Boat Paperwork - How Much of a Problem Is this ?

[Passage50]

Originally Posted by Adax

Boat history :
- built and flagged in France
- maiden voyage to South America .
- There sold still under French flag
- new buyer brought her to Mexico and left her there to be sold.
- sold to a US buyer who insisted that the French flag should be removed before he would go through with the full purchase. That was done.
- sale fell through .
- the US buyer signed an affidavit that this is so and that he has no interest in the boat in front of a US notary.
- The guy who bought her in Sth America and brought her to Mexico is now selling her again ,now without a flag and with said affidavit .

My questions :

- Is this the mess I perceive it is, if the boat is meant to be a go everywhere cruiser in the future ?

- If it is a mess and potential trouble in the future, is it solvable now before purchase ideally and if so how ?

- In the end I want to end up with a German flag for it .

Any replies appreciated .

Hello;
I understand if the Vessel does not have CE certification it will in most cases not be wise to purchase the Vessel becouse CE certification could be extremely expensive to obtain. Even if the vessel is currently German Flagged it may not have CE certification ---watch out.

[Dragon Lady]

Good Luck Adax after just deflagging a French boat and putting an Australian flag on it, I would talk to the people in the German shipping registry or what ever they call themselves.
Hopefully they will be as helpful as the Aussies were.
If the French flag has been removed and no other has been put on I would think that is a big plus.
Do you have the cert de radiation to prove this has been done?
You say the french papers are perfect but they should have been surended to the French authorities before the cert de radiation was issued so I'd be carefull there.
I would expect you need a bill of sale from the legal owner but should not be hard to get.
Any other countries' papers should be irrelevent of the boat is not flagged to that country.
Again speak to your fellow Germans in the authority they will make or break you.

[redhead78]

I sent the name change and ownership change on the documentation form to the cg with a 92$fee, they said thi was good red