Hi..
My experience was that New Caledonia provided a way to transfer ownership without incurring sales tax there.
It seems a long time ago now, but mostly because it took two goes to get the boat to
New Zealand - the first trip from Vanuatu was aborted due to bad and worsening
weather and we ran out of time - so I left the boat in Noumea for 6 months, before bringing it to NZ in May this year. So, lots of air miles as well as 2000
offshore miles.
The New Caledonian customs officials were very helpful, and facilitated the transaction without any sales tax/import duty, as neither buyer or seller was a resident of New Caledonia. So, the seller (owners) arrived from Fiji - checked in, then they deregistered (Austrian registration - took a few weeks), I registered the boat in
New Zealand (to a company I set up, as I'm not a citizen)), and we provided the paperwork to the customs official (sale agreement and registration/de-registration documents) and they updated their entry documents to show that the boat came in under the new owner, so that when I checked out as
skipper, there was no questions/issues. I've heard that there can be a time limit for the boat staying in New Caledonia after the transfer, and we were headed for Vanuatu in any case (for cyclone season), but the letter I got gave me 6 months. Next step was to complete the
import paperwork in New Zealand - most people go through an agent (so customs NZ had to set me up as a user for their online system, but they were really co-operative). I paid the
import duty and GST (calculated on the
purchase price). All up it took a bit of time to do the paperwork (for example, getting the Austrian de-registration translated to
English by a translator registered with NZ
government agencies), but I was lucky in that the people I dealt with in New Caledonia and New Zealand seemed to be happy to help me get it sorted. I know enough
school French to apologise in advance. My impression was that the customs in New Caledonia might not be quite so helpful if you did't turn up in person - but I understand there is an agent who can help for a fee...)
Would I recommend
buying a boat offshore to others? Yep - if the boat is what you want and the numbers
work out. My experience was that it is not a difficult process once you can fill in a few forms and have time to
work things through with the customs folks. Getting the boat to NZ took longer and cost me more in flights than I anticipated, and I had to upgrade some things for a serious
passage which many local gulf cruisers can survive without. (After 4 days sailing into reinforced
trade winds, I decided that a dry
cockpit was a happy
cockpit, and got a
sailmaker in Noumea to make up removable sides for the
bimini - makes
Winter sailing more comfortable too).
Overall was it worth the trouble? Well - I got the boat I wanted and importing it legitimately and only paying tax in NZ saved a bit of
money and had a side-effect - I started off without much sailing experience, and now I've got 2000 miles offshore experience - some of it in pretty uncomfortable conditions, and I know the boat well enough to confidently single-hand it unless it's very rough. (I enjoy the independence rather than the solitude). And I've already seen the boat stand up to conditions that I'm pretty unlikely to be out sailing in around the Hauraki Gulf. I had a whole lot of fun in the process and met some really good people..both
delivery skippers and crew for the passages worked out very well.
Hope this helps anyone who is considering an offshore
purchase...