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Moorings
and House Boats
Whether you plan to live on board or use your barge for weekends and
holidays, it will likely influence your mooring choice and possibly the
amount you pay for your new barge.
Moorings
Moorings are often categorised into 3 different types, Permanent,
Residential and Visitors. Permanent and Residential moorings are for
your exclusive use only, and will be kept vacant for you until your
return, should you decide to go cruising for a few days or even months.
Visitor's moorings when vacant are for any boater use, but often have a
maximum set time stay limit, maybe 12 hours, or 5 days etc. Visitors
mooring may be free of charge are chargeable.
The
longer your barge, the more difficult it will be to find a mooring (and
to moor it!). If intending to do a lot of navigating in the
UK
, the smaller the barge length the better, but this
applies to all boats, not just barges. Mooring a 60ft barge is no
more difficult than mooring a 60ft narrowboat, especially if a bow thruster is installed, but
finding a mooring for an 80ft or larger barge on the
UK
canals will likely be much more difficult,
especially in popular places.
Finding
a good permanent mooring for a barge is often a problem, especially in
and around
London
and other popular cities. Moorings are generally
priced by length, a 60ft mooring in one of
London
's popular dockland marinas will cost over £6,000
per year, but reduces to around £3,500 in some of the slightly further
out dockland marinas. Moorings along the River Medway in
Kent
are popular amongst barge owners, most of these will
be in the £2,000 (half tide) to £3,500 (outside floating pontoons)
region, depending upon location and services. The down side is, it is
salt water which is not
so kind to steel vessels as fresh and that most are
drying out moorings (sitting on mud when the tide goes out), on the
other hand you do not have to worry about emptying toilet tanks, as this
is normally discharged directly into the tidal river.
Most
moorings come with some services, likely water and electric, but some
will have phone lines available, allocated
parking,
pump out facilities and some even have sewage connection. Some moorings
will charge extra for electric usage etc, others include it in the rent.
Many
permanent moorings are classified as non residential only, this may be
because the local authorities refuse
to give permanent mooring licenses or because the mooring operators do
not want live aboards on their moorings. Sometimes these issues can be
overcome by doing some cruising during the year and keeping a low
profile, thus making it look 'non-residential. But more and more mooring
operators are promoting residential mooring because of the natural added
security factor it attracts of having people around 24 hours per day, so
it is increasing more often only the local authorities
who oppose
residential mooring status. Many landlords are
reluctant to sign any formal 'residential' contract, but are willing to
turn a blind eye.
Residential moorings are often available VAT free, but then normally Council Tax
payments may have to be made. Local
authorities vary considerably in their attitudes to residential
moorings.
Another option is to purchase your own mooring. Not such a popular
option, but they do come up from time to time in canal magazines and
local newspapers adverts.
A
further option is to not have a permanent mooring, but to
'continuously' cruise, and use 'visitors' moorings. If you have no
'work' ties etc, this can be a very good economical solution. British
Waterways do not seem to encourage boaters to stay in one place for long
periods at a time without payment, but if you are happy to move from
area to area, this is without doubt the cheapest alternative.
Around
15,000 people are thought to live afloat in the
UK
. Some cruise
continuously, some are permanent and others mix cruising and mooring.
The majority of these people love living afloat and have no desires to
move to 'conventional' dry land homes. Some barge mooring
options in the South East of England area (around London) are listed
under the
Barge
Moorings
web page.
Living
on Board Boats have a comprehensive list of
moorings throughout the UK (not just for live aboards), and also a good
site to visit if thinking of living aboard
www.livingonboats.co.uk
House
Boats
Generally,
new Dutch Barges and wide beam river barges do not come under the 'House
Boat' Category. HM Customs and Excise (Item
2 group 9) states......"Houseboats being boats or other floating
decked structures designed or adapted for use solely as places of
permanent habitation and not having means of or capable of being readily
adapted for, self-propulsion"
Barges
are generally 'capable' of being adapted for self-propulsion
(for example by installing an engine or or a propeller or a mast).
Barges
(and yachts) and are therefore unlikely to be categorised
as houseboats for VAT purposes
because they are either capable of self-propulsion or they can be
readily adapted.
Generally,
there is currently no VAT payable on the private sale of a houseboat.
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Created
28th October 2003
- Last
updated
18 March 2008
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