Today we signed the purchase agreement on N5451U. She’s a 1967 Beechcraft Debonair with a factory new engine and the latest in Garmin avionics! We are so excited and anxious at the same time! This is our first plane purchase and with all the horror stories you read about all the things that can go wrong, its quite stressful so far.

So now that we have a purchase agreement, what’s next?

Well the purchase agreement is in 3 parts.

Agreement

We agree to pay the seller some amount for the plane contingent on a pre-buy inspection from a shop of our choosing and a test flight. We deposit some money into escrow to show that we’re serious and get her to the shop for the pre-buy inspection. We can walk away at any time for no reason and get our full deposit back at this point.

So if the pre-buy uncovers something that we can’t reconcile, I’m out the price of hiring the shop to do the inspection but that’s it. It’s a lot better to spend $1k now on a good pre-buy than to discover you need to spend $10K to get it airworthy at your first annual!

Acceptance

Once we sign the acceptance, we are committed to buying the plane. At this point, our deposit is no longer refundable. If we walk away now, say goodbye to that money. In the acceptance, you lay out any repairs that you and the seller have agreed on or any reduction in price. You put that in writing and “accept” the plane with these additional terms.

Delivery

Once everything is done, we will sign the delivery receipt which basically means we are taking the keys and the money in escrow goes to the seller. Also the registration is transferred and you now own a freaking plane!

So What’s next?

So with all that, we are now sending her over to our shop for the pre-buy next week and hopefully the weather will cooperate enough to fit in a test flight soon too.