Partnership agreement

[FlyBoyAndy]

I've been part of a partnership for several years and frankly we work with no formal partnership agreement or operating procedures. Just five guys that book the plane and use it. One guy is our "leader" that takes payments, schedules maintenance, pays bills and all other administrative functions.

There's been some talk about the "leader" and a few other members contemplating giving up flying (age and medical). This has prompted me to think about creating a formal agreement or operating procedures before we replace their seat.

Is anyone willing to point to theirs if they have one, or a resource for creating one related to general aviation?

 

[murphey]

Check AOPA website. Lots of templates and sample stuff such as escrow, partnerships prebuy, etc.

 

[AggieMike88]

AOPA is a good start. Their templates make for good conversations about how things will happen when all is going well and as expected, but more importantly, when things are going badly.

An analogy in the "human" world is a pre-nup agreement.

Topics to discuss and document can include

• Partner obligations, even if they become a dormant non-flying partner
• What happens when abuse of the asset (airplane) happens
• What happens when a partner wishes to exit on good terms (aka, he remains on hook for expenses until replacement is found and approved)
• What happens when a partner wishes to exit on bad terms
• What happens when one of the partners dies and now his heirs and estate are involved
• All sorts of financial topics such as how debt is dealt with if debt is ever used, how will very expensive maintenance surprises get paid, how will upgrades get funded
• If the partnership ever dissolves, how will that be dealt with.

Just a small sample of what you can included. But that should get you started.