Honor among theives (or pilots)...

[N804RV]

Originally Posted by RhinoDrvr

So I can learn the process better (first time buyer)

For everyone saying that they put down non-refundable deposits;

1.) What if the airplane fails pre-buy due to undisclosed issues? If that's the case I could make a lot of money on non-refundable deposits to see my piece of junk...

2.) How much money are you guys generally talking? I was offering 10% of the asking price, but I'm obviously not okay with $7k-$10k bring non-refundable.

3.) Do most of you skip organizing a pre-buy to make a quick purchase? That's a risk I just am not willing to take; especially with a homebuilt airplane.

I ask so I can learn how to better execute next time (or realize that it's going to take a while to find a seller I can work with)

I would expect it to be pretty much like buying a house.

You make an offer contingent to inspection with an earnest money deposit large enough that it is not easy to walk away from. I would be skeptical if the seller wanted more than $3k-5k for an earnest money deposit.

The contingency allows you to back out for specific cause. If your mechanic says the horiz stab is improperly attached per the plans, that's it! You get your money back.

But, once the seller accepts that earnest money, it would be improper for him to be accepting other offers.

That's why the contingent offer with terms should be in writing. That makes it a legally binding contract. If he won't accept your earnest money, its because he already has someone interest he thinks will close the deal. He just doesn't want to jinx it. No cause to grumble. It may not be polite, but he didn't do anything wrong. JMHO

[ssmdive]

I had a buddy buy a house out from under me. I made a deal with a guy and told him I was out of town for the next two weeks for work, but my wife had already secured financing and I emailed him a copy of the approval.

A "friend" went in and offered him 10K more cash and they guy took it. It was on an airpark, had a nice hangar, I could afford it, and my "buddy" already had a home and hangar on that airpark... He bought it to flip it.

I was pissed at both, but I understood the seller. My "buddy"??? Well, after I made **** sure he had made the additional offer AFTER he knew I had a deal... I have not talked to him in over a year. He is dead to me.

Another story, I sold my 7ECA. A guy came to look at it and even without flying it asked me how I wanted to get paid. He told me it could be a personal or business check right then, or he could send me a cashiers check Monday. I said Cashiers check and sure enough, on Tue I got a check. I took it to my bank and it was good. At this point we had not done ANY paperwork, just a handshake. When the weather was good, I flew the plane to him. We filled out the FAA paperwork and wrote on a piece of paper "NXXXXX sold as is where is". He then flew be back to my home airport.

So the worst experience and maybe the best experience.

[Jesse]

I usually recommend a deposit of $2,500-5,000. $500 is way to easy to walk away from to ask a seller to hold of another customer for a week or two.

[vic syracuse]

Originally Posted by ssmdive

I had a buddy buy a house out from under me. I made a deal with a guy and told him I was out of town for the next two weeks for work, but my wife had already secured financing and I emailed him a copy of the approval.

A "friend" went in and offered him 10K more cash and they guy took it. It was on an airpark, had a nice hangar, I could afford it, and my "buddy" already had a home and hangar on that airpark... He bought it to flip it.

I was pissed at both, but I understood the seller. My "buddy"??? Well, after I made **** sure he had made the additional offer AFTER he knew I had a deal... I have not talked to him in over a year. He is dead to me.

Another story, I sold my 7ECA. A guy came to look at it and even without flying it asked me how I wanted to get paid. He told me it could be a personal or business check right then, or he could send me a cashiers check Monday. I said Cashiers check and sure enough, on Tue I got a check. I took it to my bank and it was good. At this point we had not done ANY paperwork, just a handshake. When the weather was good, I flew the plane to him. We filled out the FAA paperwork and wrote on a piece of paper "NXXXXX sold as is where is". He then flew be back to my home airport.

So the worst experience and maybe the best experience.

An acquaintance/friend made us an offer on our house at our last fly-in community. Unfortunately, he didn't have any money for a down payment until he sold his current house. So we shook hands on it. Two days leater I received an "immediate offer" for $25K more. It was a no-brainer to me. I stuck with my handshake and waited a few months before he was able to close. That extra $25K sure would have been nice, but not worth it.
Sometimes our integrity is what makes a difference in life. Some of the stories here have been quite shocking and unscrupulous, but I hope they are the exceptions. Certainly, from what I have seen, they are.

Vic

[ssmdive]

Originally Posted by RV7A Flyer

Neither do many of the people who get tens of thousands of dollars in cash seized by the cops (federal or otherwise) every year.

Just *having* that amount of money on you makes it suspicious enough, apparently, that they can seize it. And good luck getting it back.

Want to make it even more suspicious? Carry the cash on board a commercial plane, with a one-way ticket...you're on your way to buy the plane, but to DEA, you look like a dope dealer.

As mentioned, depositing more than 10K in cash triggers a notification to the feds, and who knows what they do, but now they're looking at you to see what you're up to (and no, breaking it up into multiple deposits of < 10K doesn't help, and is itself illegal).

And if you can show you are going to "X" to maybe buy "Y" it is a non-issue. The police get suspicious when a 20 year old guy driving a 1973 POS with gang tats happens to have 40K dollars in a duffel bag and can't answer a simple question like, "Where did you get all this money?"

And a CTR report does pretty much nothing. It notifies some people and 99% of the time they just ignore it. If god forbid someone actually bothers to ask you, you can just show them either the plane, or the advertisement you were looking at.... Or do what I do and tell them it is none of their business unless they have a badge.

Source: I do this all the time, did it just last week. My wife is in banking. My Mom was in banking.

[DonFromTX]

I recently got a lesson on how bad things have got. A friend of mine was over a thousand miles from me, sold his plane. He could not make it here to close the deal, so I said I would. I opened the hangar, showed the plane, and helped the buyer load it. I then went to the bank with $28,000 in cash, to deposit it in the sellers bank account.
It took me HOURS of being raked over the coals before the bank would allow me to deposit cash in another persons account! I am still not quite sure what they were thinking they were doing!

[tspear]

Originally Posted by DonFromTX

I recently got a lesson on how bad things have got. A friend of mine was over a thousand miles from me, sold his plane. He could not make it here to close the deal, so I said I would. I opened the hangar, showed the plane, and helped the buyer load it. I then went to the bank with $28,000 in cash, to deposit it in the sellers bank account.
It took me HOURS of being raked over the coals before the bank would allow me to deposit cash in another persons account! I am still not quite sure what they were thinking they were doing!

I never did get into why, but reporting rules and liability are the problem.
The solution is actually stupidly funny in most cases; and worked for me.
Deposit the money into your account. Then write a check for the amount to deposit into his account.

Tim

[DonFromTX]

Back in time a bit, I used to find that making transactions in less than 10k made a difference. I should have tried deposits of $9500,
$9500, and $9000.
QUOTE=tspear;1195765]I never did get into why, but reporting rules and liability are the problem.
The solution is actually stupidly funny in most cases; and worked for me.
Deposit the money into your account. Then write a check for the amount to deposit into his account.

Tim[/quote]

[tspear]

Originally Posted by DonFromTX

Back in time a bit, I used to find that making transactions in less than 10k made a difference. I should have tried deposits of $9500,
$9500, and $9000.

For a long time now, the rules have changed in such a way that will no longer work. I no longer subscribe to FINCEN to get the updates, but I know the rules keep being tweaked to catch people trying beat the system.

Tim

[RV7A Flyer]

Originally Posted by ssmdive

And if you can show you are going to "X" to maybe buy "Y" it is a non-issue.

Except when they make it an issue, as is well-documented.

But hey...as long as it only happens to "those" people, and not ME...