Ship Registration Act 1992

The Ship Registration Act 1992 is an Act to provide for the registration of ships in New Zealand and related matters. For a business owner, that means it is one of the first laws to check when a vessel needs to go on the New Zealand Register of Ships, when ownership changes, or when a lender wants its security recorded.

The Act establishes the New Zealand Register of Ships and deals with applications, declarations, evidence, tonnage, naming, marking, certificates, ownership changes, mortgages, caveats, nationality and administration. It also contains offence provisions that matter if your staff, broker or adviser files incorrect information.

The Act applies across a range of ships and ownership structures. The definitions matter. A ship includes every description of boat or craft used in navigation, whether or not it has any means of propulsion. It also includes barges, hovercraft and submarines or other submersibles.

The Act uses specific ownership tests to decide whether a ship is New Zealand-owned for registration purposes. A ship can be New Zealand-owned if it is owned only by New Zealand nationals, if a majority of joint owners are New Zealand nationals, or if more than half the shares in the ship are owned by one or more New Zealand nationals.

The Act also separately recognises some ships on demise charter to New Zealand-based operators. That can matter where your business does not hold legal title but has whole possession and control of the vessel under the charter, including the right to appoint the master and crew.

Pleasure vessels are treated separately in the Act. So are foreign-registered ships. That means you should not assume the same registration path applies to a commercial charter boat, a privately used vessel, and a ship already on a foreign register.

The Act becomes important at predictable business moments. The first is when you buy or import a vessel, or set up a company to hold one. The second is when you refinance, because the Act has a full mortgage regime for ships and shares in ships.

Another trigger is a sale, transfer, succession event or insolvency process. The Act deals with transfers, transmissions by operation of law, declarations supporting those changes, and endorsement of certificates where ownership changes.

You should also check the Act when the vessel itself changes. There are separate provisions for alterations to ships, changes to the name, address or nationality of an owner or mortgagee, and closure of registration. A company restructure can also matter if it changes whether the ship remains registrable.

One more trigger is departure from New Zealand. The Act includes a rule requiring particulars of the master to be endorsed on the certificate of registry of a ship leaving New Zealand, and it also contains restrictions on certain unregistered ships leaving New Zealand.

The Act sets out a practical registration pathway. It covers applications for registration, declarations of ownership and nationality, evidence required before registration, tonnage measurement, naming, marking, and entry of particulars in the Register.

For a business, the key point is that registration depends on documents and evidence, not just commercial reality. You may own the vessel in substance, but if the declarations, supporting evidence or forms are wrong or incomplete, registration can be delayed or challenged.

The Act also provides for certificates of registry and registration, provisional certificates, and temporary passes. Certificates matter because they are part of the legal record around the vessel and may need to be produced, endorsed, replaced or kept in proper custody.

Forms matter too. The Director may prescribe forms and approve the use of another form in place of a prescribed form. If the Act requires a prescribed form, the form may not be admissible in evidence in civil proceedings on the part of the owner or master unless it is in the prescribed form, as near to it as circumstances permit, or in an approved form.

The Act is commercially important because it does more than record first registration. It also deals with transfer of ships and shares in ships, transmission by operation of law, declarations of transfer and transmission, and endorsement of the certificate of registry where ownership changes.

For lenders and borrowers, the mortgage provisions are central. The Act covers mortgage of a ship or share in a ship, priority of mortgages, alteration of mortgage terms by endorsement, variation of priority, transfer of mortgage, transmission of mortgage by operation of law, and discharge, waiver or extinction of mortgage.

The Act also says a mortgage does not change ownership, while giving the mortgagee power of disposal. That is a practical reminder that the finance documents, the register position and the commercial deal documents should all line up.

Caveats are another due diligence issue. The Act allows a caveat forbidding registration of certain instruments, sets out notice and removal procedures, and prevents dealings from being registered while a caveat is in force. It also allows compensation for lodging a caveat without reasonable cause.

The Act specifically requires attention after registration, not just at the start. It includes provisions on alterations to ships, changes to the name, address or nationality of an owner or mortgagee, and closure of registration.

This is where businesses often slip. A vessel may start with a clean register position, then become problematic because the company restructures, the ownership mix changes, the vessel is materially altered, or contact details are not updated. If the ship ceases to be registrable, the Act also addresses the rights of mortgagees.

These are not minor housekeeping issues. They can affect the accuracy of the Register, the evidence available to a buyer or lender, and the smooth completion of later transactions.

The Act gives evidential value to certain documents. A document declared admissible in evidence under the Act is, on production, prima facie evidence of the matters stated in it and of the signature it purports to bear.

The person having custody of such a document must, on payment of any prescribed fee, supply a certified copy or extract. The Registrar or a Deputy Registrar may also supply copies or extracts from entries in the Register or associated documents and certify them.

This matters in disputes, finance deals and due diligence. If your business cannot produce the right certificate, certified extract or transmission evidence, a transaction may stall or become more expensive.

The Act also gives examples of evidence that can satisfy the Registrar for transmissions, including death or burial certificates, probate or letters of administration, court orders, and particulars relating to liens or forfeiture. In some cases, the Registrar may dispense with declarations or evidence if a person cannot reasonably provide them.

The Act contains real offence provisions. A person commits an offence if they make or present to an officer any oral or written statement, knowing it is false or misleading in a material particular. That offence carries a fine of up to $5,000.

More serious liability applies where a person uses a statement or document they know is false or misleading in a material particular to cause, or attempt to cause, an officer to do or refrain from doing something under the Act. That offence carries up to 2 years' imprisonment or a fine of up to $10,000.

The Act also creates offences for making a register book, certificate, bill of sale, instrument of mortgage or other document under the Act knowing it is false or misleading in a material particular, and for forging or fraudulently altering such a document. Knowingly printing, selling or using a document purporting to be a prescribed form when it is not can also be an offence.

For companies, directors and people concerned in management can be guilty of a like offence if the company is convicted and it is proved that the conduct happened with their authority, permission or consent, or that they knew or should have known and failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent or stop it.

The Act received Royal assent on 1 October 1992. Under section 1, most of the Act came into force on the 28th day after assent, which was 29 October 1992. Section 93 came into force 6 months after that commencement date, which was 29 April 1993.

The Act is in force. Businesses should check the current register process, current forms, any regulations made under the Act, and whether later amendments affect the issue they are dealing with before relying on a summary page for a live transaction.

That check is especially important if you are buying a vessel, refinancing, changing ownership, dealing with a foreign-registered ship, or trying to complete a filing under time pressure before a vessel departs New Zealand.