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Tyrekickers - where are you?

William is correct – of course. Although there will always be exceptions.
If a broker is involved they will usually facilitate a viewing, followed by a second viewing if necessary, but at inspection point a price will be agreed subject to the aircraft meeting a pre described standard, and a deposit is required with a preliminary contract, before the tools come out.
Sometimes there may be a request for proof of funds to ensure a smooth transaction if the aircraft is at acceptable standards. Which proves to the vendor that the buyer is very serious and committed.
If the aircraft meets expectations of the PPI the deposit can be lost if the buyer falters.

United Kingdom

Well, I would not pay a deposit before inspecting a plane, where the inspection involved

  • removing top cowling (about 2 mins’ work on a TB)
  • removing the rear cavity access door (about 5 mins)
  • borescoping the engine via a few spark plug holes (30 mins)
  • inspecting the paperwork (say 1hr)

If the seller wants to block the above, I’d assume he is hiding something. And indeed some are, because there is always a mug just around the corner who will buy it without any (professional level) inspection.

I have been ripped off with such deposits before. Last time was on a car, and in general the used car game is just like the used plane game, in terms of human nature WilliamF is an exception but he’s rare.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

A funny (and very much non tyre-kicky) story occurred about a year ago – I know someone who sold a plane in Ireland, he had two offers, one from Hungary. The Hungarian evidently really wanted the plane, because they offered above the advertised price by a few thousand quid (it wasn’t a high value aircraft).

The transaction was absolutely fine – the money paid properly etc. but for the next month the previous owner had to keep sending photocopies of the bill of sale to all the NAAs (including the Isle of Man) between Ireland and Hungary because the buyer simply plotted a straight line to each place he would refuel, completely ignoring controlled airspace. He flew straight through the middle of Ronaldsway’s class D so I’m told, busted a bunch of airspace in the UK and then beyond! Before anyone could do anything about it he was safely home in Hungary, well out of the reach of GASCo.

Andreas IOM

That’s a hilarious story. I know a pilot, in shall we say the south east of Europe, who did that right across the UK, no IR, at FL100. Had London Control scrambling like crazy… Luckily for him, the RAF doesn’t have enough airworthy jets these days to intercept a PA28.

This came up on the Zoom chat on Tuesday (buying a used plane). There is no practical way to check for liens or charges on a GA plane, except major loan stuff, but fortunately it is quite rare in Europe for piston GA planes to be bought with a loan. Fairly common in the US though, which is why they get really upset if somebody posts comments which somebody sees as devaluing their type. In the US-based Socata owners’ group they created a secret section which nobody was supposed to talk about so that only those selected by the site owner would even ask about how to get access – until one pilot mentioned its existence in the open forum

You cannot check if somebody has run up a load of landing/parking fees all over the place. Fortunately most GA planes don’t fly past the local greasy burger joint… Airspace violations could be more interesting… the UK CAA “team” (1 person actually) does go after the aircraft reg regardless of ownership, in their initial grading of the crime, but presumably a new owner will get out of it easily enough. Can’t say if every other country does that though…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Pain in the ass to sell planes. This is why brokers exist. Buyers, entitled by the high amount they’re spending in their minds, have taken the “customer is always right” to heart and will drive you to the brink of insanity for info that has absolutely no bearing on anything. “What’s the serial numbers of the screws that went into the top overhaul?”, “was the overhaul shop ISO 9001 certified?”, “I want to see copies of every logbook going back to 1953”, “I want you to fly it to my mechanic in Florida so he can do a pre-buy” etc. BTW, these are all real questions I’ve had.

Brokers cost a bit of money, but they’ll keep you sane.

Last Edited by AdamFrisch at 23 Jul 09:10

Anyone know what kind of scam this is?

I’ve seen this scam being exposed on Dutch television in a hidden camera program. In the program it was about a seller of a holiday home who got scammed, but I guess it works the same for private aircraft…

The scammers will meet you in the lobby of a posh hotel. They will be well dressed and tell you they are from a wealthy family and want to pay the ask price and do a deposit.

Since the family has lots of black money,
the deposit will be done in cash. They only have 500 EUR notes which are difficult to use. So they offer you an exchange deal: they will pay an additional 60K in 500 EUR bills and in return you give them 50K in small amounts.

Next time you meet, the scammer will be waiting with a large leather briefcase.
When you hand over the envelope with 50K he will go to the toilet to count the money.

It will take some time before you realise that the scammer is gone with your money and that the briefcase on the table only contains news papers…

Various version of this, including where they overpay and ask for a refund of the overpayment via a bank transfer, and then their original payment bounces.

As I said earlier, scamming is destined to become the world’s second oldest profession. I think people are realising just how easy it is. There is a NHS track and trace scam going on right now…

was the overhaul shop ISO 9001 certified

That’s hilarious; only a complete mug would ask that, since anybody who knows what ISO9000 actually is will know it is completely meaningless.

As in any business, one needs to present the product in a way which attracts the better quality buyers. To start with, if you produce a long info pack, those who can’t read will disappear, and that’s a good start. I am reliably informed that also works great for internet dating, if you are a girl who doesn’t want a truck driver

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I’ve had a few reactions to my add in the for sale section for my Mooney. It’s a PITA, I try to be accommodating to buyers, mostly from Switzerland by the way, but at one point interest just bleeds out. I’ve primed my maintenance company a couple of times that they would be called by a prospective buyer, but they never once received a phonecall. At one point I asked a buyer to provide me with a photo of his pilotslicense as I had only his first name and he had all my details from the loggs. He seemed very interested, but I never heard from him. Now with the whole pandemic the market is crap anyway, so I guess I’ll be off to a broker.

If anyone knows a good one, let me know.

EHTE, Netherlands

Peter wrote:

You cannot check if somebody has run up a load of landing/parking fees all over the place. Fortunately most GA planes don’t fly past the local greasy burger joint… Airspace violations could be more interesting… the UK CAA “team” (1 person actually) does go after the aircraft reg regardless of ownership, in their initial grading of the crime, but presumably a new owner will get out of it easily enough. Can’t say if every other country does that though…

I would not bother with landing/parking fees, I hardly managed to pay them myself: it took 6months for the letter to arrive and 3months of hard trying to pay, the invoice was 13Euros…

Another thing is some aircrafts regs can’t go to some airfields due to past disputes (money or job still owed) with previous airfield management or maintenance

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

I think WilliamF here is a good broker, though I have never used his services.

We have many past threads on how to sell a plane. I think the key thing is to produce a good information pack, including scans of (relevant parts of) the logbooks, lots of detailed pics of the plane (in high resolution), and put all this on say dropbox (not on some site which needs the reader to apply for a password, etc) and then just sit tight and see who turns up. Then put an advert on the usual sites, or the EuroGA Marketplace, to give it some SEO. Make sure the ad contains your contact email address (not phone # because that gets you the “don’t use email, use only whatsapp” types). I did this for a TB20 friend of mine (actually I did a simple website which took me about an hour) and he sold it right away, full price. This was about 10 years ago and the website is still there but not linked so nobody can find it.

I think perhaps, tongue in cheek, sites like Tinder may be producing more tyre kickers… the whole “internet generation” tends to go about things differently. Even just email itself makes it so much easier to waste somebody’s time.

I would not get my maintenance company (if I used one) involved at all. They don’t fly the plane anyway. Just produce the good info pack, and if somebody doesn’t like it, they can get stuffed. Good quality buyers will ask the right sort of questions, after that.

Another thing is some aircrafts regs can’t go to some airfields due to past disputes (money or job still owed) with previous airfield management or maintenance

Yes that is very true.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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