Post Closing Checklist For New Yacht Owners

Congratulations on closing on your new yacht. We’re so appreciative of your business and we look forward to supporting you long into the enjoyment of your yacht ownership experience. We’ve prepared a short 8 item checklist with what we’ve learned through our 100+ transactions to make your ownership experience better.

1. Set Insurance Renewal Reminder - Set a reminder for 11 months from now so you shop your insurance coverage and rates as your ownership experience a year from now will make you more attractive in the market.  

2. Ensure Proper Maintenance Schedule - Ensure the crew and or yacht managers you hire have a plan that can be tracked to ensure your vessel is being properly maintained. Too often owners learn after the fact that what they thought they paid for, wasn’t executed, which costs them at the time of resale or during breakage.

3. Ensure Payment - Ensure there’s an ample way to communicate and track payments onboard the vessel for carried out operations. 

4. Ensure Record Keeping - Ensure that you keep really tight logs for your boat that will put a buyer at mind when eventually buying your vessel. Setting up a dedicated email address is a great way to keep all records together for the vessel. 

5. Ensure Documents Are Onboard At All Times - Ensure you have proper documentation of the vessel onboard so that in the event you are stopped by customs, marine police or the coast guard, you don’t incur unwanted attention fines or downtime. 

6. Resolve Survey Deficiencies - Make sure that survey issues are addressed so in the event of an insurance claim, the insurer doesn’t try to state that unresolved issues will prevent a payout from being made. 

7. Follow Your Vessel’s Market - Ask your broker to set up market tracking alerts so that you know what similar vessels sell for on the open market. 

8. Keep in Contact - We want to be with you for every boat you ever buy and sell, so be sure to let us know how we can help deliver value well into your boating future.

Step 1: Set An Insurance Renewal Reminder. Set an alert in your phone for 11 months from now to re-quote your insurance. We’ve seen some owners have their insurance lapse because the mail goes to a corporate mailing address that they don’t receive mail to. After owning the yacht for a year, it’s not uncommon to see a rate decrease so we advise checking this with ample time ahead of the annual renewal when you’re forced to renew or make a quick decision. 

Step 2: Ensure A Proper Maintenance Schedule. There’s no shortage of proactive maintenance that can be done to reduce your downtime, unsuspecting bills and ownership costs. Our team is happy to help with this but seeing  what your yacht management company or crew are doing, when and how much it costs is a great way to make sure your investment is protected.

Step 3: Ensure Payments On Board are Streamlined. It’s best to maintain a dedicated card or account for your boat expenses so they’re easily trackable and don’t commingle. Someone who works on the boat shouldn’t be expected to pay for costs as they often don’t have the adequate cashflow like a yacht owner does and if they do, they likely have to mark up costs which hurts you on the back end. This is a very simple strategy to efficient ownership. 

Step 4: Ensure Record Keeping Systems Are Implemented. Keeping track of your bills, invoices and what’s been done on the boat not only is good practice, but can be a huge hindrance or help when you go to sell your yacht. We suggest creating a dedicated email address for all records to go to, or mobilizing a service to catch up on what has happened each month. Our team is happy to help you implement this system but this is when we encourage you to think of how this will help you in the future.

Step 5: Ensure Documents Are Onboard For Compliance. In the event you were stopped by marine police, coast guard or need to clear into a new territory, do you have the right documents onboard? Failing to do so will result in fines, delay or seizure of the vessel and inconvenience to your or your clients plans. Your closing agent and yacht broker should make sure this is onboard at the time of closing but ensure you have your coast guard documentation, state registration for all vessels including your dinghies. Extra records such as the bill of sale, closing statements and prior ownership documentation and copies of insurance is always a good idea to have.

Step 6: Resolve Survey Deficiencies. It’s a great idea to resolve outstanding survey items for optimized vessel functions, your peace of mind and in the event there’s a future insurance claim, this will avoid insurance trying to squirm or placing blame to you as the owner. Most issues will be small but we suggest you do it urgently as new issues will arise and it becomes easy to forget about the smaller ones, that can become larger ones if left unresolved.

Step 7: Follow Your Vessel’s Market. Ask your yacht broker to provide you updates throughout ownership for others that have come to market, others that have sold, and other relevant news that will always keep you as a market aware seller. Of course you can set alerts on Yachtworld and the likes for similar vessels, but it’s something worth keeping tabs on for years to come. 

Step 8: Keep In Contact With Your Broker and Yacht Zero. We want to ensure your ownership experience is great so you can buy and sell many more vessels with us all the way up until you own a 190’ yacht. While we cannot solve all issues all the time, we often know who to contact to help. 

We again thank you so much for providing our team with your business and look forward to a great yachting experience. If you need any assistance at this time, please don’t hesitate in reaching out to your yacht broker or our team.