Joint Registration and other befuddlements

[whiskerstay]

My girlfriend and I are just about to buy our first boat together. Having no experience whatsoever involving the actual ownership of a yacht, in this case a classic one, we're a bit baffled about where to find out important information such as transferrance of ownership etc.

Particularly, we want to know if it's possible to jointly register the vessel, as proof that we both own her together. I have a feeling it might not be, in which case we would probably have to form a limited company and register her under that. What a happy couple, eh?!

Any advice, or an answer to the question, would be gratefully received.

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[Robin]

The boat will probably be registered already and yes you can register joint owners, shares are in 64ths, sole owner has 64 x 64ths. Ask the seller or broker if/how she is registered ie if Part 1 or more simple SSR.

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[KeithH]

There is a book "RYA book of buying your first sailing cruiser", by Malcolm McKeag, which is well worth reading. Covers a lot of legal issues, and certainly helped me avoid some problems.

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[whiskerstay]

Aha, thanks very much. I believe she's registered Part 1. Presumably, my girlfriend and I would have Does anyone know of a website which contains useful information for people like me who know nothing about buying boats?

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[whiskerstay]

RYA Book

Ordered. Thanks for that, Keith...

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[bedouin]

Yes - you can joint register. Either as joint owners of all 64 64ths, or as each owning 32 64ths. For husband and wife, the former is usually recommended (rather like jointly owning a house)

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[snowleopard]

reason for joint ownership of 64 shares rather than 32 each is that if one partner dies, in the latter case there is a transfer of ownership of the boat while in the former case there is not.

changes of ownership cause official busybodies to take an interest, e.g. enforcing CE marking, claiming VAT or some such public nuisance.

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[extravert]

Make sure you get at least 33/64ths and she gets 31 of them. Then you will always have the casting vote on 'new sails or new upholstery' decisions, whether it needs curtains or not, how many cushions are required etc. Otherwise SWMBO will just come out with the reply 'It's my boat too' at you again and again.

Tell her 32 is an unlucky number at sea or somethinng.

<hr width=100% size=1>Adventures of the VAT unpaid <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.xrayted.fsnet.co.uk>Teddy Bear Boat</A>