An owner who sells an airplane does most of the work before a buyer ever calls: records in order, a listing that tells the truth, and a plan for how the money will arrive. The FAA's part is short. The risk sits mostly in the payment, and in what a seller hands over before the money is real.
Before listing it
A buyer's first look is usually the FAA registry record, so the seller should look at it too. The name and address there should be the seller's, and the registration should be current: under 14 CFR 47.40, a certificate of registration now expires seven years after the last day of the month it was issued.
The records come next. 14 CFR 91.419 says an owner who sells a U.S.-registered aircraft transfers its maintenance records to the buyer at the time of sale. That means the records listed in 91.417(a)(2): total time in service of the airframe, each engine and each propeller, the status of life-limited parts, time since last overhaul, the current inspection status, the status of applicable airworthiness directives with the method of compliance, and the Form 337s for major alterations. The other records under 91.417(a)(1) go too, though the buyer may agree to let the seller keep them. A seller who finds a gap, such as a missing AD entry or a 337 that never made it into the file, is better off fixing it before the pre-buy than explaining it during one.
An amateur-built airplane has two more things to settle:
- The airworthiness certificate and operating limitations stay with the airplane. 14 CFR 21.179 is one line: "An airworthiness certificate is transferred with the aircraft."
- The builder's repairman certificate doesn't. It belongs to the builder, not the airplane, and a buyer can't get one for it. The buyer will want to know who will sign the next condition inspection. Hangar Debrief's piece on the repairman certificate covers the choices, including a builder who keeps the certificate and goes on doing the inspections for the new owner.
The listing
A listing that gives the times the way the trade writes them (TTAF, SMOH, SPOH), the date of the last annual or condition inspection, the avionics and the STCs installed saves a seller from answering the same questions twenty times. It also sets what the pre-buy will be measured against, so it should match the logbooks.
The Hangar Flying Marketplace is built around those facts. A seller types the registration number and the FAA registry fills in what it holds; a listing whose details agree with the registry carries a "Matches the FAA registry" mark. Buyers write to the seller through the site, and neither side sees the other's email address. Listing is free until Jan. 1, 2027, for 30 days at a time. Its Help is plain that Hangar Flying takes no part in the sale itself: no escrow, no payment. A listing that isn't what it says can be reported from the listing's own page.
The payment scams sellers see
The scam the Federal Trade Commission describes for sellers is the overpayment. A "buyer" who can't come to see the airplane sends a check for more than the price, says it was a mistake, and asks for the difference back. The FTC's alert of Feb. 27, 2025, written about car sellers, explains why it works: the deposit can show in the seller's account, and weeks later the bank finds the check was fake and takes the money back. Whatever the seller sent is gone. The FTC's own advice:
- Don't accept a check for more than the selling price.
- Never send money back to someone who says they overpaid.
- "Even if you see the funds in your account, that doesn't mean it's a good check."
- Consider an escrow or online payment service.
An escrow agent is the usual answer for an airplane, and the escrow agent should be one the seller found and checked independently, with a phone number the seller looked up. A buyer who insists on an escrow company the seller has never heard of, reached through a link the buyer sent, is a reason to stop. The FTC takes reports at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, even when no money was lost.
The order matters more than the method. A signed bill of sale and the logbooks are what let a buyer register and fly the airplane, so they leave the seller's hands when the money is confirmed by the seller's own bank or released by the escrow agent, not before.
Closing: the FAA forms
The FAA's AC Form 8050-2, Aircraft Bill of Sale, is prepared in duplicate. Signatures are in ink or digital, and if the airplane has co-owners, all of them sign. The purchaser's name has to be the same as the name on the buyer's registration application, AC Form 8050-1. The buyer sends the bill of sale with that application and the $5 registration fee to the FAA Aircraft Registration Branch in Oklahoma City, or files online through the FAA's CARES system. The seller keeps a copy.
Then the seller's own step. Under 14 CFR 47.41, a registration ends when ownership is transferred, and within 21 days the holder of the certificate has to tell the Registry. A paper certificate goes back with its reverse side completed; for a certificate issued electronically, the notice goes by email or another means the FAA accepts (the rule was amended for electronic certificates on Jan. 17, 2025). This is what takes the seller's name off the airplane.
After the sale
- The ELT registration. A 406 MHz ELT is registered with NOAA, not the FAA. The FAA's registry pages remind owners that selling an aircraft is the time to update it, and that the update is free and required, at NOAA's beacon registration site.
- Insurance. It ends when the seller ends it. A policy cancelled before the airplane changes hands leaves a gap during the pre-buy and the delivery flight.
- The listing. On the Hangar Flying Marketplace, Mark sold takes it down at once.
Sources: 14 CFR 47.41, Duration and return of Certificate (as amended Jan. 17, 2025, 90 FR 5572; the 2025 printed edition read at GovInfo); 14 CFR 47.40; 14 CFR 91.417 and 91.419; 14 CFR 21.179; FAA, AC Form 8050-2, Aircraft Bill of Sale (10-23); FAA, N-Numbers (its note on ELT registration); FTC, Fake check scam targets online car sellers, Feb. 27, 2025; FTC, How to spot, avoid, and report fake check scams; Hangar Flying Help: Listing an aircraft, Reporting a listing and The paperwork of a sale; all read Nov. 4, 2026.
Photo: N104AZ 2014 Vans RV-10.jpg) by Tomás Del Coro, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.