One of my friends was Commodore Commanding Chittagong Region (Bangladesh). Sadly, he passed away last year. He told me quite a few stories from his naval service. He started in the Pakistan Navy and transferred to the Bangladesh Navy after independence in 1971.
Bangladesh's first Frigate was the HMS Llandaff, a Salisbury class (Type 61) frigate, which was purchased (cheap) from the UK in 1976.
The Commodore (I can't recall his rank at the time) traveled to the UK with a skeleton crew to take possession of a ship. It wasn't certain which of the class of Frigates they would get at this point. Luckily the Commodore was able to become friendly with the responsible British officers and was steered towards the best frigate.
The British Naval officer's advice was to take a "hot" ship i.e. one which was still crewed and with the engine running and, importantly, spares for the engines and other equipment on board. This is very important since some ships have pathological problems and equipment at the end of it's service life. I believe there are some countries which don't even allow an inspection prior to purchase (is this the US?). Say hello to your rust bucket!
In the end the British helped the Commodore out by giving him as many spares from stock as they could. The Commodore and his crew had a jolly time sailing the ship back to Bangladesh where she is still in service, taking part in the recent search for the lost Malaysian airliner.