Re-Flagging UK Part 1 Registered Yacht based in Greece

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photon

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Apologies in advance if this is covered elsewhere! I am considering re-flagging to a Polish Registration from a UK Part 1 Registry. I have both UK and Irish Passport and I wish to go un-hassled by Greek Authorities over VAT or anything else for that matter Boat, which is fully UK VAT paid is berthed in Greece where we intend to cruise again as soon as we are allowed. I have current TEPAI. Any advice welcomed
 
Your going to be told , not to and Polish flag is not legal,
This is info seen to have come from Greece , which in my view isn't correct .

You should be aware Dutch and Belgium is no long available.

All I say is if your intentions of re register is because of Greece and they antics,
And it doesn't get sorted out .
you be just as well to except an LT log and just leave Greece when the transit log expires and return and buy a new log.
It just mean sailing out for 12 miles ,
Take photo of say plotter , or AIS even an electronic log and sail back into Greece
Yes its a pain but hey .
 
photon said:
Apologies in advance if this is covered elsewhere! I am considering re-flagging to a Polish Registration from a UK Part 1 Registry. I have both UK and Irish Passport and I wish to go un-hassled by Greek Authorities over VAT or anything else for that matter Boat, which is fully UK VAT paid is berthed in Greece where we intend to cruise again as soon as we are allowed. I have current TEPAI. Any advice welcomed
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By Fully UK VAT paid, do you mean the VAT was paid in the UK, or the boat was in the UK on the 31st December?
 
There been posting suggesting british boat that register under Polish flag in Greece will be illegal, this came so I lead to believe from Athen .
Personlly I think its crap and just trying to scare people .
I did quite a bit of research and couldn't find any thing to suggest re flaging under another country thats not your country of residence as long as that said country rules are applied to .
You may have to jump throught some hoop , maybe change your insurance company but once then there nothing Athen can do.

There lot of talk amongst cruising sailors about changing their flag , it mostly about Greece , we looked into not because of Greece but more about how British flag boat will be treated, other words if we keep getting boarded and ask for papers , in which case we will probably change flag but not to Poland.

For them in Greece who worried about ended up with a LTL I be more inclined to just sail out ever time the log ends and sail back in .
 
I have also done my research into a Polish flag. It is a recognised vessel registration worldwide and, indeed, I have encountered Polish flagged yachts in various parts of the world. I recall that the last time I was in Croatia I saw many boats carrying a Polish flag.
Applications are made through the Polish Yachting Association (PZZ) but are restricted to boats at least owned 50% by a Polish national (I believe). There are full details on the PZZ web-site.

I am registered under SSR and my boat is presently stuck in India since March 2020. I am presently progressing formalities for Polish residency (my wife is Polish). When my SSR expires I am seriously considering a change to a Polish flag. I will wait and see!
 
photon said:
Apologies in advance if this is covered elsewhere! I am considering re-flagging to a Polish Registration from a UK Part 1 Registry. I have both UK and Irish Passport and I wish to go un-hassled by Greek Authorities over VAT or anything else for that matter Boat, which is fully UK VAT paid is berthed in Greece where we intend to cruise again as soon as we are allowed. I have current TEPAI. Any advice welcomed
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My advice would be very simple. Wait. See what happens. Don't jump the gun. The CA and others are trying to make sense of the situation with regard to UK flagged boats in Greece and to sort it out. You have no urgent reason to change right now and there are plenty of others in the same boat situation as you.
 
SSR have changed over the year once youm
filled in a small form pay your money and wait for its arrival, maintenance MCA taken it over it got a lot more difficult, poven your a UK resident only being able to pay for it by UK bank transfer in your name at the same address as the SSR .
How long will it be before they will also want prove UK vat been paid on the boat, ?
 
sailaboutvic said:
SSR have changed over the year once youm
filled in a small form pay your money and wait for its arrival, maintenance MCA taken it over it got a lot more difficult, poven your a UK resident only being able to pay for it by UK bank transfer in your name at the same address as the SSR .
How long will it be before they will also want prove UK vat been paid on the boat, ?
Click to expand...
I think the SSR is a fantastic facility for leisure craft owners. I wish we had something similar in Ireland. I understand the tighter enforcement can cause problems for genuine cruisers such as yourself but if the integrity of the system is not maintained there's every danger it could be abused and brought into disrepute.
 
We have also been considering reflagging, in our case to a German flag, as my wife has a German passport. An added complication for us is that the boat was home built by the first owner, and our only VAT evidence is a pile of invoices for components.

The issues we have identified are:
1 Getting the German equivalent of an SSR - this appears to be fairly straightforward from Deutscher Segel-Verband. I will need to "sell" my half of the boat to my wife.
2 Getting EU -based insurance, as our insurance company, Navigators and General, despite being a subsidiary of Zurich, will only insure UK-flagged boats. I'd be grateful for any pointers to a helpful, English speaking agent to assist with this
3 Getting a German VHF licence - maybe we can just dispense with the radio, which we hardly use in Greece. I don't know whether having VHF is mandatory in Greece, or for a German yacht
4 How to introduce the German boat to the Greek authorities - the possibilities seem to me to be:
4.1 Simply do the ETEPAI business with the new German registration and maybe a new name. The problem with this is that the boat will not have entered Greece properly. Who knows whether this would be picked up
4.2 Leave Greece as a British boat, spend a night in Albania, then enter formally as a German yacht.
4.3 Tell the Greek authorities what we have done. Who knows how they will react

It would be great to have some input from anyone who has managed any of this.

TonyMS
 
We've reflagged the boat to ?? last winter (I've got a German passport). My recommendation is to not go with the DSV but instead go for the Flaggenzertifikat. Main reason is that it is valid for 8 years and easy to renew. The Flaggenzertifikat has the eagle on the cover and looks very proper, authorities love it. It's in German and English. You only need a self-survey of the boat and two photos and the paperwork can be submitted by email thanks to Covid :) You need to pick a home port (any with a Wasserschiffahrtsamt will do, including on navigable rivers) and have the stickers for this on the boat when you supply the photos. AFAIK it doesn't require that 100% of the boat is owned by a German citizen, only a share, but we didn't have that situation so I'm not sure. The form has fields for multiple ownership.

Radio license was also no problem, bunch of paperwork and another fee. You probably want a MMSI for the DSC radio and AIS/EPIRB if you've got any of those. If your radio/AIS/wotsit hasn't got instructions on how to unlock the MMSI on the internet, there could be an additional fee and hassle with sending the thing to a dealer. I've unlocked ours myself so none of that nonsense.

Oh, for both of the above, you need an address in Germany, as they will only send the paperwork to one such. Friends or family will suffice, probably a MailboxesEtc address too.

Insurance wise we had to switch to Pantaenius Germany, despite initial confirmation from Pantaenius UK that this wasn't needed. That was a bit annoying, but our old Pantaenius UK referred us to them so it was relatively unproblematic, other than them wanting a bunch of forms filled out and photos of the boat, exterior and interior. They did not ask for a new survey, rig inspection or any other hassle. The German inn-sewer-ants cost about 15% more and covers less - notably they do not cover lightning damage unless you have some silly lightning arrestor system that is more aimed at superyachts and not really suitable for a 12m sloop. This was really the only annoying thing about the whole reflagging dance, apart from about €150=200 in fees and new decals.

We have done this last year and been to Greece since. We simply registered anew for the ETEPAI with a new email address, as far as the Greeks are concerned we're a totally different boat that just happens to share the same name, which is certainly not uncommon. Didn't raise any eyebrows and I don't see why it would. If you're already in the country, this would be no different than a boat changing ownership and getting reflagged, which there surely must be a procedure for. As EU boat with EU citizens aboard, the only thing we had to do to "enter Greece properly" was the ETEPAI (online).

Asking the Greek authorities is most likely going to yield nothing but confusion, as they're not always up to date on their own rules or how they should be applied ;-)

Viel Glück :cool:

TonyMS said:
We have also been considering reflagging, in our case to a German flag, as my wife has a German passport. An added complication for us is that the boat was home built by the first owner, and our only VAT evidence is a pile of invoices for components.

The issues we have identified are:
1 Getting the German equivalent of an SSR - this appears to be fairly straightforward from Deutscher Segel-Verband. I will need to "sell" my half of the boat to my wife.
2 Getting EU -based insurance, as our insurance company, Navigators and General, despite being a subsidiary of Zurich, will only insure UK-flagged boats. I'd be grateful for any pointers to a helpful, English speaking agent to assist with this
3 Getting a German VHF licence - maybe we can just dispense with the radio, which we hardly use in Greece. I don't know whether having VHF is mandatory in Greece, or for a German yacht
4 How to introduce the German boat to the Greek authorities - the possibilities seem to me to be:
4.1 Simply do the ETEPAI business with the new German registration and maybe a new name. The problem with this is that the boat will not have entered Greece properly. Who knows whether this would be picked up
4.2 Leave Greece as a British boat, spend a night in Albania, then enter formally as a German yacht.
4.3 Tell the Greek authorities what we have done. Who knows how they will react

It would be great to have some input from anyone who has managed any of this.

TonyMS
Click to expand...
 
photon said:
Apologies in advance if this is covered elsewhere! I am considering re-flagging to a Polish Registration from a UK Part 1 Registry. I have both UK and Irish Passport and I wish to go un-hassled by Greek Authorities over VAT or anything else for that matter Boat, which is fully UK VAT paid is berthed in Greece where we intend to cruise again as soon as we are allowed. I have current TEPAI. Any advice welcomed
Click to expand...
Don't rush into it. Pretty well all the issues here will be irrelevant WHEN we win the EU case on our vat,
If you do change consider that your insurance won't be written in the UK. do you really want to sue in a foreign court? Pants, Germany etc.

Just wait a week or so till we win our case against the AADE
 
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