How to pay the seller of an aircraft

In France the max authorized cash payments are
B2B 1000 euros
B2C 1000 euros /15000 euros if the customer can document that his tax residence is not in France

Between private individuals, if there is no commercial purpose for any party involved, and if it’s not real estate, there is not limit: you may sell your own Falcon 7X to your neighbour for cash. (But good luck when you show the money to the bank teller.)

That said, paying with 100 notes or over in France will raise suspicion, many businesses would refuse, even if it’s illegal to refuse. In 2015 a flight cool in the Southwest of France would not accept credit cards, nor cash over 1000 (even from overseas clients), but cheques and bank transfers only!

In France I would pay an aircraft with a banker’s draft, or I would request the services of an escrow agent, such as a lawyer or a notary public.
I think that a maintenance facility or an airfield who let you leave the facility or the airfield forfeit ipso facto the lien they have on your aircraft.

I understand in the UK you can pay a fee to the CAA who will let you know if there’s a mortgage on the plane

AFIK this is now free on G-INFO searches. It used to be a fee of 20 GBP.

Aircraft VAT thread

Not seen any mention yet of the dreaded VAT and this is very important.

Establish the VAT status of the aircraft and whether it is in ‘free circulation’ within Europe. You need to get documentary evidence that VAT is paid or outstanding.

I can’t imagine there’s any reasonable way to determine whether there are airfields (or engineers without a lien?) with a claim against the airframe, is there?

That’s correct.

Hopefully unpaid landing/parking fees cannot come to a huge amount, unless the plane was sitting somewhere for months or years but then long periods of non-operation ought to be established anyway by examination of the records.

Unpaid maintenance bills could be big but hopefully the potential is limited because most maintenance outfits won’t let you fly away until you have paid the bill. It’s a good point – worth establishing who did the last £30k avionics upgrade and giving them a call. On a £50k plane, the potential should be limited since recent work should be obvious.

I doubt kwlf is looking at a US import, in this price range.

AdamFrisch wrote:

Just to get the lien info from FAA can take a long time.

If you happen to know an FAA DAR, they can download both the title history and the FAA maintenance history from on line FAA records in a few minutes, instead of you ordering the CD and waiting for delivery by mail. When I became interested in buying my plane, an A&P IA friend asked his DAR contact to download the data and I had it via forwarded email in an hour or so. Shortly thereafter I had reviewed all the data and determined there were no title issues, before ever looking at the plane in person. I couldn’t look at the plane immediately because I was on the other side of the world when seeing the advertisement!

Think it’s in the $500-1500 region if recall correctly. It’s just not only escrow itself – the escrow and sales agent, makes sure every paper, every bill of sale, every purchase agreement and most importantly, checks on every lien on the airframe and makes sure all the ducks are in a row there. It’s invaluable and actually really cheap for the service you get.

Case in hand: On my first plane there was an old mechanics lien from the 70’s. When it came to sell it, the owner didn’t want an uncleared lien, naturally, so my escrow/sales agent Kim chased the relatives down of the old mechanic and had it cleared! That’s the kind of stuff that’s not so easy to do on your own. Just to get the lien info from FAA can take a long time.

I would never sell or buy a plane without this service.