In response to your letter and Mr. Luttrell's assertions please note the following information: 1. Mr. Luttrell wants to pay Port Charles Harbor $244.80 out of my escrowed monies. Please be advised that on February 4 I received an email which identified Rich Luttrell as the other recipient. The email was from Mr. Paul Hopkins, owner or manager of Port Charles Harbor.in the message, Mr. Hopkins states clearly that he voided the invoice that Mr. Luttrell claims needs to be paid on my behalf. Here is the quoted email, "Rich and Eric, Port Charles Harbor will void invoice #2133 for the time that we had in preparing the 29 Dyer for a survey. We will not be billing the owner of the boat, Luttrell Marine, or Eric Dobbyn. Sincerely, Paul Hopkins". I will be happy to forward the original email from Mr. Hopkins and you can back it up with a call to him I suppose. 2. Concerning Mr. Smith's invoice please note for the record that he refused to do anything on my behalf until his contract was signed. I signed it and emailed it to him in the late afternoon of January 4 which was after he alleges having worked for me. I have an email record of this. Further please note the first item on his invoice - this was a phone call of inquiry that I made to him to see if he could and would be good at surveying the vessel. I hope I do not need to point out how absolutely ludicrous that is. Further, he mentioned nothing about charging me for anything he did up to the point where I cancelled the contract. Also, please note that the gentleman was hired to survey the vessel and it was to be billed per foot. No survey took place, no report verbally or written was ever provided and no fee was ever noted at any time prior to January 4th when I signed his contract for survey. If Mr. Smith wishes to pursue a claim against me for his invoice that is his prerogative. It is not, however, up to Mr. Luttrell to decide. 3. Concerning Mr. Luttrell's statement that I altered the sales contract and initialed places on the contract after the fact and was never accepted by Luttrell Marine as he states in paragraph IV. Please be advised that I had in fact made modifications to his contract with appropriate initialls acknowledging each one. Mr. Luttrell after being asked by me to please acknowledge the changes with initials and email it back to me so that we had a fully executed contract, refused. I will say three things about this. 1. The contract document was never fully acknowledged by the parties and therefor was never a viable contract. 2. I can prove to you that I did not alter the contract after the fact as Luttrell put it. I can do that by forwarding you my original emails to Luttrell with the attached document as it was sent to Luttrell at the time. I can forward emails of each time a modification was made by me, scanned and emailed to Luttrell. 3. Had Mr. Luttrell acknowledged the changes we discussed and I entered onto the contract with my initials by initialing himself and emailing it back as I had repeatedly asked, I would have felt a lot better about going forward with the purchase. 4. Mr. Luttrell also refused to indicate to me any official identification for the vessel such as hull number. I had asked for this for a week and he never provided it. I required this to be able to do a background check on the vessel and title search for the closing. Through my own investigation I was able to determine that it was not purchased from the Great Lakes as Mr. Luttrell said and in fact vehemently asserted - that vessel looked similar in the records but was not her. This vessel was purchased in Florida which makes a big difference in value and condition. I would have felt much better about proceeding with the purchase had Mr. Luttrell provided the hull number. It is customary that the contract for sale indicate either a hull number or the vessel's name if federally documented or both. 5. Mr. Luttrell indicated to me, or let it slip more accurately after I signed the contract that he was fully aware of the leaking fuel tanks and had been for some time. I asked two or three times prior to signing the contract if he had knowledge of any major defect in the vessel. The fuel tank issue is not just an expensive repair ($5,000-$10,000) but also presented a real hazard both environmentally and in personal risk to those who would be performing the sea trial on my behalf. This item absolutely should have been disclosed prior to Mr. Luttrell accepting an offer to purchase. He did not make such disclosure yet had full knowledge. 6. Concerning Luttrell's statement that I slandered him please note that it is my understanding that slander can only exist if misrepresentations and lies have been stated. I have never slandered this individual or his business. Also, please note that I was not the first to use cuss words. Mr. Luttrell ripped into me pretty good on the telephone at one point. 7. Mr. Luttrell's ascertion that I was acting as a broker is false. Absolutely false. I may have fixed the vessel up and resold her as I sometimes do but I was thinking of bringing her here to the Dominican Republic. After I cancelled the contract that was never really a contract I informed Mr. Luttrell that I knew someone that might want the vessel in Massachusetts. Actually there were two people I spoke with who were interested. He made no further inquiry so I guess he had already found a buyer.
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