Anyone ever sold/exported an airplane?

cbmontgo

cbmontgo

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cbmontgo
I am helping my dad with an airplane sale and have an offer from a U.S. broker whose customer is in another country. I have heard rumblings of a customs and paperwork nightmare that might ensue and make this more trouble than its worth.

Has anyone ever dealt with this situation before?
 
It can be traumatic for reasons you might find difficult to comprehend. A very nice and recently updated Cessna 340 was bound for Canada, subject to the required inspection by their regulatory authority.

The inspection revealed that the newly-installed and properly STC'd propellers were not acceptable in Canada, since the STC for their used had not been approved there. Back to square one.

cbmontgo said:
I am helping my dad with an airplane sale and have an offer from a U.S. broker whose customer is in another country. I have heard rumblings of a customs and paperwork nightmare that might ensue and make this more trouble than its worth.

Has anyone ever dealt with this situation before?
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Tom-D said:
Yes,, Call your FSDO get the forms fill them out send them in.
http://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/aircraft_certification/aircraft_registry/export_aircraft/
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Thanks, Tom.

wabower said:
It can be traumatic for reasons you might find difficult to comprehend. A very nice and recently updated Cessna 340 was bound for Canada, subject to the required inspection by their regulatory authority.

The inspection revealed that the newly-installed and properly STC'd propellers were not acceptable in Canada, since the STC for their used had not been approved there. Back to square one.
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This is the sort of thing that scares me about the idea.
 
I know a young man who sold a C-150 this way.

I bet they sealed the deal as a U.S. transaction first.

I'd say, let the broker deal with getting it out of the country after the U.S. sale to the broker is 100% final.

Sell it to the broker. Make your life easier. He takes his cut out of a reduced sale price and then re-sells higher. Liability of the International transaction is on his head.
 
I've never done an airplane export, but knowing how much export paperwork goes with exporting bathroom fixtures, batteries, and suntan lotion, I can't imagine how much a headache an airplane would be.
 
Brokers don't buy for their own account and most of them couldn't raise the money to buy a wooley-worm a warm-up suit anyway. Dealers who might buy the plane for resale are way too smart for such an open-ended deal.

denverpilot said:
I know a young man who sold a C-150 this way.

I bet they sealed the deal as a U.S. transaction first.

I'd say, let the broker deal with getting it out of the country after the U.S. sale to the broker is 100% final.

Sell it to the broker. Make your life easier. He takes his cut out of a reduced sale price and then re-sells higher. Liability of the International transaction is on his head.
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Like Wayne says, it's harder to get them into Canada than out of the US.
normally going to Canada it is a simple matter of de-registering them here. and flying the aircraft to a Canadian entry point, from there on it is a buyers problem.

the last 172 I sent up to Canada it was 3 weeks to get it from the entry point to the owners field.
 
Sell it to them for delivery here. Export and compliance all their deal.

Unless you are getting a raft more money in exchange for assuming some of the export risk, don't.
 
CJones said:
I've never done an airplane export, but knowing how much export paperwork goes with exporting bathroom fixtures, batteries, and suntan lotion, I can't imagine how much a headache an airplane would be.
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It isn't that big of a deal really, the seller simply submits a bill of sale to the FAA just like they would do if they sold it in the US. every thing else is the canadian buyers problem, getting "C" letters on it.

normally you can as an American pilot fly the aircraft to the Canadian buyer's home field, catch a ride home, submit the bill of sale to the FAA and you are done.
 
wabower said:
It can be traumatic for reasons you might find difficult to comprehend. A very nice and recently updated Cessna 340 was bound for Canada, subject to the required inspection by their regulatory authority.

The inspection revealed that the newly-installed and properly STC'd propellers were not acceptable in Canada, since the STC for their used had not been approved there. Back to square one.
Click to expand...

Really dumb on the buyer to not have his AME inspect the aircraft prior to the sale.
 
Somewhat OT but one day when I was bored I did an N-number search on many of the airplanes I had flown in the past and was surprised that a large percentage had been exported. All over the world.
 
If you can find a buyer who is willing to complete a deal on those terms, power to you. I know for a fact that most buyers are aware that a full set of inspections will be necessary in order to register the aircraft into the import country, and they will want to use that inspection as their pre-buy and to have the work done by a shop that is licensed in or otherwise recognized by that country.

I've been involved with 6 export transactions over the past four years, including three to Mexico, one to Canada, one to Germany and one to Bolivia. All of them involved inspections as a condition of the deal, and all of them had at least one hang-up on paperwork or equipment.

Tom-D said:
It isn't that big of a deal really, the seller simply submits a bill of sale to the FAA just like they would do if they sold it in the US. every thing else is the canadian buyers problem, getting "C" letters on it.

normally you can as an American pilot fly the aircraft to the Canadian buyer's home field, catch a ride home, submit the bill of sale to the FAA and you are done.
Click to expand...
 
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