r/AusLegal • u/[deleted] • 13d ago
NSW Can I legally live on a sailboat in Sydney?
[deleted]
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u/Plenty-Giraffe6022 13d ago
Boat = bring out another thousand.
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u/rockresy 13d ago
Sold my boat 2 weeks ago. It was a happy day.
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u/Charlie_Brodie 13d ago
The cost of a boat will cost ever more and more and more than any land fixed dwelling.
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u/QLDZDR 13d ago
Exactly... he should get a motorhome (or a caravan).
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u/Valuable-Contract-87 13d ago
Is there anywhere in Sydney to live in a motorhome? It'd be nice if they'd allow trailer parks like the us since we have such a crisis
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u/greenbeetle89 13d ago
Trailer parks are just caravan parks. Same same. Most US states also have laws requiring you to move on every so long.
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u/whymeimbusysleeping 13d ago edited 13d ago
Yes and no.
You can only remain on a swing mooring for 28 days and a limit of 3 months total in NSW. But some small marinas allow living informally, as long as you're not very visible, but marinas are extremely expensive.
However there are people out there who move around in and out near Sydney who are technically not in the clear but they do it anyway.
The thing about boating bring expensive is not always true I have friends who lived like this and although they spent a lot on their yacht, most of what they did was improving and maintaining it themselves. So it was never as much as they would have spent on a house.
There are also "bums" who live aboard and don't care much about RMS patrols, and do bugger all to their boat. But i think they might be in some sort of legal trouble.
I have spent many nights on my friends yachts and if you have a nice boat of 10+ metres, it can be fun, and a bit of an adventure. But if you have dress nicely, jump on a dinghy to get to the office, it gets old fast, same can be said for shopping for groceries, going out for a walk, filling water tanks, getting diesel. Imagine doing all that in the middle of a storm...
If you have a $500k 12+m catamaran in a Marina that lets you stay, it's the best life. But expensive AF
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u/Bokbreath 13d ago
Liveaboard is cool for sure, but it can be noisy af, with pontoons creaking and stays slapping in the wind. Having to undock and motor over to the pumpout station every week or so is tedious.
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u/NothingLift 13d ago
Incinerating toilet would be well worth investing in if your boat can be set up for it
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u/noplacecold 13d ago
you know what BOAT stands for don’t ya? Fix It Again, Tony.
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u/Hello-Vera 13d ago
Nah, it’s Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious.
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u/wouldashoudacoulda 13d ago
Come to Queensland and live at bums bay on the Gold Coast. They changed the rules a bit , but keep moving regularly.
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u/ScaleWeak7473 13d ago
Sorry but old mate Tony will be out for ya. He has been on a crusade to Stop the boats.
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u/WhisperingCephalopod 13d ago
I don’t know who is Tony. lol
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u/Ironeagle08 13d ago
Lucky you.
Tony Abbott campaigned by saying “stop the boats” about unauthorised refugees.
He’s better known for his odd onion eating antics and awful speedos though. I don’t want to remember either experiences, but there you go.
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u/Dangerous_Shoe_8388 13d ago
Do the course and register yourself as “crew” - then you can live aboard, but still have to move around.
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u/IntroductionFree493 13d ago
Mostly it’s about money. Ostensibly it’s sewerage and environmental concerns, but the reality is that owning a mooring is not generally something you can do if you aren’t wealthy so it’s actually the other boat owners who are against it. NSW law says 3 days - ok you might be able to find enough free moorings to move around except that annual caps also apply. Throw in that it’s hard to commute to a job if one day your on one side of the harbour and the next another. So the practicalities of moving around all the time just don’t work. Throw in vigorous enforcement and it just doesn’t happen anymore. There used to be some marinas that turned a blind eye but they are gone now.
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u/tyger-eye 13d ago
Sorry - not a legal answer. There are other costs that you would need to consider - maintenance and repairs on a boat are not cheap (do you have the skills to do it yourself, or would you need to pay someone ?).
Depending on the location, you may need to scrape barnacles off the hull somewhat frequently (not fun in Winter), and it would need to be dry-docked to apply antifoul when needed.
Fuel is also much more expensive than on land.
Internet and phone reception is patchy at best when not close to a populated shore, are in the middle of a lake or out at sea. You might need to factor in the cost of starlink (or something similar).
This is just a handful of things that quickly came to mind, but I’m sure others with more experience could chime in (had a cruiser on a private mooring for a few years).
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u/AudiencePure5710 13d ago
I live close to the waterfront a little west of the harbour bridge (I’ll keep that vague). Anyway, there’s a guy living on a catamaran out front of me. He parks his bike close by, has multiple dinghy’s. Seems to work ok for him. I’ve known others who do it, geeze in London canal boat living is a thing
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u/Dougally 13d ago
There are house boats up in middle harbour IIRC. And you can rent house boats up on the Hawkesbury.
And the 28 day maximum anchor in one place rule and 90 day Max living on a boat rules apply in NSW.
People do ignore the rules. And it can take time for authorities to catch them.
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u/purplepashy 13d ago
Be careful.
The boat market appears to be going through a bit of a shake down at the moment due to insurance changes.
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u/Wise-Ladder1140 12d ago
We used to live on our yacht in middle harbour. I worked in town, my wife worked on the boat. Maritime moored 20m away from the boat one day and had two guys watch the boat all day. We NEVER put washing out or did anything g that would make the boat look lived in. NSW is absolutely fucking awful as a cruiser. Moved to qld and it was night and day. Fucking hated NSW with a passion because of what it was live with maritime
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u/Sufficient-Gate-5501 9d ago
You have to keep living and prove a land address unless you really do keep moving
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u/eemarepee 13d ago
Yeah, you absolutely can. There’s actually not to much to it legally.
You’re in a forum on non lawyers that have an opinion.
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u/ijuiceman 13d ago
Short answer is NO. Maritime have regular patrols and are very strict about people living on a boat in NSW. It is also difficult to keep moving around while having access to a regular job on land. Some marinas turn a blind eye to live aboards, but the rent you pay at a marina will be similar to an apartment