A boat partnership agreement checklist you can print
45 decisions in 8 sections, from whose name goes on the title to what happens when a partner moves away. Print it, bring it to the table with the other owners, and tick each line once you all agree on the answer.
This is not legal advice and it is not a contract. It is a list of things to decide. Laws on boat titles, liability and taxes vary by state, so have a lawyer where the boat is kept turn your answers into the agreement you sign.
1. The boat and the partners
Start with the plain facts. Plenty of later arguments turn out to be about something nobody wrote down on day one.
- Every partner's full legal name and address, and the share each one owns. Equal shares are common but nothing says they have to be.
- How the title and registration are held: every name on the title, one name with this agreement behind it, or a company that owns the boat. This choice has legal and tax consequences, so ask a lawyer about it.
- The boat itself: make, model, year, hull identification number, engine serial number, and the trailer's VIN if there is one.
- What each partner paid in at purchase, and whether any of it was a loan from one partner to another.
- What belongs to the partnership along with the hull: electronics, safety gear, covers, tubes and skis, the trailer.
2. The running costs
A boat bills you the same whether it leaves the slip or not, which makes the yearly costs easy to list and easy to split.
- The list of costs everyone shares: slip or mooring, insurance, winter storage, routine servicing, registration, safety gear.
- The shared account: who opens it, who can see the statements, and who can pay from it.
- The monthly contribution from each partner and the day it is due.
- How fuel works. The usual rule is to leave the tank full, or put back what you burned.
- What happens when a payment is late: how long the grace period is, and whether booking pauses until the partner is caught up.
- A reserve target for the account, so a repair bill never turns into a collection among friends.
3. Repairs, upgrades and who decides
Decide how decisions get made while nothing is broken. It is much harder with the boat on a lift and an estimate in hand.
- The repair threshold: the dollar figure under which anyone can approve a fix from the shared account, and over which the group has to say yes.
- One named contact for the marina and the mechanic, so the yard is not taking instructions from four people.
- How votes work: one vote per partner or votes by share, which decisions need everyone (selling, a new engine, a new partner) and which need only a majority.
- Upgrades one partner wants and the others do not: whether they may pay for it alone, and who owns it if they leave.
- Damage caused by one partner or their guests: who pays for the repair and who covers the insurance deductible.
4. Time on the water
Summer Saturdays are the only thing in a boat partnership that is truly scarce. Treat them that way in writing.
- How many weekend days and how many midweek days each partner gets in a season.
- How the holiday weekends rotate. A fixed order that moves along one place each year is the simplest thing that works.
- How far ahead anyone may book, and the longest single booking allowed.
- Cancelling: how late is too late, and what happens to the days that open up.
- Unused days: whether they expire at the end of the season or can be traded between partners.
- Where the calendar lives, and that it is the only record that counts. A text saying "we're taking it Saturday" is not a booking.
5. Who may drive, and where
Your insurer will have opinions here, so read the policy before you settle these.
- Who is allowed at the helm: partners only, adult children, friends. Check your state's boater education rules, since they apply to everyone who drives.
- Whether a partner may lend the boat out when they are not aboard.
- Renting it out or taking paid passengers. Recreational policies commonly exclude this, so check yours. The safe default is never without everyone's written agreement.
- Where the boat may go: home waters only, or trailering to other lakes and overnight trips as well.
6. Condition and care
The small stuff wears on a partnership faster than any invoice. A quarter tank and a full cooler on a Saturday morning will do it.
- The return standard, spelled out: fueled, rinsed, covered, trash and cooler out, batteries off.
- A log kept on board or in the group thread: engine hours out and in, fuel added, anything that broke or sounded wrong.
- Reporting damage the same day, with the understanding that an honest report is never punished.
- Seasonal work: who handles launch, haul-out and winterizing, and whether the job rotates.
- What happens when someone ignores the return standard. Agree on it now, while it is hypothetical.
7. Insurance and liability
Tell the insurer the boat is co-owned. A policy written for one owner can leave the rest of the partners uncovered.
- Every partner named on the policy, and the insurer told in writing that the boat has more than one owner.
- The kind of cover and the limits: agreed value or actual cash value for the hull, and the liability limit everyone is comfortable with.
- Who pays the deductible: the partner at the helm when it was their fault, the shared account when it was nobody's.
- A towing membership in the partnership's name, and who renews it.
- What happens if a guest is hurt on a partner's trip. This one is for a lawyer; it is on the list so that it gets asked.
8. Leaving, selling and disagreeing
Every partnership ends one day. The ones that end well decided how at the start.
- How much notice a partner has to give before leaving, and whether they keep paying until the share is sold.
- How a share is valued: a marine survey, the average of two broker opinions, or a formula you all accept today.
- First right to buy for the remaining partners, and how many days they have to take it up.
- Whether a new partner needs everyone's approval before they can buy in.
- What happens to a share on a partner's death, divorce or bankruptcy.
- A partner who stops paying: after how many missed months the others may buy them out, and on what terms.
- Selling the whole boat: what vote it takes, and how the money is divided once any debts are paid.
- Disagreements: a conversation first, then a mediator, before anyone involves a court.
- A yearly review date. Haul-out day works well, since everyone is already there.
A worked example: the monthly payment and the repair line
Two lines on the checklist need an actual number, and they are the easiest two to leave blank. Here is one way to fill them in.
The assumptions: four partners with equal shares, and the used 21-foot bowrider from our four families, one boat write-up, which costs about $10,500 a year to keep. Of that, $1,200 is fuel, which each family pays at the pump under the leave-it-full rule. The other $9,300 goes through the shared account. Your slip and storage prices will differ, so put your own figures in.
- Shared costs a year, fuel left out
- $9,300
- Each partner's monthly payment
- $225
- Reserve built up in a year
- $1,500
$9,300 split four ways is $2,325 a year, or $193.75 a month. Round that up to $225 each and the account takes in $10,800 over twelve months, which leaves $1,500 after the bills are paid. That is the reserve, and it is sized on purpose. The bill that breeds resentment is something like the $1,400 outdrive repair in that write-up, and with this cushion it gets paid from the account and nobody has to front it.
For the repair threshold, this group writes down $300. An impeller or a battery gets replaced by whoever notices it. Anything larger waits for four yeses in the group thread, which for a $1,400 repair means each partner has agreed to a $350 share before the mechanic picks up a wrench.
The section a document cannot enforce
Seven of these eight sections get settled once and then sit in a drawer. Time on the water is different, because it comes up every week from May to September, and a clause that says each family gets six weekend days does nothing to stop someone booking a seventh.
That is the job AllDibs does. You enter the weekend and midweek allowances from section four, send the other partners one link, and the calendar holds everyone to the numbers you agreed. It costs nothing for a boat partnership. See how the boat calendar works.
Questions about boat partnership agreements
Is this checklist a legal document?+
No, and it is not legal advice. It is a list of the decisions a boat co-ownership agreement usually has to cover, so that the partners can talk them through and arrive at a lawyer's office with answers. Title, liability and tax rules differ from state to state, and a lawyer who practices where the boat is kept should turn your answers into the agreement you sign.
Do boat partners really need a written agreement?+
Plenty of boats are bought on a handshake and the first season is usually fine. The trouble comes later, with the first large repair, the first partner who wants out, or the summer one family has every good Saturday. A written agreement is cheap when everyone is still excited about the boat and very hard to negotiate once somebody is upset.
What is a sensible repair threshold?+
Pick a figure small enough that nobody minds being surprised by it. In our four-family example on this page it is $300: an impeller or a new battery gets fixed without a group text, and a $1,400 outdrive repair waits for everyone to agree. If one partner handles most of the yard visits, a slightly higher figure saves them a lot of messages.
How should boat partners split the weekends?+
Give each partner the same small budget of weekend days and a larger budget of midweek days, and rotate the holiday weekends in a fixed order. A shared calendar with no limits rewards whoever books first. AllDibs was built for this part: each booking spends a credit, the calendar refuses double bookings, and the credit comes back once the day has passed.
Should we put the boat in an LLC?+
Some partnerships do, so that the company holds the title and the partners' agreement becomes the company's operating agreement. Whether that helps you depends on your state, your insurer and your taxes, so take that question to a lawyer and an accountant before you buy.
Agreed on the weekends? Put them on a calendar.
Add the boat, set each partner's days, and share one link. It takes a few minutes and there is no card to enter.
Put the boat on AllDibs, freeSharing a property as well? Read the guide for shared cabins.