I'll try to make the whole story short.
Recently a friend called me, he's terminally ill and wants to hand me over his
boat.
The
boat is a 51"
steel boat, 30 tons, around 50 years old. Over the last few years I've sailed with her in
Europe, over the Atlantic and in the
Caribbean, so I know she's got some PROBLEMS (capital letters) but nothing which is not fixable and she definitely
sails. I've already had some nightmares about owning the boat ;-), but I like her and I wanted to get my own boat in the next two years anyway. Just a bit smaller, more lightweight, etc...
The problem is that the boat is registered on his name in the
Netherlands in the Kadaster there.
The Kadaster only accepts deeds signed by Dutch notaries to change the owner (At least that's what they've told me on the
phone, they weren't too helpful). But the
current owner is on the Bermudas, I'm in
Colombia and the boat is in
Guatemala. I've got French and Swiss Nationalities, so I should be able to have the boat registered in the
Netherlands.
Latest in December the boat needs to leave
Guatemala for 3 months. Right now he's looking with a notary in the Netherlands what could be done. But as it seems so far, it will be a long and tedious process without anybody being in the Netherlands themselves (He will not travel there).
So my questions would be:
- I guess changing the owner in the registry is necessary? Anything else would call for disaster in the future?
- What kind of papers will I need to sail out of Guatemala? Are some signed contracts, showing that I'm the new owner, enough?
- Is there anything else we need to think about?
- Anybody knows an easy solution?
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