Question on documented vessels in CA

[manticore999]

I'm considering buying a boat that is documented, rather than registered via the dmv. Does anyone have any experience with this? Are there advantages? Disadvantages?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Dive1]

I have a documented boat and I see no advantages or disadvantages to this. The tax man will come! If you document the boat just be shure to follow the requirements.

 

[kgd]

Only issue I have had is the City of SF. They have only once sent me the tax form and make it impossible to find the Form on their web site. The years they haven't sent me the form they have no problem being able to send me the tax bill with a 10% penalty for not sending in the form and for their people having to do an assessment of the value of the boat. Their website states they will mail you the form and you just return it. They have only did this once and that was only after I called them a few days before the due date. There response then was oh we are just mailing those today. I am sure they were really thinking damn since he called we are going to have to send him the form and won't be able to asess him a penalty. The other years I didn't call and they just send me the bill. All three of those years I have called them and they said it was mailed to me but I never received it. This year I looked for the Form and all I could find was a memo on their website stating you only needed to return the tax form if they mailed one to you. So I thought great you aren't required to send in the form unless they send it to you. Seemed logical since the form was no where to be found and that is exactly what their memo (which was on the website) said. WRONG!!! Again I just got the bill with a penalty. Still haven't been able to find the form on their website. I talked to several people there who would just pass me on to someone else trying to resolve the penalty issue. I ended up going in circles with several people and finally just gave up and paid the penalty.

There is a certain tax form (BOE-576-D) that you will never find online and likely won't get in the mail that is due April 1. If you don't send this in there is an automatic 10% penalty added to the tax assessment.

I would think if the boat had CF numbers the DMV would send me the tax bill vs City of SF.

 

[cwms]

KGD, sounds like what you have is property tax that is charged by the locality. Even if you were CA registered, you would still have to pay SF tax.

 

[BayAreaBoater]

I've had both.

The only advantage is when/if you leave CA in the boat.

As far as the property tax goes, it is generally collected by the county where the boat is berthed on Jan 1.

And DMV doesn't send the tax bill, the county where the boat is berthed does. DMV only sends the registration renewal forms every other year (if you have a CF #).