Legal Consulting – Legal Advice on the Purchase / Sales Contract,
Contract Management and Vessel Registration.
Purchasing a Ship/Yacht from outside or within a foreign country, whether in or outside of the EU is often associated with considerable difficulties and problems. You are often required to create unusual and specialized sales documents and attachments as the rules, regulations and requirements vary considerably from Country to Country and different Flag States for example; Bill of Sale, Memorandum of Agreement, Certificate of Deletion, Hand Over and Delivery Protocols, just to name a few.
Extensive research is required to ascertain the true ownership of the vessel (chain of ownership), which is necessary to secure the transferal of ownership.
After the successful acquisition of the vessel it is entered into the Register of Ships in the respective EU Country or other International Registers. The requirements for payment of Importation Tax and/or your respective tax liability on the ownership of the vessel, also needs to be clarified.
It often makes good financial sense to establish a Local Representative Company into which you register the vessel. There are distinct advantages to this and various ways to optimize the vessels value and to assist in reducing the importation tax rate for example, Malta leasing.
Our Professional team offer advice and assistance on all aspects of the purchase or sale of a vessel including, proof of all documentation, ownership related searches, documentation production, secure transfer of funds and assets. Including specialist advice on the importation and registration of any vessel.
Malta Yacht Experts Ltd. are recognized surveyors and experts who are officially authorized to carry out vessel valuations for importation and taxation purposes.
Arbitration: The aim of an arbitration is the extra judicial agreement of two or more conflicting parties.
An arbitration functions much faster and is much cheaper than a court trial. Being executed by a professional yacht surveyor it also guarantees a qualitatively high-grade and for all parties concerned a satisfactory solution.
These conflicts are frequently created by non-fulfillment or poor-fulfillment of contractual obligations. This may be a repair which had been done unsatisfactory or which is too expensive, or a recently purchased pre-owned yacht is not as free of defects as the sales contract had promised. The way towards a satisfactory solution in such a case can be as follows:
1. Presentation of all relevant documents to the arbitrator
2. Inspection of the conflictive object by the arbitrator
3. View of the conflictive object with both parties (jointly or separately)
4. Edition of the survey report with arbitration
The decision of the arbitrator is binding and excludes any further course of law.
Valuation Tax Report
After a thorough inspection of a vessel we put together a detailed report of the valuation of the vessel and/or for tax liability purposes for the following purposes:
* Review of the Yachts valuation for a change of Insurance company
* Bank/Financial Institutions for loan/financing purposes
* Sale or Purchase
* Judicial disputes, Insolvency issues
* Divorce settlements