Several reasons can arise regarding why your status might change with boat ownership. You may feel that it is time that you sell the boat because you just are not using it as much as you did in the past. It could be that you want to upgrade to a newer vessel. Perhaps your spouse is on the title, and your marital status has changed. Maybe you have a commercial vessel, and one of the managing partners is no longer an owner. Whatever your reasons are, if you need to make changes to the title of your vessel, there are procedures you need to follow. Learning how to handle a boat title transfer before you sit down to do it will make the process much better for you.
Selling Your Boat and More
The most common reason for a title transfer will be if you decide to sell your boat. Once you reach an agreed-on price for the vessel, you and the seller will need to get together to take care of the final paperwork involved with the deal. This means you will need to write up a bill of sale. You can use one of the basic templates found on the Internet to create a bill of sale. There is no set form from the Coast Guard to use, but you do want to make sure it contains information like the names of the parties involved, the selling price, the date, specifics about the boat, and so on.
More to a Title Transfer
Once you have done the bill of sale, you will need to think about the boat title transfer. You will need to get the title, if you do not have it in your possession already. You will want to sign the title you have over to the owner, and the new owner will need to apply for a new title in their name. If you have registered your boat with the Coast Guard and have a Certificate of Documentation (COD), you will want to make sure that you transfer the COD to the new owner as well. You will need to fill out the transfer and exchange form from the Coast Guard and provide the necessary information so that the record is noted that you are no longer the owner of the vessel.
Help with a Transfer
At the Maritime Documentation Center, we can assist you when you are working through a boat title transfer and need to transfer your COD. We offer Coast Guard forms on our website so you can fill out the transfer form online and file it with us as soon as possible. Our experts will step in and check the form for accuracy and mistakes before we pass it along to the Coast Guard for you for final processing. Visit our website today so you can see the steps you need to follow, and if you have any questions, you can call us at (800) 535-8570. A member of our staff will be glad to assist you.