OK, so here's the story, and I hope it helps people in the future. If you and your spouse buy a boat, you should be sure that you buy it Joint With Right Of Survivorship (JTWROS). If you do not do that, and one spouse dies suddenly, the other spouse will be stuck unable to sell the jointly-owned property (boat, house, car, whatever) until all of the heirs of the other spouse have signed off on the sale. That is what has happened so far with this boat purchase.

The owner, a very nice man, bought the boat with his wife - a younger woman who had a grown child from a previous marriage. They enjoyed their delivery cruise, and fixing up the boat to be a comfortable retreat from their high-pressure jobs, and things were great, for a while. But the young wife was suddenly diagnosed with a virulent and rare form of cancer; they put the boat up for sale when she went into the hospital, at a high price, hoping she would survive and either they would get the high price or the boat would be still waiting for her when she was cured. But the operation didn't help her enough, and she passed away.

Her husband was shocked and devastated, and had a lot to think about beyond just the boat. So things stayed for many months; the boat was listed with the dealer, slip fees and mortgage payments on the boat kept coming out of the owner's account but with everything else to deal with, he wasn't really thinking about it that much; he didn't want to go back aboard, even, because it reminded him too much of his wife and their happy times - too brief! - together.

People looked at the boat, but the economy was headed south, and no one offered to buy. Note that this boat is an older vessel from the UK, the shipyard that built her is long out of business, and the hull was designed for a single diesel engine in a nacelle: what she HAS is twin diesels that basically take up space from the catamaran's living area, so she's also not as roomy as most cats of her size. However, what she is, is strong and redundant -- safety factors we value over the extra 36 cubic feet of space (approx) the two diesels take out of the living area.

Finally, about 18 months later, we came along, and her twin diesels and conservative design (narrow beam for a cat; solid deck) appealed to us. Her sister vessels have circumnavigated and hold up well over time. So we made an offer: what we could afford, minus the amount we thought it would take to refit for cruising. And now we are waiting while the legalities of the JT without ROS work their way through the courts. The judge will probably allow the boat to be sold to us next week; the owner and his wife's heir will have to then settle who owes what to whom. It has taken months longer than expected, but now it's expected that it will finally be resolved. Wish us -- and them -- luck.