Complications

As a part of the offer, an escrow account was setup for the purchase of N40BB at Federal Aviation Title and they began a title search for the aircraft. 

You never know if the person selling the aircraft is the person that actually owns the aircraft... A title search protects you to a certain degree, you can also purchase title insurance. Something else the title search does is look into liens placed on the aircraft.... and that's where there was a complication.

With the prebuy scheduled, my trip to Georgia planned (and plane tickets purchased), and down payment in escrow... it turned out there was a Mechanic's Lien on N40BB. The lien was placed by Augusta Aviation, filed on 9/04/14 and recorded on 9/17/14 (a day before we signed the purchase agreement!). 

Typically a mechanic's lien is placed on an aircraft when the owner of the aircraft has not paid for services that had been provided. Read more about them here.

This was one of those moments when I thought the deal would fall apart -- my broker had reached out to the seller's broker and we were waiting for the seller's response to the lien. 

It turned out some invoices hadn't been paid by the company owned N40BB and the seller's broker was getting all the outstanding invoices taken care of. For the moment, it seemed like it was getting straightened out, we did need to get Augusta Aviation to sign off and release the lien (there is an official form for this that would end up getting filed with the FAA).

Something to look into that will provide significant details on an aircraft is it's official records from the FAA. For 10 bucks, the FAA will mail you a CD with all of the records of an aircraft. The records are split into registration information (Aircraft Bill of Sales, Registrations, Mechanic's and Materialman's Liens) and airworthiness information (Form 337s, STCs, Airworthiness Certificates, and Application for Airworthiness Certificates). Get more information at the FAA website here. 

N40BB had 30 pages worth of airworthiness information and a 100 pages worth of registration information, including the lien. I actually requested the records just after we started talking to the seller's broker and were making progress but the CD came the week after I returned with the aircraft (about four weeks), so lesson here is start early, it's ten bucks and can save a ton of time (& money) if something doesn't look right.