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Yacht Brokers

Buying and selling

Yacht Brokers

Nobody buys a superyacht from a website. Yacht Brokers looks at the people in the middle: what a central agent actually does, why the survey is the best money in the deal, and the flags, VAT and contracts that decide whether the boat can go where you want.

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What ten per cent buysYacht Brokers

What ten per cent buys

The commission on a yacht sale has not moved in fifty years. What the broker does for it has changed completely.

8 min read

The short version

What you are paying ten per cent for

The commission on a yacht sale is customarily ten per cent of the price, paid by the seller and split between the listing broker and the buyer's broker. For that the listing broker markets the boat, screens the buyers, keeps the crew from talking, and manages a transaction that runs to hundreds of pages. The buyer's broker, if you have one, negotiates the price, arranges the survey and reads the paperwork for the things the seller would rather you missed.

The transaction itself follows a standard form: a MYBA memorandum of agreement, a ten per cent deposit into a lawyer's or broker's escrow, a sea trial and a condition survey with a haul-out, and a completion once the survey findings are priced in or the buyer walks. The survey is the point. Skipped surveys are how a buyer inherits a bottom that needs a million in paint and a gearbox the last crew knew about.

The paperwork decides more than the price does. Whether VAT has been paid, and where; which flag she carries; whether she is registered commercial or private; whether the class is in date. Each of these is a number, and each can change what the boat is worth by more than the brokerage.

Worth knowing

Customary brokerage commission
10 per cent of the sale price, paid by the seller, split between listing and buying broker
Survey and haul-out for a 50 m motor yacht
roughly €40,000 to €80,000 for hull, machinery, electrical and class review, plus the sea trial fuel
Deposit on a MYBA memorandum of agreement
10 per cent, held in escrow, returned if the survey gives grounds to reject
Gap between asking and sale on the brokerage market
commonly 10 to 20 per cent, wider on boats that have been listed for over a year

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Purchase Planner

What buying her costs beyond the price, and the paperwork that decides where she can go.

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Questions people ask

On anything over a few million, yes. The commission is paid by the seller either way, and a buyer's broker who has seen two hundred surveys will find the things that cost you money in year two. The listing broker works for the seller, however charming the lunch.

That the tax on the hull was paid in an EU state and the evidence exists, which lets the boat stay in EU waters without a time limit. A non-VAT-paid boat can visit under temporary admission for 18 months at a stretch if her owner is not EU resident. The difference on a €20 million boat is €4 million, so ask for the paperwork before the sea trial.

For a private yacht in the Med, Cayman, Malta, Marshall Islands or a European home flag, chosen for the survey regime, the crew rules, the tax position and the bank. For a boat that charters commercially, Malta, Cayman and Marshall Islands are the usual answers. The choice is made with a maritime lawyer, not with the broker.

From offer to completion, six to ten weeks if the survey is booked quickly and the paperwork is clean. Longer if the boat is under charter, is in a yard, or her owner is a company in a country that takes a month to sign anything.

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