I even asked the maintenance firm to send me the owners details so I can talk to the owner directly but in a GDPR world that is obviously not possible
They could ask the owner for his consent to pass on his details…
That is what I used to do here, before we got the PM system (which is two-way anonymous – unless somebody intentionally includes their email address etc).
But also many people misunderstand what GDPR is about, and there is a huge amount of hiding behind it. And the law is country specific. The other day I was in a phone shop looking at a demo Huawei P30 PRO and asked if I can take a pic with it and transfer the RAW file to my phone, to see if I can open it in my version of Lightroom. The twit said No, GDPR doesn’t allow that 
Direct sellers are great.
You would be surprised sometimes Just because somebody owns a plane and has a PPL doesn’t mean they can read, and especially write, more than 1 line at a time.
mmgreve wrote:
I completely get why people use brokers but as a buyer they’re a pain to deal with.
I wear all three hats as the broker, owner seller & buyer. You can often meet people who are easy to deal with and truly memorable… and some who are complete potholes. That’s aviation…
In the last couple of weeks I have emailed a few brokers via planecheck in regard to the purchase of a 500k+ USD Cirrus. No response.
Concerning the T207A sometimes the broker didn’t reply for more than a month (“server problem”).
Some time ago I emailed Diamond about a plane. No response.
This is not high workload stuff… how hard can it be to reply with a friendly email and some information?
The only company that responded within a day was Cirrus Europe (not one of the local country "franchises).
Snoopy wrote:
This is not high workload stuff… how hard can it be to reply with a friendly email and some information?
Not hard at all but so many brokers are completely crap.
I’ve had the same experience with the nearest Mooney representative. My maintenance company easily keeps me dangling for a month, but they do reply to calls, e-mails and whatsapp, so somehow that feels better. The love of flying conquers all this, I guess.
But looking at it from a third party perspective the whole scene is strange, if you add the cost of all this, it’s absolutely bonkers.
Snoopy wrote:
I have emailed a few brokers via planecheck […] This is not high workload stuff…Especially for second-hand planes, we probably all have the same questions: maintenance/AD/SB status report, equipement & avionics, W&B etc… I am surprised that people list their plane and are not ready with the basic stuff.
On the one hand, someone who wants to sell a plane should prepare a comprehensive PDF containing the maintenance records, logbooks, etc. These will answer most questions and save a lot of time for everyone.
On the other hand, many people sell a plane for the same reasons they sell a car, etc i.e. it is a can of worms which they want to get rid of. And while selling a certified plane is (normally) without a liability, if you give specific warranties (e.g. the landing gear strut was replaced under an AD in 2015) then you do become liable for the discrepancy, and the liability could be unlimited if there is a resulting accident etc. And if you have forged logbook entries (a pretty common thing) then you really want to sell the plane to a mug who doesn’t do much of a prebuy check (or who pays a mechanic to do a prebuy check but the mechanic doesn’t do it). I can straight off think of a case where a plane was bought with an understanding that the logbooks and wiring diagrams would be sent on to the buyer, but they didn’t turn up, and probably for a good reason (if you supply these and the physical aircraft does not conform, that is another thing you the buyer can get you on).
