How to sell a TB20

Give @WilliamF a shout on here. He sold my Mooney and couldn’t have been better. He has a partner/office in the UK too.

1. How do we go about valuing it?

- By doing a market analysis. What are comparable aircraft listed for, then narrow it down based on hours, equipment etc..

2. Can we still sell it within the EU now we have Brexit :(

- Yes, however it is a third country import regarding airworthiness and customs. As many aircraft are purchased by companies, this is a minor factor. Treat the market as worldwide. You might want to join the TB owners forum and advertise it there.

3. Where is the best place to advertise or best broker to use?

- Planecheck is popular and free until sold, then a modest fee is asked for.
75/100 ads there are pretty low quality, so it’s easy to stand out.
If you want to use a broker, I recommend WF-Aviation.

Create a docket of all relevant information readily downloadable provide to any serious inquiry. Also offer a lot of high resolution images and videos.

Any and all advice will be gratefully received.

- It sounds simple and easy but it isn’t.

Price sensibly, there was a big spike in the market around last spring and it since has cooled.

Post Brexit I would suggest a G reg’s market is mainly UK. In addition to fiscal friction in an international sale you also are dealing with exporting the aircraft to a new registry/CofA. Ideally if you want a global audience consider N reg.

Snoopy wrote:

Create a docket of all relevant information readily downloadable provide to any serious inquiry.

That is the key point. Nobody will be able to do this for you, also not a broker. Do not cut corners here. Prospective buyers will eat up huge amounts of your time on the phone or by email asking all the same questions over and over again. You will end up digging up all the details anyway, so better do it at the the start and then send all those who inquire a well prepared pdf document with all the details. This will save you a huge amount of time in the end and also help the buyers. I sold 2 planes myself and doing such a document was the best idea ever.

Very sorry Neal to hear of your situation!

Import UK to EU is the same as e.g. US to EU. The buyer needs to pay his local VAT. There should be no import duty.

Also most buyers will want to transfer from G to their local registry, because

• the UK CAA will not allow a G to be flown on EU papers after some date which I can’t remember… (a reciprocal of the EU’s prohibition on an EU reg being flown on UK papers)
• brexit-related sentiment

I would first try to sell in the UK because it will be straightforward. But see what interest you get on the usual sites. @WilliamF is also well connected.

A transfer to N is not a trivial thing, it is expensive, a sale to the US is unlikely, and due to various changes like this and this there are few newcomers to the N-reg community now. But still the N-reg scene is where most touring goes on, and your plane is definitely in that category. With TKS it is a rare specimen.

As to value, I don’t know. The recent silly prices are now coming down and are likely to continue to come down.

Yes. Local VAT depending on country, again, not a big factor if the purchase is via a company. Additionally there’s the cost of airworthiness/re-registration in EASA land.

My understanding is that you need UK licence from the end of this year to fly a G reg, the same applies to maintenance.

Selling to Germany, for example, would require an export and import CofA to the German registry. A UK licence holder would need to ferry the aircraft to Germany where the re registration process would take place. Not trivial requiring surveys by both the UK and German regulator.

A buyer may place all of this on the shoulders of the seller, during which time they may walk away. In my opinion (worth what you paid for it), if you can’t find a buyer in the UK, consider re registering on the N reg, it then becomes internationally traceable.[tradeable]

If it is a personal sale no VAT applies in the UK. If a company sale UK VAT will apply wherever it is sold, and whatever the registration.

@WFAviation is worth speaking to. They arranged a hassle free sale for me this year on a G reg. I have also sold via Pilot magazine (literally sold within an hour of the magazine being published). Probably underpriced:)

I think most aircraft up to the TB20 class are still bought by private individuals, so yes, import tax is a considerable hurdle to selling out of the UK now. If your aircraft sells for 150k, then it’s about 30k that. get „wasted“. So invariably, the UK is now your primary market.

But I wouldn‘t worry. The market is still very strong for SEPs. So if you don‘t price the aircraft too high, it should sell. Especially with the TKS, which makes it more unique.

What a broker does is take away (to some degree) from you the hassle of dealing with the dreamers, idiots, and those just wanting to check the market. Or even those who really want to buy, but then chicken out at the last moment. But as was mentioned, the work of compiling all the technical information is sort of on you anyway. And once this work is done, yes, you can just fire off this package to anyone enquiring. Of course, some will still ask for more infos, some will want to see the aircraft, etc. Showing the aircraft to people can be tedious. But if the broker is not close to you, he might want to have the aircraft at „his“ airfield to be able to show it to prospective buyers. But if you don‘t fly it anymore anyways, then that should be no problem.

Some brokers have the benefit of knowing a lot of people out there who are looking for a good aircraft, especially when they specialize on a certain type (Cirrus for example). But I don‘t think there is any Socata TB specialized broker in the UK. Brokers generally take between 2% and 5% on an aircraft of this type. Some really work for it, others don‘t.