Buying a yacht in storage

• Yachting

There is nothing more beautiful than a voyage on board of your own yacht with your family and friends. This is a lot of emotions, vivid impressions, a wonderful change of scenery and an opportunity to see new places. However, only high officers in large companies can afford such a luxury. What could be resolution of this problem?

Interlegal lawyers have been practicing in yachting industry for many years and have found perfect solution for those to whom the price is inconvenient. Having split up the yacht cost into 3-5 parts, you can get all what you want, as well as some other advantages – we will discuss them below.

Purchasing a yacht in a pool is an alternative that everyone will appreciate. This is an opportunity to facilitate joint ownership and joint operation of a yacht by pooling the capital of several owners.

Main advantages of this ownership scheme are the following:

- Saving costs when buying a yacht;

- Joint ownership and joint operation of the yacht;

- Distribution of costs for her further maintenance.

Having analyzed such an option of purchase, it is necessary to take into account some legal nuances and to foresee who will be legal owner of the yacht. Details are set below.

There are two options for registering the title owner:

1) The owners are natural persons

In this case, the yacht registration documents will contain full details of all owners and shares of the yacht belonging to each one.

2) The owner is a legal entity

In this case, the column Yacht Owner will indicate a legal entity incorporated by several natural persons.

In our opinion, the last option is the most attractive and convenient for all parties to the agreement to buy a yacht in a pool, for the following reasons.

The first stage is incorporation of the company – yacht owner.

At this point, Interlegal yachting lawyers are ready to offer you several tax-free and low-tax jurisdictions that will allow owners to maintain confidentiality both in the process of closing sale & purchase deal and during subsequent operation of the yacht. While opening the company, all participants will receive shares to be correlated in cash with their equity contributions to the yacht purchase.

It should be noted that some flags of convenience impose restrictions on nationality of the owners. Therefore, often the only way to register a yacht under the desired flag shall be incorporation of the company in a jurisdiction acceptable to the ship register.

The next stage is to fix in detail procedure and terms for the yacht operation by several owners, for example, distribution of costs for the yacht maintenance and the number of days for her operation by each owner. For this purpose, owners may enter into a separate shareholder’s agreement, governed by the English law and based on maritime legal relations, in order to prevent misunderstandings between shareholders during the yacht operation.

Due to combination of expertise both in maritime and corporate law, Interlegal yachting lawyers can pay proper attention to achievement of the desired result by their clients in purchase and further operation of the yacht.

Valeriia Fetysenko

fetysenko@interlegal.com.ua