Citizenship and Residency Working Against Us
Our plan is simple: buy a boat in Europe, keep it flagged in the EU (allowing it to stay in Europe for an extended period), and sail country to country, one town at a time.
Simple.
Except it’s not.
It turns out that an American citizen with an EU flagged boat, but without a legal EU address, is not easily insurable. This isn’t one of those cases where you can ask your college buddy that now lives in Glasgow or Liverpool to borrow their address. Nope, you have to have a legal address with your name associated to it.
Our solution is to create a UK limited company. This is a perfectly acceptable method to establish a legal presence within Briton, though it’s another cost and item to track and manage over time. So now, Imagine won’t be directly owned by Troy and Rika, but by a UK LTD company that in turn is owned by Troy & Rika.
Oh, and since Troy & Rika don’t own the boat, the UK LTD company must be the entity to apply for the flag registration of the boat.
Like I said, not simple.
A lot of hoops to jump through, but with your usual dexterity you have found a solution! Congratulations Troy and Rika!
PS: will this delay your plans to start sailing at the beginning of March?