Carefreecruising Reviews 3

A Cautionary Tale

I bought into a boat share with Carefree Cruising in 2009. Initially, things appeared to be in order, and I looked forward to being part of the syndicate. On my first opportunity, I visited their office to introduce myself to the team and the company owners—something I saw as a gesture of goodwill and enthusiasm. I was met, however, with a level of indifference that bordered on outright rudeness, which I found both unprofessional and unsettling.

Over the years, their service declined significantly. Emails often went unanswered unless I followed up two or three times. When reporting faults or issues with the boat, I was frequently told no problem had been found, even though these issues clearly persisted, in some cases for over a year. In several instances, I was informed that problems had been fixed, only for the same faults to re-occur shortly afterward.

Worse still, we discovered we were being charged for work that was either never done, poorly carried out, or grossly overpriced. I recall one particularly egregious example where we were charged something like £50 for what turned out to be the replacement of a single screw. Some of the so-called “repairs” were so substandard they verged on dangerous.

Eventually, our syndicate decided enough was enough. That’s when we discovered just how one-sided the contract was, which was completely weighted in Carefree’s favour and not fit for purpose. Even more concerning was the fact that the company’s owners held a share in our boat, preventing us from switching management companies without navigating serious legal and contractual hurdles.

Our only real options were to initiate costly legal proceedings, beyond the financial reach of most, or attempt to secure a 90% syndicate agreement to sell the boat. Even when we finally decided to sell, we were locked into using Carefree’s brokerage services, which again they gained from. The sales process was painfully slow, requiring constant chasing, and once a sale was agreed, it still took 6 to 8 weeks to receive the proceeds, despite the transaction being simple enough to resolve within a week.

I was heartbroken to let the boat go, but I have since joined a new syndicate run by a much more reputable and transparent company, where members vote annually on whether to continue using the management services. It's a refreshing contrast and a reminder of how things should be done.

Sadly, I found the owners of Carefree Cruising to be rude, obstructive, and unprofessional, from our very first interaction through to the final sale. In my opinion, this is a dishonest and poorly managed company, and I strongly advise others to steer clear. What may seem like an attractive offer at first could ultimately become a costly and stressful experience.

When I was looking for a share in a Narrowboat I selected Carefree Cruising (CC) The monthly maintainence payments were a little higher than other management companies and self-managing boats the cost to buy a share was unbelivably low. (This was the tail end of Covid). I did as much digging and due dilligence as i possibly could, looked at a couple of boats and eventually bought a share.
From the very outset I was struck how calls to CC were rarely returned quickly, if at all and I felt that I had to chase them at every stage. The over reliance on group e mail adresses rather than being able to deal with a named person or contact was, looking back and indicatior of the poor customer service to come.
After our first trip we attended the AGM which was virtual, and the meeting was chaotic. It took many hours as another boat was having their AGM at the same time. We had general agenda items first then financials, the other boat had finacials and then general admin. The CC representitives swapping mid way through. Artie Chalmers was the financial expert, and he was getting a grilling in the other meeting so ours decended into chit chat. During this time the Syndicate Manager suggested we set up a whatsapp group to keep in touch. We duly set this up after the meeting and it became invaluable for what was to come. All owners were invited to the group, including the Chalmers who were fellow owners in our boat as well as being owners and Directors of CC, Elton Moss who builds all of the CC manged boats and Boatfinder Brokerage who eventually sold the boat. They quickly removed themselves from the group. What struck me was that at no point was a vote taken about the provision of management services. CC assumed that all was well and they had the right to manage OUR boat in perpetuity.
What became clear from the whats app group was that we were all suffering mechanical and elecrical breakdowns. The response on each occasion from CC was apathetic at best. Despite their claims on their website that they were 'A cut above the rest', reality could not have been further from this.
One occasion we were left overnight with no electricity, toilet or services of any kind. The mobile external contractor who attended towards the end of the next day described what they found after the CC team had previously attended as 'abhorrent'.
We chatted on the whatsapp group and decided to ask CC for an EGM. We dusted off our share agreements to remind ourselves of what support we needed. The CC share agreements, it became obvious, are designed to protect the Chalmers. Not syndicate members. Anything the syndicate wants to acheive outside of the normal running of a syndicate requires an onerous majority, however on this occasion we had such majority! The EGM was called and we stated our case. The CC position ranged from defensive to combative. They did agree to undertake some additional work (for which the syndicate was charged) and we all moved forward feeling that we had alerted them to our disquiet, effectivley 'putting them on notice' that things needed to change. Over the next year we moved marina and things carried on much the same. We started to talk about moving the boat away from CC to another management company. Around this time another boat had acheived the escape and jumped ship to BCBM. Following a majority from the rest of the syndicate I contacted BCBM who attended a virtual meeting with us which was like a breath of fresh air. Where CC had been evasive, surly and arrogant, BCBM were transparent, customer focussed and friendly. They clearly had a quality service that spoke for its self. They put us in touch with the boat that had escaped CC to allow us to idnentify a path to escape.
We discovered we were not alone! We tried the same aproach holding a vote which reached the required support but as CC Directors were also shareholders in our syndicate we reached stalemate. One of these Directors made a less than professional call to BCBM, their competitor and BCBM advised us thay would not be in a position to assist us with the Directors of CC still in the syndicate. The Chalmers thought they had us 'over a barrel'. We looked at all options and with heavy herts at the next AGM agreed to sel our beloved boat and siband our equally beloved syndicate. CC Dragged the process out for another 6 months. There was no vote to appoint a broker, you guessed it Boatfinder Brokerage were summoned. At no time did any Director express an interest. We did not raise issue as we just wanted to rid ourselves of this toxic group of companies. The Chalmers have been responsible for smashing a highly functioning syndicate of people who had seen through the smokescreen and know what a dreadful company CC is. Its run for the convenience of its Directors and senior staff. Its proceses are analouge at best!

In October 2020 we achieved our retirement dream and bought a share in a narrowboat through Carefree Cruising. We fell for what they told us which was reiterated in their glossy brochure “ Cruising doesn’t get any better than this “ followed by we “ We care for you and your investment “ Can I just say at this point if you are reading their same glossy brochure PLEASE think twice !!
Promises were broken almost immediately. We were told we would receive monthly accounts… not done…. In fact sometimes it was 3 months before we knew where ours and the rest of the syndicates money was going. Invoices of what our money was being spent on…. non existent. Repairs bodged on turnaround, breakdowns for the majority just too numerous to mention here. By the end of October 2024 the syndicate had had enough, we tried to switch to another management company who bent over backwards to help us out but unfortunately for us the directors of Carefree Cruising owned a share of our boat, Bittern, and blocked our move. We then called an EGM and the vote went through to sell Bittern. We then discovered that the brokerage we had to sell through was Boatfinder Brokerage again owned by the directors of Carefree Cruising ( hard lesson learnt we didn’t read the small print) now a year on we have finally sold Bittern and received the funds from the syndicate accounts. One of our members had to threaten legal action before they were paid out. To this day we have never been sent the invoices for the amount that was spent on Bittern in order for her to be made ready for sale nor have we received a final statement of accounts.
There are a couple of really good narrowboat management companies out there that want the very best for their syndicates but Carefree Cruising, in our experience, is definitely not one of them.