyers. He simple kept insisting he hadn't received the letter with the hard copies in it yet and eventually after a week suddenly the boat was sold to someone else. No negotiations, boat was suddenly gone.

 

Jim just had an opportunity to explain his side, but elected to offer "peer review" scrutiny. I'm more interested in review by third parties, those of the legal persuasion. It would be nice if your case, just "dropped through the cracks" but in this day and age, having a complaint "fall behind the roll top" for a few months isn't acceptable. Just too many checks and cross checks for this now, particularly with electronic documentation, data retrieval and storage. The dates and log in times will eventually come to light and we'll see what's what and what's been scratched out and written over.

I still think noise works best. I once got a crooked judge to take an early retirement. I hired picketers down at the court house and even had a biplane fly a banner over the court house during a trial of a notorious murderer he was handling. The picket signs actually dared him to sue me if my comments weren't true! When the 6 o'clock news runs this a few times, the Governor or state senator calls them up and suggests the "better way to save face", which likely was the case with him and he "retired" 3 years early. I don't think Jim will lose his business, but considering signs of increased sales are just beginning to appear, really crappy PR isn't the best business model for coming out of this down turn and a settlement could be forced, if for no other reason then to "make it go away".

 

Accuracy is important

Boston,
Here's the EXACT e mail that was sent to you on 9/28/10 @ 10:58 AM

"Dan,
You'll be happy to know everything arrived in yesterday's mail (9/25/10).
I'll be returning the check via UPS next week for your signature.

My suggestion to you, now that an attorney has entered the picture as your "Representative", is to review, sequentially, all our e mails.
You have made several offers.
There have been a myriad of e mails with questions, changes, etc..
The last offer you made wasn't even sent as originally discussed, and according to the Denver postmark didn't even get in the mail until P.M. the 20th?

I will vigorously defend myself from any/all accusations and would recommend we part on a friendly basis.

If you chose to continue with the attorney any/all further communications from my end will be via an attorney.

Jim Irwin"

You might want to peruse your thread again.
You have identified me.

If I'd known about this thread I would have responded sooner.

Now that you've threatened a lawsuit again I'm off the air.

Tell your support group they should meet/know someone prior to make rash judgements about motivations/connectione, etc..

Why not post you offer for your friends to view? They can see the reality of the situation you created.

 

Dan: I wonder what state the boat would be in if you ever obtained posession.

Jim: accuracy and completeness of information are more important than veiled threats in innuendos. You haven't actually told us anything. Perhaps with a potential lawsuit it's not in your best interest.

Is this an example of the fog of law?

 

interesting how this went from a group offering me good advice to a support group in about a flash. Its the internet Jim and folks are interested in your side of the story. Which you seem to suggest your willing to tell but then you don't, apparently its not just myself that thinks it a bit fishy.

I think Par might be right and he's just being slippery. He did send that letter and it was "after" he'd sold the boat to someone else even though I'd already accepted there offer, the letter of which he's speaking had the hard copies in it and he was sent photocopies the moment I'd signed as well as of the check. Funds where guaranteed via bank certified check. He kept claiming that funds hadn't arrived and eventually that he'd sold the boat to someone else, then poof the next day he says my paper work arrives and pretends its some kind of offer to the seller rather than it be a contract he wrote up and I accepted. I even offered to pay off the boat in full when he mentioned it was a mater of payments rather than cash in hand. Which I though kinda fishy since he had previously and is now suggesting that it was the hard copies not arriving in the mail. Something is really fishy with this whole thing, first its one reason he's sold the boat to someone else, then its another, seems to me had I not canceled the check after he started waffling I'd probably not ever have seen the money returned, as it is I'm still out a considerable amount and one very unique boat.

There was every opportunity for Jim to verify that funds had been remitted to him in the form of a guaranteed check. There was also no issue with who had made who the final offer until apparently Jim was looking for a way out of the deal. The excuse that the papers had not arrived is irrelevant whether true or not because I'd provided proof of signature in the photocopies sent via Email which constitute a legal document.

Terry I'm sure the boat is not in its previous condition and there is no telling what damage might have occurred between when I bought it and now, Jim has an opportunity to make it right but it doesn't seem like he's willing to do much but go through the excuses again. Letter didn't arrive, My offer to them rejected, cash in full, seems like a litany of excuses to me to sell it out from under me after I'd already signed and sent payment.

Jim type in your last name and do a thread search, the only person to mention your name previous to your entry here is Chris who I for one would really like to hear from

 

and speaking of accuracy I just did another thread search, type in Jim Irwin and see at what point that name pops up

also now that Jim has identified himself and expressed an interest in "not" explaining his side so that if there was any misunderstandings we might clear it up. I gotta wonder if he's not simply aligning his defense at this point. Sorry Jim but I bought a boat fair and square and "someone" sold it out from under me either selling the same boat twice or selling my boat to someone else. I'm a reasonable guy and its been suggested you could make it right but apparently you'd rather not.

cheers
B

 

Jim Irwin,
I'm trying to follow the time-line, by reviewing this thread, in order to better understand where things went side-ways. Obviously, there are details that are not mentioned in this thread, such as your original instructions to Dan regarding the sending of earnest monies(deposit), how to proceed with his offer, etc. .

The thread began on 09-15-2010 at 11:54am (see post #1).
The next post on this thread that refers to the paperwork aspect of this deal is:

Was this a deposit? Or what is, again, referenced by:

Then, of course, we have the post that indicates that things have gone sideways. I also see the reference to your company in this post.

Finally, I reference your recent(Today's)post to this thread(abridged):

Now, when considering the recent boat purchase I made - that I drew an analogy to on this thread - negotiations on several boats over the past two years & previous boat purchases over the years, I wonder what your instructions to Dan were regarding initial offer & deposit, time-frame for acceptance/rejection of counter offer, whether you have a requirement to suspend all negotiations with other interested parties at some point & the requirement which must be fulfilled by a prospective buyer prior to outside negotiations being suspended(ergo, "Sale Pending").

Where you can not draw upon the specifics of this case, perhaps, you could give us a more generic explanation, if only to educate us on how boat sales "work" in your State, as a clearer understanding would be of great value to the members of these forums.

Mike

 

I wanted to get Jim money immediately on the sale, so when the contract arrived I signed it and sent it along with a substantial deposit. Which was the only change in "there offer" that was made. I have been advised that it did not represent a new contract as the terms and conditions remained the same and the purchase price was identical. Also Email is considered a legal form of document transfer so he in fact did have a signed contract and a check prior to his then selling the boat off to someone else.

 

Look Dan, I made a few calls and it's just as I described, he's a professional at talking all around a subject, much like a politician or used car salesman. You'll never get a straight answer, he's been "stretching the truth" about yachts for decades. It's not much of a reach to expect he does the same in other avenues and adventures. It's what he does.

He's had ample opportunity to at the very least, attempt to clear the air by you, let alone make right, but clearly he's about something else, which is becoming increasingly more obvious. He kited the clients (took the money from who he wanted, regardless of time line and/or conditions or verbal or written contract) and now is very likely destroying evidence that could be seized in a search warrant. In his mind you have to prove he intentionally mislead you and you can bet all that documentation is going through the shredder right now. "Oh damn, must have been a mistake the way all those documents got lost, maybe I'll fire my secretary". I'm not sure about the rest of you, but boat brokers are some of the best professional lairs going (in my opinion of course). A classic alpha that gets his way and crushes those that get in his way.

 

a few perfectly reasonable questions to Jim

Did you or did you not bring an offer from the church to me and present it in writing
Did I or did I not accept that offer
Did you or did you not receive Emails as legal documents showing a signed contract on my part and proof of payment
Did you or did you not in fact receive hard copies of those legal documents
Did you deliver the boat

after that who you sold it to is irrelevant
I'm sure they are wonderful people and that these poor folks are just as much victims as I am. All I know it i purchased a one of a kind boat and made some substantial modifications to my life in preparation of ownership. Basically I not only invested money but resigned my position with my employer. Long story short I signed and sent a check and regardless of excuses bought a boat that I never received

Jim if you have some other explanation we are all listening but lacking any reasonable explanation as to exactly what happened I think you owe me the Heida Princess as she stood at the time of purchase.

cheers
B