Seller's liability

[CarlOrton]

EAA had an excellent webinar on selling your homebuilt about (?) a year ago.

I can't recall the EXACT number, but the lawyer who was presenting said basically that there has never, or maybe it was only once, been a successful lawsuit against a homebuilder. As others have said above, unless Bill Gates takes up homebuilding, most lawyers will not pursue the case.

The numbers work to our advantage, folks. Now, that doesn't mean we can be stupid about it. Take precautions, have a waiver in place, etc.

[rwanttaja]

Excellent post, Daniel.

Agree with that...thanks for the great write-up, Daniel. As far as lawyers being "scumbags," I changed my opinion of lawyers (to the better) about fifteen years ago, when *I* needed one. The trouble is, he knew so many good lawyer jokes....

One other point I'll add is that I know of only one case where the builder of a homebuilt was sued by the estate of a later owner. The builder was quickly dismissed from the case (though of course he had to hire a lawyer and had to do a lot of worrying). This was the John Denver accident.

Ron Wanttaja

[Racegunz]

Well i might be interested in the S-10, selling it to an EAA member and fellow homebuilder should help some concerns, My first plane was a Rans that the builder de-registered to supposedly protect him from liability, thing is I just called the FAA and filed the paperwork to reinstate it. His name will forever be with the plane unless it is truely parted out, and that really hurts the selling price
. Anyhow if you want to sell it e-mail me. Racegunz@g-mail.com

[Eric Witherspoon]

Well i might be interested in the S-10, selling it to an EAA member and fellow homebuilder should help some concerns...

You have no such goodwill with the deceased's estate / heirs / next of kin, unfortunately. Likewise goes with any waiver / papers you have any other buyer sign. You have no agreement with the buyer's estate / life insurance company, etc.. Though I believe Carl's point is about the best there is - there has been no successful lawsuit against an original builder, and the one example that anyone could come up with, it was thrown out. So I think this thread is a bunch of worry over nothing. When I sell mine, it's already got ~150 hours of "flight test" on it and 3 (or more) annuals. Even though it's not type certified, it sure is proven. If the buyer screws it up, it's obviously not because it was inherently uncontrollable or any such nonsense like that. True, I know that anyone can sue anyone for anything. But I would expect any reasonable attorney to do the research on this and refuse to represent / pursue cases against builders when that big "EXPERIMENTAL" word that the authorities require us to attach to the hardware pretty well lets any pilot know - they're on their own. That right there is probably the heart of the best protection we've got. Of course, I'll print out and require the buyer to sign as much legalese baloney as I can find, just like everyone else... Maybe even follow the lead of what Jabiru engines did of me and require the buyer's spouse also to sign...