Outstanding conditions of class and why they follow the yacht to its next owner

The artefact has a name that most buyers never see

Every major classification society issues these. The societies belonging to the International Association of Classification Societies follow a common procedure for imposing and clearing them. The concept behaves the same way whichever society holds the vessel.

Some societies call the same thing a recommendation. A buyer reading a survey status may meet either word. They describe the same event.

The definition is narrow. A condition of class requires specific measures, repairs or surveys to be carried out within a specific time limit in order to retain classification. Every part of that matters to somebody about to buy. Specific work. A specific date. A consequence for missing it.

Three things put one on a vessel

The common procedure sets out what they are imposed for.

• Damage. Repairs or renewals related to damage that affects classification. Grounding, structural damage, machinery damage, wastage beyond the allowable limit.
• A supplementary survey requirement. The society has decided something needs to be looked at again.
• A temporary repair.

The third one deserves a buyer's attention more than the other two. A temporary repair is work done to keep a vessel operating until the permanent repair can be carried out. Where a society accepts one, the permanent repair becomes a condition of class with a date against it.

So a yacht can be sound, in class, correctly documented and still carrying an obligation to open something up and do the job properly. Nothing about her appearance will tell you that. Nothing about the way she runs will either.

It is in writing and it has a date

Conditions of class are given in writing with a time limit for completion. They are stated on the certificate of class, on an attachment to it or in the class survey status. The owner is told the dates. Where an item is not dealt with by its due date or formally postponed, the vessel's class becomes subject to a suspension procedure.

That makes this artefact unusual. It is also useful. We have written elsewhere that a missing maintenance record is an amount nobody has counted. A condition of class is the mirror image. It is a future cost that has already been counted, already been written down and already been dated. It sits in a document the seller can produce on request.

It follows the vessel rather than the seller

Classification attaches to the ship. One society's published regulations put it in a single sentence: a ship retains class when transferred to another owner. The outstanding conditions travel with her and the clock keeps running.

One category behaves differently. Notations resting on certification of how a vessel is managed and operated fall away on transfer. They describe an operator rather than a hull. Wording differs between societies. Read the regulations of the society that actually holds the vessel rather than assuming the general position applies.

The fifteen year line

A buyer who intends to move the vessel to a different society meets a second rule. It is worth knowing before a price is agreed.

Transfer between societies follows a common procedure. Where the vessel is under fifteen years of age, the society taking her on may complete the overdue surveys and the overdue conditions of class itself. Where she is fifteen years of age or over, the society giving her up has to complete them before an interim certificate of class can be issued. Outstanding conditions are in either case to be dealt with by their due dates.

That distinction has a commercial edge on an older vessel. The work attached to overdue items has to be cleared by the seller's existing society before the new one will certificate her. Who pays for it is a matter for the negotiation rather than for the rules. The rules settle only who has to carry it out.

Suspension is automatic rather than discretionary

In the ordinary case class is not lost by a judgement call. It lapses on dates. Where a special survey is not completed by the expiry of the classification certificate and no postponement has been granted, class is suspended automatically. Where an annual or intermediate survey is not carried out within three months of the anniversary date, the same follows.

Those particular rules come from one society's published regulations. Others are drafted differently. The principle holds across them. The date is the mechanism rather than anyone's opinion of how the vessel looks.

For a buyer this reaches past tidiness. Insurers and flag administrations may take an interest in whether a vessel is in class. Ask the intended insurer and the intended flag what they require rather than treating a suspension as an administrative matter.

Many private yachts are not in class at all

This has to be said plainly. It decides whether any of the above touches the vessel in front of you. Classification is not mandatory for a private pleasure yacht. Many are classed. Many are not. A flag administration may require it for registration and an insurer may require it for cover. Neither requirement is universal.

Where a yacht is not in class the forward obligations have not gone anywhere. What is missing is the body keeping the list. Nobody has written the dates down on the buyer's behalf. The question returns to what the manufacturer required and to whether the record shows it was done. That is the subject of what a maintenance record tells you that the vessel cannot.

What to ask for before you complete

The enquiry is short. None of it is technical.

• Whether the vessel is in class, with which society and since when.
• The class survey status, together with the certificate of class and any attachment to it.
• Every outstanding condition of class, what it is for and the date by which it has to be cleared.
• Whether any of them relates to a temporary repair.
• The dates of the next annual, intermediate and special survey.
• Whether class has ever been suspended and for what reason.

Everything on that list is a document somebody already holds. None of it requires a surveyor to unbolt anything. It is among the cheapest enquiries in a yacht purchase and it is routinely skipped. A separate question is whether the surveyor will be allowed to reach the things the documents describe. That is dealt with in what access a surveyor should have.

Why this is not a defect

A defect found by your own surveyor is contested ground. The seller may dispute the finding, dispute its seriousness or dispute the quotation attached to it. Those arguments are ordinary and they are covered in what happens after a survey finds defects.

An outstanding condition of class is none of that. It is not in dispute. It was issued by an independent body, recorded against the vessel and accepted by her owner. It is scheduled expenditure with a date on it.

So it belongs in the calculation of what the yacht will cost to take on rather than in the argument about what she is worth today. Those are two different conversations. Buyers lose money by holding only the second one.