I just put my horse up for sale and the first people that came to try him loved him and gave me a deposit pending pre purchase vet exam. It has been a week since they gave the deposit and I still don’t have a date for a pre purchase. The dad, who isn’t a horse guy, and currently working in another country is the one trying to set up the appointment but is really struggling. Their vet is an hour a way, and said he won’t travel that far. All vets over forty five minutes away are refusing to travel, and the ones closer either have a conflict of interest because I’ve used them before, or they aren’t available until the end of June (over a month from the date of the deposit!). The dad has been asking me for any advice and I’ve tried calling places myself but no luck. Do I really hold him for over a month? Do I have to send him to another barn just to get a vet to travel there? I’m really stressed and stumped. Any advice would be appreciated.
I would arrange to trailer him to a barn that a vet will visit but I would charge the buyer for this service - maybe consider waiving it if the sale goes through.
Does their vet of choice do trailer in appointments? Offer to truck to their vet, getting paid for your time and the trucking.
Did you have them sign a purchase agreement? I will not accept a deposit without a signed agreement, and in my agreement I state that the PPE must be completed within seven days of signing.
Without an agreement, it’s really up to you, but you need to communicate clearly what your expectations are. Since you haven’t previously given them a timeframe, I don’t think it would be fair for you to just pull the plug. But it would be reasonable to tell them today, “Hey this needs to be done by X date or the horse is going back on the market.” Yeah, it sucks that they’re having a problem finding a vet, but that isn’t your fault.
Hauling to a more convenient barn or vet clinic will certainly solve the problem of a vet not willing to come out. I would definitely charge for my time/gas/etc.
I also question the “conflict of interest” because you’ve used them before. If they’re not your current, active vet, you just used them a few times or something in the past, they should be perfectly capable of providing the buyer an impartial evaluation.
I would haul the horse to a clinic (or other location) at the potential buyer’s expense at this point. If you’re in a remote location and no neutral vets can get there it might just need to happen to get the deal done.
I sent the dad a prepurchase agreement which I signed. He sent me a deposit. He never sent me back a signed copy of the agreement.
It might end up that way but it’s a last resort as the horse is young and only trailered once. I would hate to have something happen to him trailering him a long distance just for a prepurchase 
Is your local vet willing to do the PPE with a signed form from both parties, so that the buyer knows you have used them?
I did that once. I use the same vet as the seller and I wanted to use my vet. The vet was fine with it, if I was fine with it. We all signed that we knew this vet has done work for the seller before, they agreed to have the vet records as part of the PPE, all were happy. (Disclaimer, this was a low priced horse.)
Until you have a copy of the signed agreement in your hand, I’d be guessing all bets are off. No attorney here but I would want a signed copy of the repurchase. I would also like something signed, if you decide to trailer someplace for the prepurchase, who pays for what, what services would be rendered and what happens if there is a problem getting to/from the prepurchase location.
You are going to have the same problem with any buyer, since it’s about your geographical location.
I guess it depends how badly you want to sell the horse. If it was a problem for this buyer it’s likely to be a problem for another buyer.
Bingo.
This is pretty common for local sales in my area. There are a limited number of decent horse vets locally so chances are vet has seen any given horse before.
The OPs situation is different in that the buyer doesn’t sound local so I can see where that might be a hang up. I trust my vet to give me an honest opinion, but I can imagine being wary of a vet that I didn’t have a prior relationship with that the seller did have a relationship with.
OK, may be stepping in it here, but …
… the dad is “working in another country” and is also “the one trying to set up the appointment” … how many time zones away is this “other country”?
What form of monetary device is the deposit? Cashier’s check, personal check, cash? Have you actually deposited it with your own bank yet?
Just going by what you have posted, red flags are waving like mad, to these eyes. Another country. Deposit given without signing anything. Drama over fulfilling the transaction. Insisting on vets that aren’t practical. Looking to you for advice. Always a complicated reason why things don’t proceed, always giving you a lot to think about trying to help.
Working up to a big ask of you, to make this sale work … that will leave you vulnerable to losing money to a scam.
If it were me, I would put a time limit on them completing the transaction. It is their problem to get the vet done, somehow, ,some way. If they can’t organize a vet visit, how the hell can they responsibly care for this horse?
If they don’t have a vet within range, they can waive the issue of conflict of interest, and rely on an honest vet. Not hard to do.
Why is dad the only one who can act, when dad is so far away?
If at each turn, you get a new complicated story as to what is the roadblock this time, my guess is that you need to end this immediately and walk away while your own finances are still intact.
I get that sometimes horse transactions are long distance, with unusual circumstances, and can be complicated while still being legit. But this story just sounds like a ramp up to the cons that are running rampant around the sale of horses and other farm animals these days.
This is what I was thinking also. I would try and arrange shipping to a clinic at buyers expense as others have mentioned.
Also, had a similar experience and essentially I had ‘first dibs’ on the horse but the seller still showed the horse to any other interested parties until the sale finalized.
@MSEF_equine, Who actually came to try the horse? How much was the deposit? And how was it sent? I want to say return their deposit & wish them good luck in their future equine endeavors. BUT NOT SO FAST IN THIS CASE! It’s not clear the deposit actually exists. I’m with @OverandOnward – something smells fishy. This may be a scam. If it was a check & you have not cashed it, maybe void & mail it back. If any sort of electronic funds transfer was involved, I suggest calling your bank’s fraud department & asking them how best to proceed. There are ways of perpetuating fraud on what are popularly considered virtually fraud-proof instruments like cashier’s checks.
Fwiw, my vets will travel an hour. Between the traffic & the state of the backroads in this county, an hour is nothing. Have you checked to see if their vet actually exists? If it were me, I’d inform the dad that I intended to call their vet for a reference & see what kind of reaction was forthcoming.
Eta: assuming this is the US, I would also run the names of the adults involved through your state’s digital court record search engine & see if anything turns up under their names.
Agree. The non horsey dad in a different country is sketch. Logically there should either be a horsey adult or a trainer stateside. It’s very unusual that there is no one else.
At minimum do not, I repeat, do not refund any deposit until you confirm with your bank that they are 100% positive that the original deposit is completely clear with no chance of it being returned NSF. Take no chances on this. Get the employees identifying information; speak with a manager, ask what your FI will do if they are wrong and it does get returned. Be a Karen! I have seen instruments returned 21 days post deposit. I work at a credit union, fraud is rampant.
Better safe than sorry!
I don’t know the whole story on the father working overseas, so I’m going to leave that alone.
If the vets near you either have a conflict of interest or can’t do it until the end of June, won’t that happen with any buyer?
If I were the buyer, I’d consider using a vet with a conflict in conjunction with my own vet to look at X rays.
I do think that if the case is that it’s difficult to get this done sooner in your area, then even if you have a different buyer, you might run into the same issue. It doesn’t sound to me like dad is having trouble arranging it because he’s in another country as much as that everything is booked out.
I was trying to figure out the potential scam.
Of course, it’s return the deposit on a cheque that later bounces.
Sometimes it takes a long time for the cheque to bounce. Months. It’s not like a local cheque bouncing for NSF inside a week.
I would contact the bank. And the vet of choice to see if the father had indeed contacted the vet. If the father has not I would treat it as a scam, stop contact, and sell the horse elsewhere. If it turns out to be legitimate which I doubt you can refund later.
Though you say someone came to try him. Who? Child? Mom? Trainer? Why aren’t the stateside family dealing with this? I would say most mothers, even non horsey ones, are perfectly capable of handling these details and it’s very wierd to have the overseas father in the loop.
We need some details.
If OP lives near the Canadian border it would not be so unusual for a buyer/seller to be in a different country. With the border still being closed, it can make arranging things more complex than usual (typically US/Canada sales are no big deal but that may not be true right now).
This may be a scam but just FYI in some parts of the country cross-border sales are common but may be tricky at the moment.
OP says the people came to “try” this horse in post 1. They seemingly have a vet an hour away. So it doesn’t sound like the classic Nigerian scam. These people managed to ride the horse enough to pass for normal horse people and knew to ask for a PPE and knew the name of a vet in the area. And knew to balk at the idea of using a conflicted vet. There may be something odd here but it could also just be a difficult transaction with the parent out of the country and the horse in a remote area.
