Tank you Peter,
I’ve mailed the form to OPMAS, the importer, (very reactive) and he agrees it’s true. They keep copies, but can’t certify them. They think that it will be OK to prove the VAT status of the aircraft.
My view is that unless there is a regulation requiring the original document, the copy document is entitled to be believed. So it should be OK.
I get a lot of this type of enquiry by email, from people looking at some plane but original documents are not available. It does seem strange at times that someone would not keep such important things (and let’s face it, you have to have the original to make the copy 
) but this whole VAT issue didn’t exist (practically speaking) until some 10 years ago when France got a reputation for raiding N-regs landing there. The UK was always full of illegally imported (no VAT declared) planes and in the 1980s the tax people did an amnesty as the simplest solution.
The Danish route was mostly done by a lawyer called Lasse Rungholm (google him) and I bet he keeps copies of all docs and hopefully could send you a certified copy – or tell you that your copy is a fake.
I’ve been reading with interest this thread about proof of VAT paid.
I found the plane I’ve been searching for month, after many travel and inspection in Europe. It’s based in France, N-reg.
All is OK, my mechanics is OK (and he is very exigeant)
The plane has been imported via the Danish route in 2004.
The only problem, is that the danish IM4 is a copy, and it seems that nobody knows where is the original.
I am waiting for a answer of french customs about the validity of the copy of the IM4, but I doubt of the validity in others European states.
My first reaction was to stop the process of the sale.
Is anyone has been faced to this situation?
We have many previous threads on this. I suggest a search on
aircraft purchase
I sometimes merge similar threads but (a) it works only if they are sufficiently different in age and (b) I currently don’t have a multi-post-move function so it takes me a long time.
Some stuff cannot be checked out at all e.g. unpaid airport fines which will bite next time you fly there. Logbook forgery (adding fictitious flights to mask long periods of non-use, or not logging many flights to reduce the TT) is hard to detect. I know an engineer who regards logbooks as largely conjecture – you buy the plane that is physically in front of you, no more.
Some stuff cannot be checked out unless you get personally involved and have a good look around with an engineer. You have to meet the seller and use your nose and if anything smells fishy, it probably is and you have to walk away. This means that most stuff in say the former USSR will be, ahem, impossible nontrivial to do due diligence on, but that may not matter since you are not likely to be flying back there 
AD compliance needs to be verified visually as far as possible because loads of ADs are not complied with. That’s why a prebuy takes ~ 2 days.
You need to agree on what exactly will get handed over in terms of documents and accessories. For example I recall one where a homebuilt was purchased and the buyer forgot to ask for wiring diagrams. The seller refused to hand them over after he got the money. Why, I have no idea… the universe is full of weird people. But the new owner had a bit of a job sorting out various issues. So get any maintenance manuals / work packs which the owner has got; they are of no value to him afterwards.
A good approach is to offer to do a 50hr service on the plane, at your cost, which will give you a chance to have a good look around, and you walk away with an oil filter you can cut open, plus oil analysis which if massively high is an alarm bell. The seller cannot refuse the offer of a free service unless he is trying to hide something – especially since he must agree to a prebuy inspection. However, sometimes sellers do a service just before, so the oil filter will be worthless
The biggest advice is the “smelling fishy” bit. Always walk away.
Wingman wrote:
Does anyone have further advice on this when buying, say an N-reg, in the UK?
If it’s N-Reg you can get the complete title/registration and maintenance history from the FAA. Normally this is done by purchasing the CD for a nominal amount, which is then mailed to you, but if you have access to an FAA designated airworthiness representative (DAR), he can download the data directly over the Internet.
When I was looking at my last plane I was overseas when I saw the advertisement and forwarded it to an A&P friend for comment. He then asked his DAR friend for the title history and when received it was forwarded to me…. All within an hour, so I could study it deeply on my phone! Two or three weeks later after an inspection by all three of us, and with the plane and logs in my physical possession, it was mine. I paid cash, $100 bills, but it was only the price of a car.
For a much more expensive plane I’d want a third party such as an escrow company to hold the money and process the paper, as with a house. Signing over the actual title for an FAA registered plane may be relatively trivial, particularly if there are no loans to pay off. But I’d want to make 100% sure I got all the logs and other records.
I can think of several ways around that scheme, too… Usually it involves document forgery. I don’t think you can safeguard against that completely. You just have to get a bit more involved, because a crook will not want to get too far into something.
they decided otherwise and sent € 20.000 to some account in the UK, without having see the airplane.
That is just incredibly stupid.
Never, ever transfer any money to the seller’s account before you have checked the aircraft for titles, 3rd party rights etc. Always use a notary or an escrow service, but my experience (and believe me I have some …) is that a notary is fine. Make a contract that says that the seller will get the money from the notary the day the aircraft papers are in your name. I had such a contract – otherwise I would have lost € 300.000 in cash. I got the money back from the notary one week after the deal fell through. (Seller was a criminal and airplane had been confiscated by police before he put it one the market).
My flying club asked me for advice when they bought a G1000 C-172 last year, because they knew that I had experience. I told them the same thing, but they decided otherwise and sent € 20.000 to some account in the UK, without having seen the airplane. Then the delegation flew to Latvia – only to find out that neither the seller nor the airplane existed there. Well, the airplane does exist, but it belongs to some businessman in Belgium who had no intention selling it… (Money disappeared, of course).
And this stuff happens all the time, please believe me.
Great input and advice, thanks. To pick up on the original question again:
“Do you need a solicitor to deal with the transaction, hold monies in an escrow account, check valid title, finance o/s liens etc”
Does anyone have further advice on this when buying, say an N-reg, in the UK?
Martin, you are right, you dont need the new stack with R9.
@Cirrus_Man Why would you have this with R9?
