Escrow and title search and common sense.

[luvflyin]

Buying it from a business means absolutely nothing. Lots of used car salesman out there. A business near me has a reputation for less than stellar aircraft sales. Sold an F33 with no data plate after it was in a flood. Petitioned to get a new plate, no dice. So he put it as experimental exhibition and sold it. Great, can fly a plane that was in a flood once a year. Same guy bought a gear up lance may or may not have fixed it correctly and off it went. Was sued at least once in the past over a sale...and lost his arse

After doing a lot of looking for an airplane to buy with a lot of research and a lot contact with sellers and brokers I came to the conclusion that Car Salesmen get a bad rap. I have never encountered the right out lies and deceptions I got from some plane sellers with car sellers.

 

[AA5Bman]

I can't wait to be your mechanic at first annual.

Zing, but also LOL.

After doing a lot of looking for an airplane to buy with a lot of research and a lot contact with sellers and brokers I came to the conclusion that Car Salesmen get a bad rap. I have never encountered the right out lies and deceptions I got from some plane sellers with car sellers.

Juicy, do tell!

@OP: did you pay a deposit to the seller (not the down payment for the loan)? Wouldn’t it be nice for them not to have that in hand until you approve the purchase?

 

[k9medic]

Help me understand why my lender is forcing me to use an escrow and title search?

The title search, I can at least understand. But the company I contacted charged $95 for a rush and $75 for a standard. However, I put a full good faith deposit down on my aircraft simply because we added some avionics so I thought that was fair.

For escrow and title search, they want $650?? They get $500 just to hold a check and transfer it to my seller who is a business?

I'm I missing something

I sold my Cherokee 6/260 to a cash buyer. We did not use an escrow agent. He pulled a title search himself. All was good.

I think went into contract on a Cessna 320 that went through an escrow agent. They found and cleared up a couple of old liens that I would never have been able to fix myself. At the end of the day, the prebuy failed that aircraft.

Fast forward a week later and I was under contract for a 310Q. Used the same escrow company. They found an old lien that had been files AFTER the current seller purchased the plane. The seller paid the lien off and all was well.

I used AIC for both transactions. When the first plane failed prebuy, I only had to pay for the title search.


I have said this before and I'll say it again - if you can't afford to walk away from $1000 for a prebuy or a title search, you can't afford to own an airplane.

 

[Dave Anderson]

I sold my Cherokee 6/260 to a cash buyer. We did not use an escrow agent. He pulled a title search himself. All was good.

I think went into contract on a Cessna 320 that went through an escrow agent. They found and cleared up a couple of old liens that I would never have been able to fix myself. At the end of the day, the prebuy failed that aircraft.

Fast forward a week later and I was under contract for a 310Q. Used the same escrow company. They found an old lien that had been files AFTER the current seller purchased the plane. The seller paid the lien off and all was well.

I used AIC for both transactions. When the first plane failed prebuy, I only had to pay for the title search.


I have said this before and I'll say it again - if you can't afford to walk away from $1000 for a prebuy or a title search, you can't afford to own an airplane.

I question everything, it's not about affording. I don't like wasting money.

 

[Gary Ward]

Help me understand why my lender is forcing me to use an escrow and title search?

The title search, I can at least understand. But the company I contacted charged $95 for a rush and $75 for a standard. However, I put a full good faith deposit down on my aircraft simply because we added some avionics so I thought that was fair.

For escrow and title search, they want $650?? They get $500 just to hold a check and transfer it to my seller who is a business?

I'm I missing something

I am sure you know, that you can get a $10.00 report from the FAA on CD or a computer file immediately to check for liens, prior owners, 337 filed for the plane and more. Same thing the escrow service is going to pull on your plane. I would get one for yourself early on and review it.

Like said above you have to jump through the lenders hoops and I don't blame them.

 

[flyingron]

The $10 records request is NOT just what the title search people check. First off, it takes a few weeks and that won't tell you what the state of the aircraft TODAY is. Second, it's just a dump of the paper in your aircraft file. It doesn't provide the leg work of matching up recorded liens and transfers with releases and subsequent transfers. Yeah, you could do that yourself IF you knew what you were doing. Third, the thing is notoriously prone to missing stuff. I've found them missing documents on my scans and places where they scanned only one side of a 337 which I know had stuff on the back.

 

[comanchepilot]

You don't want to make sure that the person selling you the airplane actually has title?

I want to make sure the person buying my airplane has the money. So - escrow is the way to go.