Yacht Financing

What pre-qualification actually involves

Pre-qualification is a lender forming a view on three things at once: you, the boat, and what you will do with her. None of it starts with a number you have to guess at.

You come first — income and how steady it is, what you own set against what you owe, and your credit history, from documents you already have.

The boat is second, and this is where marine lending diverges from anything else you have borrowed against. Age, hull type, builder, engine hours and maintenance history all move a lender's appetite — a production flybridge like the Azimut Fly 53 and an outboard center console like theBoston Whaler 330 Outrage are not the same file. That is a matching problem, not a judgment on you.

The use is third. A boat run at weekends from your own dock is a different file from one going into charter. Tell the lender the real plan at the outset — a use that changes quietly after closing can put you offside your loan and your insurance in the same week.

The documents both sides of the deal need

Two stacks of paper move in parallel. Yours is the personal financial statement — assets, liabilities and income — with tax returns, recent statements and identification behind it. When a company or a trust is the buyer, formation documents and proof of who controls it come too.

The boat's stack belongs to the seller: the current title or Certificate of Documentation, evidence that nothing is recorded against the hull, the chain of bills of sale, and import records for a boat that has been foreign flagged. Complete ownership history is worth more to the file than impressive ownership history, and the deals that run late are waiting on this stack rather than yours.

Then the conditions. A marine survey and a valuation are part of the loan, not something you arrange out of caution. The lender is lending against one specific hull: the survey is how they learn what that hull is, the valuation how they decide what it is worth to them. You commission the survey; the lender says what it must cover.What actually drives a yacht's valueis the longer answer on valuation.

Why marine lending doesn't behave like a car or a house

A car is secured by a title in a state system, a house by a mortgage at a county courthouse. A yacht can be secured federally, and that changes the calendar.

A vessel of at least five net tons, wholly owned by U.S. citizens and not documented under the laws of another country, is eligible for a Certificate of Documentation (46 U.S.C. 12103 and 12105) — a national registry rather than a state one, and what makes the lender's preferred instrument available.

That instrument is the preferred ship's mortgage. It must cover the whole of the vessel, be filed in substantial compliance with 46 U.S.C. 31321, and attach to a vessel already documented or with a documentation application filed (46 U.S.C. 31322). Filing is the moment that counts: an instrument is valid against third parties from the time it is filed — which is why a lender funds after the paperwork is in and not a day before.

So part of your closing calendar is a federal processing calendar, not a negotiation. Ask on day one whether the boat is already documented or coming in new — those are different queues, and finding out in the last week is how a closing date moves.

The closing sequence, in order

• Offer and acceptance — a written offer with a deposit, subject to survey, sea trial and financing. It starts every clock that follows.
• Application and conditional approval — your file goes in now, not before.
• Survey and sea trial — a surveyor goes through her out of the water, and you run her. The report reaches you, the lender and the insurer at once.
• Acceptance of vessel, or renegotiation — accept her as surveyed, go back to the seller with the findings, or walk. Maximum leverage sits here.
• Loan conditions cleared — valuation, an insurance binder naming the lender, a title or abstract search, and any work required before funding.
• Documentation and filing — bill of sale, deletion from any prior registry, the documentation application, and the mortgage filed.
• Funding and closing — funds move, the boat changes hands, the mortgage is on record.

Most delays are not disagreements. They are a document nobody asked for in week one.

Where we fit

We run the deal alongside the lender's checklist: which documents to ask the seller for before you make the offer, the survey and the loan conditions on one calendar so neither sits waiting on the other, and the introduction to a marine lender whose appetite matches the boat in front of you. Tony makes that introduction himself.

We don't quote rates or terms — those belong to the lender and depend on you and on the hull. What we do is put you in front of the right desk with a complete file, which is most of what decides how the conversation goes.

Tell us the boat and where you are in the process using the form below, or reach Tony at TS@MintedYachts.comor +1 (404) 805-9819. Earlier than that?Yacht Buying 101 covers first search to closing day, and the model library is where to work out which boat you are financing. Selling one too? Avaluation request runs alongside.