No matter you are dealing with LC terms or TT terms, once your locally custom clearance is required with the original BL, there will have the risk of losing the BL (bill of landing)
Here provide you the procedure on China side, which base on Ever Green Shipping (EMC), as each shipping line has different requirements, if you are not sure, suggest asking your China agent to check with them.
Procedures for handling lost bills of lading (China site) :
1. Provide a COPY of the commercial invoice, packing list, and customs declaration form at the time of customs declaration (Remark: be aware of the value before you provide, the liner will base on this).
2. The loss statement published in the provincial newspaper for three days is generally the loss statement of the bill of lading. Example of model: “Declaration of loss of bill of lading: A certain company has lost a set of original EVERGREEN LINE ocean bill of lading, and the bill of lading number is EGLV……, which is now declared invalid”( 提單遺失聲明， 某某公司現遺失EVERGREEN LINE 正本海運提單一套，提單號碼為EGLV………，現聲明作廢).
3. If it is necessary to detain the goods when handling the lost bill of lading, please provide the detainment guarantee issued by your company. (If your full payment is not received, this is necessary!)
4. The letter of guarantee for the re-issued bill of lading issued by your company is attached
5. BANK GUARANTEE (Chinese and English) provide by shipping lines, if you need a model from EMC, contact bloso. (issued by four major banks in China and your company with official seal)— (To be honest, if Chinese supplier company is not that powerful enough, and they have to apply it, it is not only will take a month to get, but also may not get approval)
6. Please inform the liner in advance if it is necessary to conduct telex release after re-apply BL.
For step 5, most of the company is not qualified enough to apply bank letter, in that case, EVERGREEN LINE will be required to pay triple times of goods value (which you provide to them in step 1, that’s why you need to be careful before submitting to liner), and as a deposit for 2 years without interest (What an unfair terms) Most supplier is not able to accept this terms, it will let most cash getting stuck and especially during the epidemic period.
Hearing the above steps, you may also wonder in such a trouble process, how long can apply new bill of landing.
The answer is it depends. If luckily, it will take around 10 days, if the liner wants to make more trouble, 30 days may be the fast time.
So what can we do to avoid losing bill of landing situation when you import from China?
Here are some solutions that may assist you if your country must need an original bill of landing for custom clearance:
- Ask the China supplier to keep one of the original BL documents.
By keeping one original, if other documents really get lost, still your supplier has one original and can apple other necessary document or send them again to you.
- Do the destination release bill of landing
Most of the suppliers keep the original bill of landing, only after they received full payment they will send the documents to their customers. But releasing the BL at the destination also a smart way to avoid so many unforeseeable situations.
- Apply for Telex Release
This is the way of BL landing, especially you are in the Caribbean region, or South America area, but please do double-check with your local customs clearance agent for the way of releasing BL.
Hope the above information can help you with your next shipment. Being an experienced sourcing company, assisting you is our greatest mission.
Don’t forget to save it in case in future need, or share to friends who need it.
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