I do not understand how a plane can pass an annual before sale and then when the buyer has the next annual, there are many things that should have been addressed by the seller in the annual before the plane was bought.
The above responses answer this question well. But they all beg another question - how does a mechanic get away with a “pencil whipped” annual on a fresh sale?
Pretty easy.
First off, there’s always the defense “It wasn’t like that when *I* inspected it.” So now the buyer has to foresnsically document everything that was wrong to prove it couldn’t have all happened between the sale and next inspection. And then sue the mechanic and try to convince a judge that went to school for law, not mechanics.
Except that brings up the next problem: The buyer is not the mechanic’s customer. He didn’t sell the plane. He worked for the seller. So the buyer has to sue the seller. But the seller will just say he trusted the mechanic. So responsibility gets a bit more muddied.
Next problem - the lawsuit has to take place in the seller’s location. Bought a plane in California and flew it home to the Carolinas before finding a problem? Now the buyer has to do battle three thousand miles and three time zones away.
Ok, the vengeful buyer may say, they’ll get the FAA to go after the mechanic! The buyer will go to the FAA, tell them everything that was wrong and unsafe about the airplane they just flew home. And the FAA will dutifully note this information, then they’ll want to talk to the buyer about a possible certificate action for having flown an unairworthy aircraft with known and obvious deficiencies, as stated by the buyer themself.
Oh, they may also investigate the mechanic as well, but they’ll still run into the “It wasn’t like that when *I* inspected it” defense. And even if they do punish the mechanic, that won’t get any money for the buyer to repair the problems because that’s not the FAAs problem. And, again, the mechanic was not the seller.
GOOD mechanics are truly moral and honest people.
