Should I sell?

gdwindowpane

gdwindowpane

Pre-takeoff checklist
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gdwindowpane
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W78 - William M Tuck
Selling my Dad's 1966 Cessna 150F. Guy out of Florida responds to Barnstormers ad. Says he runs a flight time builder company and needs more planes. Sent him log books, annual info, etc. He wants to do a video call to see the airplane and then purchase it. Will wire funds. I tell him about the forms we'll need to fill out, Heir-At-Law and 8050-2 Bill of Sale at the minimum. Not sure if this is a scam or not. I'm thinking I should go through an escrow company rather than give him the Trust bank account info to have the funds wired. When I sold the Widgeon we went through AIC Title Service which went very smoothly. Who is responsible for submitting the paperwork to the FAA? I assume the purchaser seeing as I didn't submit anything for the Widgeon. Maybe the Title Service filed. I assume I wouldn't want to give him possession of the Cessna until the paperwork has been filed? I wouldn't want any liability to fall on me or the Trust for what happens to the airplane after it leaves.

He says he's based at Flagler Executive KFIN. Would like to have it ferried down but said he could send someone up. He says he's a pilot but Airmen Registry says he's a student pilot, issued 8/27/2025.

Not sure if I should walk away or what. I do have another guy that is going to have his mechanic fly down and do a pre-buy. This deal certainly seems more reasonable.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Original plan was for me to finish my PPL in it while we wait to sell but if an offer comes up I'll have to sell it.
 

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I had good service with these folks.

If your FL student pilot buyer (sounds kind of shady IMHO) balks at using as Escrow, if he balks at signing a purchase agreement (escrow company won't draft that for you, but with careful digging an prep you can get a good template), if he balks and wiring a deposit, then walk away and put that guy's number on "block".

gdwindowpane said:
I'm thinking I should go through an escrow company rather than give him the Trust bank account info to have the funds wired.
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Do NOT give this guy any bank information, please. Pay the Escrow company to transfer funds, hold his deposit, etc. Don't let some stranger show up and take your plane down to where ever to have it looked at.

IF another guy shows up with a mechanic for a pre buy, offers a price you want, and it's not under contract with someone else, then go with the "normal" guy.
 
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All funds and paperwork handled by escrow. Aerospace Reports has been top-notch with both my aircraft sales and walked us through step-by-step. Prebuy contract specifying timelines and distances to take the aircraft off the market, with an earnest money deposit that is non-refundable (short of an issue found on the pre-buy which cannot be agreed upon). First person to sign the contract and deposit the funds is the one that gets to buy the aircraft. Email and phone promises mean nothing. Walk away from anyone who doesn't want to use an escrow and contract. Doubtless there are some good handshake-deal types left out there, but they're massively outnumbered by the scammers and tire-kickers. Walk away; there will always be another buyer.

AOPA has a reasonable pre-buy contract skeleton form which you can fill out more. Hell, message me and I'll send you what I used for my sales.
 
Guy in FL apparently owns a company that rents airplanes to other pilots to build time in. However I can't find any information on the company. I've reached out to a couple of guys on here that are based at KFIN to see if they know anything. I talked to the guy and his partner and they had some questions about the engine log which seemed legit. He said he prefers not to go through escrow/title service but said he will. He's going to send over a purchase agreement that he uses for me to review and I have downloaded a couple and have the one we used for the Widgeon but it is not editable.

I see you're based KHWY. My dad hangared a C-170 there in the late 80's/90's. Spent a lot of time up there.

Other guy wants to sign agreement and pay deposit pending pre-buy. Kind of bummed that it looks like the plane might get sold before I can get back up in the air. lol.

Thanks for all the replies!
 
Wait....did you send the physical log books?
And prefers not to go thru escrow?
 
  • Wow
Reactions: WDD
Had a buddy that sold his flight design to a time building outfit. The guy showed up and looked at the logbooks and walked around the plane. No test flight or pre-buy. As soon as the money was transferred the guy hopped in the plane and flew it home.
 
Sketchy buyers should be doxxed and outed. Ideally on billboards, but an online blacklist should suffice.
 
Says he's a pilot, but he's a student.
Claims to have a business but no evidence of such business.
Doesnt want to use an escrow service.
Seems concerning at a minimum.
 
I would use an escrow company, well worth the money. If your paying the fees the buyer should have no problem going through escrow.
 
frfly172 said:
I would use an escrow company, well worth the money. If your paying the fees the buyer should have no problem going through escrow.
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Bingo! If he does, I’d walk.

I wanted to use an escrow to buy a $4000 radio from someone who advertised in our Grumman owners magazine. Told him I’d pay the fee. After telling him that, I never heard anything more from him. After some additional research, it turned out he was a scammer. With this type of money, always use an escrow unless it is local and a money order.
 
moparrob66 said:
Says he's a pilot, but he's a student.
Claims to have a business but no evidence of such business.
Doesnt want to use an escrow service.
Seems concerning at a minimum.
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A student pilot is a pilot. He said he would send someone else to retrieve the plan.
I'm not sure what evidence of a business you would need, but could just ask him.
Agreed to a written contract and said he would use escrow if the seller preferred it. Since escrow in this circumstance primarily protects the buyer, if he wants to just wire me cash, I am not complaining.

Different strokes for different folks, but based on what's been posted here, I would go with whoever offered more $$.
 
I have a side-bar question, are deposits normally refundable or non-refundable? I'm thinking non-refundable unless Seller terminates agreement. AOPA agreement has this verbiage:

Upon completion of this inspection, Buyer shall present to the Seller any list of discrepancies of the Aircraft compiled. The Seller shall have five (5) business days to review the list and to notify the Buyer of Seller's decision: (a) to pay to have the discrepancies affecting the airworthiness of the Aircraft repaired at Seller's expense and to complete the sale; or (b) to decline to pay the costs of repairs and to terminate the Agreement. If Seller declines to pay the cost of repairs, Seller shall refund, or have refunded, the Buyer's deposit.
 
gdwindowpane said:
I have a side-bar question, are deposits normally refundable or non-refundable? I'm thinking non-refundable unless Seller terminates agreement. AOPA agreement has this verbiage:

Upon completion of this inspection, Buyer shall present to the Seller any list of discrepancies of the Aircraft compiled. The Seller shall have five (5) business days to review the list and to notify the Buyer of Seller's decision: (a) to pay to have the discrepancies affecting the airworthiness of the Aircraft repaired at Seller's expense and to complete the sale; or (b) to decline to pay the costs of repairs and to terminate the Agreement. If Seller declines to pay the cost of repairs, Seller shall refund, or have refunded, the Buyer's deposit.
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It can vary, but most light aircraft sales agreements these days are written like residential real estate contracts. Refundable deposit if inspection discloses something the buyer doesn’t like. Last one I saw (a few years ago) with a convoluted inspection clause with cancellation tied to only airworthiness, was for a TBM. And that one got rewritten to “any reason” before signing. I think it reduced the contract by three pages.

Unsolicited advice: be careful if you DIY with the AOPA agreement unless you understand what the language means. They actually warn about that in red. I once saw a nasty piece of litigation over a private sale. The parties decided one of the clauses wasn’t needed. Guess what would have resolved the dispute completely?

Case-in-point. The AOPA template contains three paragraphs about inspection and cancellation. They are partially alternatives and partially not. And depending what you take from it, it calls for a completely refundable deposit if the buyer doesn’t like the result of the inspection unless the buyer chooses to pass the ball back to the seller via a list of discrepancies.
 
gdwindowpane said:
I see you're based KHWY. My dad hangared a C-170 there in the late 80's/90's. Spent a lot of time up there.
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It's still a fantastic little airport that they're working hard to improve even more. HEF is closer to my house, but recreational GA there feels as though it's tolerated rather than celebrated.

gdwindowpane said:
I have a side-bar question, are deposits normally refundable or non-refundable? I'm thinking non-refundable unless Seller terminates agreement. AOPA agreement has this verbiage:
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So generally, the deposit is really earnest money to compensate you for taking your aircraft off the market while the prospective buyer does due diligence, so it's non-refundable unless in very specific circumstances. If everything is smooth, it gets wrapped up in the total sales price and it's all good. With respect to the pre-buy, there are really three situations when something significant is found: the sales price is lowered accordingly; the discrepancies get fixed (with costs split or covered by the seller); or the sale is terminated (by buyer or seller) with refund of the deposit. In no circumstance would I return a deposit if the buyer just changes their mind in the middle of the process.

Limiting it to airworthiness items is probably good practice. You're selling an airworthy aircraft, not a perfect one. A reasonable catch-all contract clause can also be something to the effect of allowing updates/additions to the contract as long as it's agreed to in writing by both seller and buyer. That way if something more minor is found (as during one of my sales), it's easy enough to have a gentleman's agreement via email to split the cost. IANAL, but using the AOPA agreement modified for times/places/amounts as necessary worked just fine.
 
I can think of no legitimate reason for any transactee, seller OR buyer, to not want to use an escrow service.

You might quibble over the $500 fee, fine, but not the use of the escrow service itself.

I would use escrow for ANY estate sale. They will navigate the FAA's caprice for you.

I think you dodged a scammer.
 
gdwindowpane said:
I have a side-bar question, are deposits normally refundable or non-refundable? I'm thinking non-refundable unless Seller terminates agreement. AOPA agreement has this verbiage:

Upon completion of this inspection, Buyer shall present to the Seller any list of discrepancies of the Aircraft compiled. The Seller shall have five (5) business days to review the list and to notify the Buyer of Seller's decision: (a) to pay to have the discrepancies affecting the airworthiness of the Aircraft repaired at Seller's expense and to complete the sale; or (b) to decline to pay the costs of repairs and to terminate the Agreement. If Seller declines to pay the cost of repairs, Seller shall refund, or have refunded, the Buyer's deposit.
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I’ve made offers and had deposits on 2 planes, 2nd one worked out and I own and love it now. In both cases I put in the agreement that the deposit was refundable within like 2-3 days after prebuy inspection occurs for any reason (I forget exact timeframe but gave time for buyer to take in all the information and make a “final” decision). Basically if buyer (me in this case) pays to do a prebuy and for whatever reason following prebuy doesn’t want to move forward then it was a good faith attempt to purchase and buyer is already out significant $ from prebuy and the deposit should be refunded. But if they put a deposit down and never do a prebuy or otherwise dick around then it wouldn’t be refunded. That seemed to make sense for me and I would agree to the same for a buyer if I ever sell this plane.

In my case the first plane that fell through due to poor prebuy results cost me about $2k (travel, mechanic cost, etc.). Deposit was $1k which sure I could’ve lived with not being refunded but it really wouldn’t make sense for seller to get to keep that. Especially in cases where it falls through because prebuy shows the seller misrepresented the plane in some way (as a buyer I’d have loved a clause that would have seller on the hook for prebuy cost in that scenario, haha).

In some ways for me buying a plane was closer to buying a house than buying a car; a pain in the ass that I’m glad is over with. I was also looking mainly for older complex/HP though so it wasn’t as straight forward as a C-152 or other basic trainer which would surely be a simpler process.
 
I had a nice young CFI interested in my Citabria back when I was selling it. Good dude, but quickly became annoying regarding the sale. I had made it clear that contract, deposit, and escrow were all required parts of the sale. Didn't want to sign a contract or use escrow. Needed to get a loan. Said his bank didn't like how much I wanted for a deposit ($2500) and he wanted *me* to pay for the pre-buy. Also wanted me to come down on price. Then I get a call from a couple dudes a few states over who quickly agreed to full price, signed the contract within 30 minutes, and established the escrow the following day. Guess who got the plane.

Contracts, escrows, and deposits keep it simple, clear, and weed out most of the time-wasters. Life is too short for anything else.
 
midlifeflyer said:
And that one got rewritten to “any reason” before signing. I think it reduced the contract by three pages
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I wrote that too fast. “any reason” is not the wording used, but it is buyer dissatisfaction with the results of the inspection, as in the home purchase example. Using the AOPA template…

Upon completion of this inspection, Buyer shall have ________ (______) day to notify Seller that he/she/they will not purchase the Aircraft.​

Notice the lack of an objective standard. What follows is optional language about the buyer providing a list of discrepancies, which, if the seller fixes them, the buyer will not cancel. Note that even within that, there are two options “[discrepancies]” vs “[discrepancies affecting the airworthiness of the Aircraft].”

I actually wrote two personalized versions of the AOPA template, one favorable to the buyer and one favorable to the seller. I did that because of people who came to me asking me to review the version they and the other party hacked out, before they signed it. Last thing they needed was a lawyer telling them to toss it completely and start from scratch.

Before anyone asks, no I don’t share. That’s not pride of ownership or a desire to generate fees (I’m retired). It just because of the DIY hack jobs I’ve see through the years, even with sophisticated parties in significant transactions both in and out of aviation.

I’m surprised no one yet has talked about how all their deals were just a handshake and they all worked out. I don’t doubt any of those at all. When everything works out and everyone’s happy, it’s easy to say they never needed to spell things out to begin with. But ask the people where the deal had a problem.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I’m surprised no one yet has talked about how all their deals were just a handshake and they all worked out. I don’t doubt any of those at all.
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They definitely do happen however those deals typically don't get discussed in public forums on a regular basis for various reasons in my experiences. I think you'll find the majority of those deals happen within a certain group of owners who possess a certain mindset when it comes to Part 91 private aviation.
 
Once the plane is sold, cancel your registration with the FAA. Promptly!
 
midlifeflyer said:
I’m surprised no one yet has talked about how all their deals were just a handshake and they all worked out. I don’t doubt any of those at all. When everything works out and everyone’s happy, it’s easy to say they never needed to spell things out to begin with. But ask the people where the deal had a problem.
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Both of my planes were bought this way. No issues. Handshake deal and a napkin sales agreement.
 
737steve said:
Once the plane is sold, cancel your registration with the FAA. Promptly!
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And...... what that guy above this post just said - another reason to do this through a service like Aero-Space Reports Escrow. They file all the FAA paperwork including registration, send you copies for your files, etc.

But.... you still need to do the things like cancelling your insurance, tie down or hangar rent, any Garmin database subscriptions or the like, etc. If applicable, send a friendly note to your county / whomever issues personal property taxes of the date that you no longer own the aircraft, and any other form they like.
 
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Bell206 said:
They definitely do happen however those deals typically don't get discussed in public forums on a regular basis for various reasons in my experiences. I think you'll find the majority of those deals happen within a certain group of owners who possess a certain mindset when it comes to Part 91 private aviation.
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There are people who buy and sell several airplanes and have learned all the ins and outs. Me? The plane I just bought was the first, and I had no experience to base a good transaction on. It will also be the last on I'll buy. So the money spent on the escrow service was more than worth it.
 
WDD said:
And...... what that guy above this post just said - another reason to do this through a service like Aero-Space Reports Escrow. They file all the FAA paperwork including registration, send you copies for your files, etc.
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The registration cancellation is a special issue in non-escrow DIY transactions. There have been situations in which a buyer has not recorded with the FAA or in which the recording was rejected due to documentation errors (unfortunately not rare in DIY transactions; I’ve unraveled a few of those after the fact). In those cases, there are potential problems for both. The buyer is flying the seller’s airplane which can cause problems to the extent there are liabilities or exposures based on ownership. The buyer may not be able to insure since they don’t own it.

The thing about escrow is that avoiding those types of errors is a big part of their job. And I can guarantee it’s much, much cheaper than hiring a lawyer to fix a mess after the fact.
 
And..... they can catch things, such as "It appears that the plane isn't really registered to the seller"........
 
Bell206 said:
They definitely do happen however those deals typically don't get discussed in public forums on a regular basis for various reasons in my experiences. I think you'll find the majority of those deals happen within a certain group of owners who possess a certain mindset when it comes to Part 91 private aviation.
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I bought my plane without a prebuy, via a handshake, though we did a formal P&S as well as soon as we agreed on terms. (Price, location, timing). This was buying from someone in my flying club, that I didn't know, but lots of people I knew knew him. As a general rule, I would use escrow though. Prebuy I'm not so sure... I think if you're mechanically inclined and willing to do some inspections and review the logbooks, maybe not.

I also kept the same AP/IA on the plane, and I talked to him before the sale, so I wasn't expecting huge surprises and "surprised Pikachu face" from a new IA seeing it for the first time post purchase.
 
WDD said:
There are people who buy and sell several airplanes and have learned all the ins and outs. Me? The plane I just bought was the first, and I had no experience to base a good transaction on.
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Sure. But the group of owners I'm referring to, and by extension the aircraft they buy/sell, follow a different path even if its their 1st aircraft purchase. They simply look at aircraft ownership differently than your typical PoA owner. There was actually an example here where a poster asked for buying advice on one of those premium aircraft. Several PoA members replied for him to buy it before its gone. Then the "gallery" responded about prebuys, damage history, and so on. As I recall the aircraft sold the next morning to someone else. Regardless, its not so must your experience in buying, its the level of knowledge on being an aircraft owner that puts you in a position to know the difference. Unfortunately, a good number of aircraft owners still don't bother to gain that ownership knowledge even after they purchase an aircraft which leads to the typical posts found on PoA.
 
WDD said:
And..... they can catch things, such as "It appears that the plane isn't really registered to the seller"........
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I’ve seen that one several different ways. In one, it took a Probate Court order vesting title to clear up - almost 2 years after the transaction.

Before 2023, when the duration of temporary registrations was extended to one year, they were only good for 90 days, but the Registry would grant extensions for up to a year while messes were cleared up. So this poor buyer had an airplane he could not legally fly for about 6 months. And there was probably not one thing dastardly about it. Ignorance, legal looseness were the cause. A helpful estate attorney was a tiny part of the problem (not initially), but ultimately the solution. Took two lawyers to fix it.
 
I have a possible buyer who wants to pull A cylinder for a look. Wouldnt a borescope in all 6 jugs be easier, cheaper, faster, more informative.
 
moparrob66 said:
I have a possible buyer who wants to pull A cylinder for a look. Wouldnt a borescope in all 6 jugs be easier, cheaper, faster, more informative.
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Survey says: no way in heck should you pull a cylinder for a pre-buy. Borescope as part of pre-buy is reasonable. Disassembly of anything is not. Send 'em packing.
 
moparrob66 said:
I have a possible buyer who wants to pull A cylinder for a look. Wouldnt a borescope in all 6 jugs be easier, cheaper, faster, more informative.
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Oh heck no. That makes no sense, would be of no value. And too much danger of problems after putting back on.

Possible buyer need to read up on what and how a pre buy inspection is and works.
 
My thoughts for sure, but his A&P suggested it. Weird.
 
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