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How would one do a prebuy on a plane far away?

This picks up from here

Regarding a prospective purchase from (as mentioned) Spain, and while I am not sure if this is still true but the parking charges at some of the airfields used to be so low (say €10/month at Granada, not sure how many years ago) that the cost of letting a plane rot was negligible. Even in the UK, many people let a plane rot while paying £300/month for a hangar!

However, one obviously should always do a prebuy check, so the risk in buying from these places would be just the cost of a wasted airline ticket and other travel. Plus the risk of being pressured to buy it because one doesn’t want to travel all the way back – that happens easily with cars.

This makes me wonder how exactly people do prebuys which involve significant travel.

If it was me, I would start with some correspondence and if it looks less than good (e.g. ask 3 questions and get 2 answers) I would walk away. BUT a lot of people can’t (or won’t) write, or being vague/evasive is their normal writing style (and probably a way of life) so this might cause a lot of walk-aways. I’ve seen cases of blindingly obvious con-jobs (e.g. somebody asking £10,000 to view a TB20GT for sale) yet people still fall for these because they fall in love with the thing and “want to believe”.

It is also true that a lot of prebuy checks are done by people unfamiliar with aircraft, and to be fair it is extremely hard to find a “mechanic” who also knows anything about modern avionics (personally I do not know a single such person) so maybe buying from some areas is a bigger risk if you don’t do your homework.

Is there a bigger risk in say Spain with getting legal title? In property (houses) that’s certainly the case, as countless Brits found out. Whole housing estates were built “legally” but with the permission involving bribery and the Govt can just bulldoze those.

But how do you do a 100% title check on a plane, anyway, anywhere?

You cannot detect unpaid landing/parking charges.

For sure, N. Europe does not have any sort of privileged position when it comes to seller integrity, and I have hundreds of emails from burnt owners to show for that, none of which can be posted The same stuff, starting with logbook forgery (starting with leaving out logbook inserts which are evidence of long term problems) and going onto other stuff, happens everywhere.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I have bought an aircraft in Puerto Rico without seeing it until Boston. The only way was to send a very well regarded engineer down to do a pre-buy and documents check. It worked out OK but we still had a failed pilots heated windscreen on arrival in Boston. I would be very reluctant to do it again with an aircraft outside of the more reliable parts of the US or Europe.

Title check depends on the register. Any lien should be registered.

Last Edited by JasonC at 13 Sep 14:20
EGTK Oxford

What is a lien? A loan with the aircraft as a named security, is presumably one. Would there be a lien on an aircraft bought with cash (the vast majority of piston aircraft)?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

s there a bigger risk in say Spain with getting legal title? In property (houses) that’s certainly the case, as countless Brits found out. Whole housing estates were built “legally” but with the permission involving bribery and the Govt can just bulldoze those.

But how do you do a 100% title check on a plane, anyway, anywhere?

You cannot detect unpaid landing/parking charges.

For sure, N. Europe does not have any sort of privileged position when it comes to seller integrity, and I have hundreds of emails from burnt owners to show for that, none of which can be posted The same stuff, starting with logbook forgery (starting with leaving out logbook inserts which are evidence of long term problems) and going onto other stuff, happens everywhere.

So many questions – where to start ?

I’ve bought planes on the other side of the globe for myself and I’ve performend dozens of pre-buys for distant buyers and I would say that, all-in-all, my experience has been 99% positive .

Without a doubt, finding a trusted, experienced & professional local to proxy for you is primordial .

I would say that 99% of the horror stories I’ve heard were from un-experienced buyers going it solo …

Spain: I’ve bought planes there and I can tell you that it’s the most regulated transaction I’ve ever seen: Both parties MUST be registered with the Spanish Tax Bureau (this can take up to 3 months), and the transaction MUST take place at a Notary ! Needless to say, this adds to the transaction cost, buyer beware :

As for parking & landing fees, I’ve never had any problems clearing this with the airport authority.

As mentioned, clear title depends on registry, but I can tell you for a fact that the FAA does NOT police or enforce title liens, they just “archive” them. Ex. I sold a 50 year old legacy twin on FAA register and when the buyer did a proper titles search he came up with not one but TWI liens that were over 40 years old and the plane had already changed hands 3 times in that period !

I also bought a plane without ever seeing it and without any assistance, 10,000 kms distant … WARNING: KIDS don’t try this at home !

FAA A&P/IA
LFPN

Peter wrote:

What is a lien? A loan with the aircraft as a named security, is presumably one. Would there be a lien on an aircraft bought with cash (the vast majority of piston aircraft)?

A lien security over an asset. A loan or lease on the aircraft will typically be registered and searchable. The worry is a repairer or airport or Eurocontrol debt. They can stop the aircraft leaving where it is parked.

EGTK Oxford

My first plane had a lien that came up during the title search. It was from the late 70’s and I elected to proceed with purchase anyway. I always use a title and escrow company and they check the title as part of the sale service. When it came time to sell it, the new owner was a little reluctant to buy with an old lien, so I again had the title company look to see if they could remove the lien. They got a hold of the mechanics relative (who had initially recorded the lien as non payment for service) and we removed it. Was surprisingly smooth. In many older cases, that might not always be possible however. On the same token, if a plane has a 30+ year old lien on it, it’s probably not the end of the world. Chances are whoever recorded the lien is no longer around and/or have no interest in it. But do your due diligence and if you can, use a title company. They make life so much easier and it’s not very expensive.

In the example I cited of the multiple liens from over 40 years ago, I was able to get them cleared myself. They were bank liens from loans taken out against the acft. Problem was that there was wide-spread consolidation of banks in the US in the 70s and 80s basically little banks got bought out by medium sized banks that got bought by big banks ! Thankfully, the US banking system requires excellent public record keeping that allows you to work it back to the present-day owner .

An old mechanics’ lien could be problamatic and if you could’nt trace to the mechnics’ family then it would require taking it to acourt and have a judge declare it null & void.

FAA A&P/IA
LFPN

I bought an aircraft in the UK while physically being in Czech Republic. Seller’s agent more or less answered my questions, but would not provide logbook scans. The price, however, was good enough, so I found an engineer local to the seller’s home base and familiar with the type, and arranged an inspection as follows:

1. Logbooks. If bad problems are found, pay the engineer a token fee, abandon the deal.
2. Physical prebuy inspection. If bad problems are found, stop any further inspection and abandon the deal, paying for the engineer’s actual time up to a limit of £550.
3. If no substantial problems are found, purchase the plane and have the engineer do a full annual (which was due soon anyway) as a continuation of the prebuy.

In the end, I bought it, so essentially I paid nothing for a prebuy apart from the cost of a normal annual.

Last Edited by Ultranomad at 13 Sep 19:06
LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

I am in the process of buying a plane, in Spain. I live in Glasgow. So, the process started by phone, and e mail correspondence. Slowly, a bit of trust was built up. The seller then sent passport, and bank detail, all notarised. In fact, every piece of documentation I have been given since, including the Certificate off Registry, logs, ARC, expired cofa, ALL has been notarised. I was then on holiday, in the region, and arranged to view. The people could not have been more forthright, pleasant, and appear totally interested in a smooth transaction. I am having the aeroplane pre checked, and an ARC and annual, completed by a very reputable Spanish maintenance company. I went to meet them also, and they have agreed a quote, which I am happy with, which they say will be the final bill. I have built into the Bill of Sale, that if they do not honour this, the over balance will be deducted from the sale price. Therfore everyone has a vested interest for it to go well. I paid a small deposit, and also a small amount up front to the maintenance co. So far so good, everything has happened as expected. I was a bit worried to begin with, but tried to keep the deposits as low as possible, and my potential loss, to a minimum. Sometimes you just got to trust, otherwise, a lot of things, and bargains, don’t transact. I noticed in another thread here to day, someone stating they would never buy a Spanish plane. Why not? So far, I have found the Spanish far more straightforward, and the quality of work and price, far more customer orientated that any UK outfit. Obviously it goes without saying, that NO monies will be given over, unless I am fully satisfied with the paperwork, and work that has been, will be, done. Keep you posted……

Last Edited by BeechBaby at 13 Sep 19:16
Fly safe. I want this thing to land l...
EGPF Glasgow

What does it take to register a lien on a plane?

You could have a dispute with a maintenance company and they could just register one, no?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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