Deregistration of a yacht – representative disappears

In 2024, a German lawyer reached out to us for assistance with a yacht registration issue. His client, a German citizen, had registered a yacht under the Polish flag, appointing a representative to facilitate the registration process. However, the client never received the final registration document from the representative.

The client decided that he ultimately wanted to sail under the German flag, not the Polish one. And that’s where the problems began.

To deregister the yacht from the Polish registry, it is necessary to return the registration document. But what can you do when the yacht owner never received it. The representative has disappeared, and all attempts to contact him have failed. So, what now.

The district office is Silesian Voivodeship, where the yacht was registered, informed us that the registration document has been collected. This meant that appointing another representative to retrieve the document was not an option.

In this situation, we applied for duplicate of the registration document. The application needed to be properly justified. Fortunately, this could be done at any district office in Poland, not just the one where the yacht was originally registered.

Our law firm is based in Szczecin, so the ability to file the application anywhere helped us avoid logistical challenges.

After about two weeks, the so called “plastic” arrived at the office. As a result, the yacht could be smoothly deregistered.

Common sense might suggest that since the owner intends to deregister the yacht anyway, the final registration document isn’t necessary. However, the law is the law, and as lawyers often say, there is no point in arguing with it.

What may seem like a trivial task can become quite problematic, especially when the yacht is registered under a flag foreign to the client. Fortunately, thanks to our experience in yacht registration and legalization matters, we knew how to resolve the issue.

If you need to register your yacht quickly and efficiently, our law firm can assist you. We offer services not only related to yacht registration but also obtaining radio licenses, EPIRB or PLB registration, and if your yacht is over 24 meters, we can easily register it in the ship registry.