Just to add more volume ... I have a story on how NOT to buy an airplane ...
A friend of mine set out to purchase a 180. He found one that looked good in the photos and was a very reasonable price. It was advertised as having "minor" damage that had been repaired.
The airplane was located in the southeast. But he bought an airline ticket and went down to look at it. It was BEAUTIFUL. And Tom fell in love.
He had a pre-buy inspection and annual done, by someone recommended by the seller. The pre-buy came out good and the annual was signed off, so Tom wrote a check and prepared to fly the plane back to the PNW.
At one stop on the way home, Tom detected some metal flecks in the oil. Not good, as the engine had supposedly received a recent overhaul.
When he got home, he had his A&P look at the logs and engine. Turns out, the engine had been torn down, but definitely not overhauled. And it was shot.
Tom gulped down the old "buyer beware" adage and ponyed up for a new engine and propeller.
He flew his shiny 180 all over the place for most of a year. Annual time came around, and he trundled the airplane to the local shop to get it done.
The shop called to let him know that there was no way they could sign off on returning the airplane to service. They suiggested he call the FAA.
The FAA came out to inspect. It turns out, that the "minor" damage was caused by a hurricane, that the airplane endured tied down. The result found by the FAA inspector included extensive damage to the gear box and floor pan structural members. The repairs had not been done in a manner satisfactory to the FAA. It was the inpector's opinion that one hard landing would have collapsed the gear, or some firm turbulence might have separated a strut, and therefore a wing.
So, Tom entertained bids to repair all that damage. Getting the airplane to the successful bidder required one more flight, for which Tom was issued a ferry permit, but we all worried about him until we got word the airplane was safely on the ground.
The repair, as it started out, involved replacing the entire lower part of fuselage from the firewall to the first bulkhead. At one point you could walk right through the cabin area.
In the process of doing THAT work, the shop found that two of the doorposts were cracked, had been stop-drilled and bondo-ed. Definitely not an approvable repair. So those two doorposts had to be replaced.
I don't know all the story about the FAA's actions, and I know that Tom has received some compensation from the seller, but I did learn that the shop owner that did the original "repair" work and the pre-buy and the first annual was related to the seller. There may also have been some action by the FAA against seller, who was a commercial pilot.
The airplane is now all fixed, and it is a very pretty bird. But Tom paid several times its value to get it there.
The lessons are several, but the two main ones are:
1. DON'T FALL IN LOVE!!
2. Get your pre-buy done by an independent shop.
Our experience with Juliet also encourages us to shop locally and to see if we can find some independent folks who know the airplane's history. In the case of Juliet, we were able to talk to an owner previous to the seller.
Reg
