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Mental health has very little to do with this......it's a simple infliction.


Good luck with this, Brian.


Jim

Greg, Call Aviation Solutions in Lee's Summit and ask for Monica Harris-King for aircraft Insurance.

1-877-353-1047

Nice, Brian! Nothing like getting the keys to your OWN AIRPLANE! And this club makes it so much better.

Saturday was to be the day:

AI for prebuy: check (thanks Brian)
Insurance: check
Certified funds: check
Tie Down: check

Title search: NO JOY. 13K lien from 1994!

...the search continues

If this is the one you want with a little detective work you can find out if the lien is still valid. A lot of time the issueing creditor does not notify the FAA of the lien being satisfied. A letter from them and you are good.

Thanks Jim, I told the seller he had a lien and he naturally asked with whom? I offered to split the cost of the report with him as a litmus test. He did want to split the cost so right or wrong, I believe he did not know as the lien is from 20 years ago and has been registered a number of times since. I will let him deal with it and asked him to drop me a note when he has a clean report. I will keep looking.

1994? That is 18 years ago. Most likely there is an old loan that wasn't properly reported as being paid. Why wasn't it caught during the last several ownership changes? Are people laying out $20K or so for a plane and not doing their homework?
If you paid for a title search, and the lien was that old, you would think the title company would investigate to see if it was still valid....or "charged off" the books many years ago.

Brian,

The title company will not investigate to see if a lien is still valid - so long as it is still registered with the FAA and has not been removed, it is considered to be still valid. Further investigation costs a lot of money and requires massive homework.

As one who has chased down very old liens and tried to get the holder (who may be several steps removed from the original because of banks going under and others buying up the assets) to drop the lien, it's a gigantic pain in the whatis. In many cases the current lien holder is somewhat removed from the original lender and when the current lien holder learns of the lien (which it often had no idea even existed), it thinks it's got a source of income and starts taking action to collect the money. It becomes a huge mess.

As someone who has dealt with such a situation - there are two comments on the subject - first, it's a buyer's market so you don't need to get involved with such a headache as there are lots and lots of other airplanes out there, and, second, to put the first comment bluntly: Run away!!! Run away fast. You do not want to deal with a lien that is over half the value of an airplane.

Airplanes with outstanding liens on them should, IMHO, be considered to be the same as airplanes that have major damage history that is not shown in the logbooks, an oil filter full of metal that is so large that pieces have serial numbers on them and a borescope inspection that shows all of the valves either warped or burnt.

But, what do I know?

Warmest regards,
Rick

Rick,
My gut is saying the same and I appreciate your insight. I cancelled the prebuy, insurance, etc. and told him if he gets cleaned up, to please give me a call. As others have suggested, I am increasing my search area and finding some compelling values!

I am motivated to find one as my club has started these damn groupon intro flights so renting is turning out to be difficult. Got skunked two weekends in a row, trying two reserve two weeks out, I give up.

Well, after a lot of searching and help, in the morning, I WILL OWN AN AIRPLANE!

Major thanks to the folks here and especially Brian Anderson. He recommended an AI who was as interesting as he was knowledgeable. The inspection went well and I bought a 69 J model 511GM.

A neat but humbling experience happened during the pre buy. I looked out the door and out rolls a stunning P51D from the next hangar. I have never been so close to one and it provided a nice exercise in contrast to return to "my" plane!

Hopefully a couple pictures from the day can be seen here: http://vimeo.com/36747281