How to Check a Yacht Charter Agency Is Legitimate Before You Pay

A crewed yacht charter is paid in large bank transfers weeks before you see the yacht, usually to a company you found online. That is exactly the situation fraudsters look for. The legitimate side of the industry runs on a few checkable things: an association with a public member list, a standard contract with a unique number, a named party that holds your money, and documents the yacht can show. If an agency cannot give you those, you have your answer before any money moves.

A note on who is who here. Solano Yachts is not a charter agency and does not take payments. This site passes your enquiry to a charter specialist, and the charter itself is contracted with the yacht’s owner through a licensed charter agency. The checks in this guide are the ones to make on that agency, and on anyone else who asks you to pay for a yacht. How enquiries are handled is explained on about Solano Yachts and how it works.

What is MYBA and how do you check that an agency is a member?

MYBA is a professional association of yacht charter and sales brokers. Its website has a public member directory you can search by company name. If an agency says it is a MYBA member, search for it there yourself, and check the name matches the company that will appear on your contract.

According to its own site, MYBA is “an international professional organisation, founded in 1984”, with corporate and individual members. It created the MYBA Charter Agreement, which it describes as one of the industry’s “most respected and widely used contracts”, and its membership page says it is an association for “confirmed, established yacht charter brokers”, yacht sales brokers and yacht managers.

How to use the directory:

1. Go to the Members page on myba-association.com yourself, not through a link sent by email.
2. Search by keyword (the company’s name or part of it), or browse alphabetically.
3. Compare the result with the agency’s legal name and the name that will appear on the contract.
4. Check the Pending applications page too: it lists companies applying for membership, for the MYBA E-Contract service or for YACHTFOLIO. Being listed there does not make a company a member.

MYBA itself warns that its logo has been used without authorisation on websites it believes are “holding themselves out as MYBA Members when they are not”. A logo on a website proves nothing. The directory is the check.

Not every legitimate company is a member, and membership is not a guarantee. But an agency that claims membership and is not in the directory has told you something.

Who is the central agent, who is the retail broker, and why does it matter?

On a MYBA charter there are two roles between you and the owner. The central agent (or charter manager) manages the yacht’s charter programme for the owner. The retail broker deals with you and issues your contract. A legitimate retail broker can name the central agent, and the central agent approves every contract.

MYBA’s 2019 guidelines for brokers and charter managers set out their duties, and several double as checks:

• The retail broker checks availability first. The guidelines ask brokers to check the yacht’s bookings in YACHTFOLIO, MYBA’s yacht database, before sending an enquiry to the charter manager. An agency that can offer a yacht for your dates should know who manages it.
• The charter manager approves the contract. The broker “must seek approval of the draft from the Charter Manager” before sending it to you. A contract that never went through the yacht’s manager is a warning sign.
• Documents are available on request. Once the contract is signed, the charter manager must provide the broker, on request, with the yacht’s insurance and liability cover, its certificate of registry, crew profiles and other relevant certificates.
• Both carry professional indemnity insurance. The same guidelines ask brokers and charter managers to provide proof of renewal of their professional indemnity insurance to MYBA’s administration (AYSAS) at each renewal date. You can ask the agency who its insurer is.

Every role in a charter is explained in our guide to the MYBA charter agreement.

Is the contract genuine?

Ask for the final MYBA contract, not a draft, and check its number. MYBA’s guidelines say only the final watermarked version of the E-Contract, showing which company issued it, is a legally binding agreement. Each one carries a unique number that MYBA’s online validator confirms, together with the date and the issuing company.

What this means in practice:

• A draft is not a contract. MYBA’s guidelines say the draft electronic contract is only for approval between the central agent and the retail broker, “not acceptable to be used as a legally binding final contract”.
• The issuer must match. The validator shows the name of the subscribing company that generated the agreement. MYBA asks charter managers to check it corresponds to the principal retail broker, and to check the watermark and date so a photocopy is not being reused.

The validator is on MYBA’s E-Contract site, and the guidelines give that check to charter managers: ask the issuing company, or the central agent, for the result in writing.

Who holds your money before the charter?

Under a MYBA contract your payments go to a stakeholder, a party named in the contract that holds the funds. Find out who it is before you pay, check the bank account is in that party’s name, and ask what kind of account it is. The stakeholder is one of the main financial safeguards in the contract.

The key point is that the owner is not simply paid on signing. Reporting on the 2016 revision of the MYBA Charter Agreement, SuperyachtNews explains that the balance of the charter fee is paid to the owner on the first working day after the charter ends, unless the stakeholder receives written notice of a complaint by or on behalf of the charterer. If the stakeholder receives that notice before paying the balance, it keeps the balance for 14 days in the standard wording, and if either side appoints an arbitrator, it stays in a designated account until an award or a settlement. That is the 2016 wording: check the payment clause in your own contract.

Two cautions:

• The label is not the protection. In a September 2025 opinion piece in SuperyachtNews, Prof. Dr. Christoph Schließmann argues that calling an account “designated” does not make it a true client or trust account that is “insolvency-remote and segregated”. Ask which entity is the stakeholder and whether the account is a segregated client account.
• Pay the stakeholder named in the contract, never a person. The payment schedule and what each instalment covers are in the MYBA guide, and how the APA is paid and accounted for is in the APA guide. Whatever the instalment, the account to pay is the one in the contract.

What frauds have actually been documented?

A well-documented fraud in yacht charter is email impersonation followed by a change of bank account. Insurers, Europol and the Banco de España describe the same pattern. There are also published cases of an agency that took payments and disappeared, and of websites using association or insurance logos without permission.

Both ITIC cases happened to professionals. If professional brokers who handle charter payments can be caught by an address one letter different, anyone can.

How the bank-detail switch works

Europol’s invoice fraud leaflet describes it: someone posing as a supplier asks for the bank details of future payments to be changed, and “the new account suggested is controlled by the fraudster”. In the ITIC cases, the pressure came from urgency and a plausible story.

The MYBA warning and the reinsurer logos in the YACHT case show the other side: badges on a website are easy to fake. Check every claim at its source, whether that is the association’s directory, the insurer or the company register.

How do you verify a bank account before you transfer?

Call the agency on a phone number you already had, from its contract or an earlier, verified exchange, not one in the email with the bank details. Confirm the account holder and IBAN by voice. In the euro area, your bank must also check that the payee’s name matches the account, free of charge.

Step by step:

1. Compare with the contract. The account should be in the name of the stakeholder or the company in your contract.
2. Phone, do not reply. Europol: “Do not use the contact details on the letter/fax/email requesting the change.” ITIC’s claims director also advises a known phone number.
3. Use the payee check. Under Regulation (EU) 2024/886, banks in euro-area countries have had to offer verification of the payee for euro transfers since 9 October 2025, free of charge; banks in other EU countries have until 9 July 2027. According to the Banco de España, the result is one of four: match, close match (the bank shows you the real name on the account), no match, or could not be verified.
4. Do not override a mismatch. The check does not block the payment. The Banco de España warns that if you go ahead after a mismatch, the money goes to the IBAN you entered and your bank is not considered liable.
5. Be suspicious of any change. An email saying the account has changed, especially close to a payment date and with urgency, is the classic sign. ITIC’s claims director notes that it is unusual for companies to change bank accounts.
6. Confirm receipt. After paying, ask the agency to confirm the funds arrived.

If you think you have paid a fraudster

Call your bank at once. The Banco de España reminds customers that transfers are irrevocable and the bank can only make reasonable efforts to recover the money from the receiving bank. Report it to the police; Europol advises contacting the police even after a failed attempt.

What should you get in writing before you pay?

Get the essentials of the deal in the contract itself, not in an email. Under the 2025 MYBA terms, as described by the law firm Hill Dickinson, the entire agreement clause excludes earlier communications with brokers from the contract. A promise that matters goes into the Special Conditions.

A practical list to request:

• The agency’s legal identity: full company name, registered address and company registration details, and whether it is a MYBA member.
• The central agent: the name of the company that manages the yacht’s charter programme.
• The final watermarked MYBA contract, with its unique number, and confirmation that it has been validated.
• The stakeholder: who it is, and the bank account in its name, as stated in the contract.
• The payment schedule: amounts and dates for each instalment, the APA and any VAT.
• The yacht’s documents, if you want them: insurance and liability cover, certificate of registry and other relevant certificates, which MYBA’s guidelines say the charter manager must provide to the broker on request once the contract is signed. You can ask for them before signing, but the guidelines do not require it.
• The authorisation to charter in the country where the charter takes place, where one is required: a charter licence, or in Spain the captain’s Affidavit of Responsibility (see the next section).
• Everything you were promised that matters to you, in the Special Conditions.

Does the yacht need a licence to charter?

In some countries, yes, and it matters for you because an unlicensed charter can leave the yacht uninsured. IYC’s tax page refers to the appropriate charter licence in Spain and Croatia. Spain is replacing its licence with a declaration filed by the captain, with 2026 as a transition year.

What the sources say:

Why it matters to you: BOAT International explains that the two most widely used yacht insurance forms warrant that the yacht is used for private pleasure only and is not chartered unless underwriters specifically agree, and that, under the warranty of legality implied by the UK’s Marine Insurance Act 1906, a yacht chartering in Spanish waters without a Spanish charter licence would not be covered (the article dates from 2009, updated in 2012). Ask the agency to confirm the yacht is licensed and insured for commercial charter where you will cruise. Local VAT is in our VAT guide by country, and the flag and licence rules that decide which yachts can charter in Croatia are on that destination’s page.

What are the warning signs of a yacht charter scam?

Each check above has a matching warning sign: no listing in the directory, no final contract, an account that does not match, or a sudden change of bank details. A legitimate agency answers these points quickly, because they are routine in the industry. Watch for:

• The agency claims MYBA membership but does not appear in the member directory.
• You are asked to pay before receiving a final contract, or the contract is a draft.
• The account is in the name of an individual, or of a company that is not in the contract.
• Bank details change by email, especially near a payment date or with urgency.
• The sender’s address is almost, but not exactly, the one you have been using.
• The agency cannot name the yacht’s central agent, or cannot provide the yacht’s documents once the contract is signed.
• Logos on the website cannot be confirmed with the association or insurer.
• Promises made by email are not in the Special Conditions.

Pressure to pay “today or lose it” is easier to resist with time in hand: see when to book a yacht charter.

Send your enquiry with what matters

Tell us your dates, the number of guests, the area you have in mind and your budget. A charter specialist will study your request and reply with options. The charter is contracted with the yacht’s owner through a licensed charter agency, usually on MYBA terms, with the full price and the VAT clear before you sign, and every check in this guide applies to that agency as much as to any other. Send your enquiry.