Advice Needed: Missing Aircraft Log Entries

[frustrated_flyer]

I need some advice. I am trying to sell my airplane and it seems like it's been one headache after another. I had a prospective buyer lined up and the bank wanted copies of all of the logbooks. I scanned them all and sent them to the bank. Well, it appears that the aircraft logbook is incomplete. It shows annuals up to 1987 and then it jumps and the next entry is 2006. The airplane didn't fly from 2001-2006, so those years don't count. But, there are no entries for '87-'01 in the Aircraft Log. Looking at the Engine Log, you can see that the airplane was flying and in annual. Well, because of this, the bank believes my airplane is only worth about $23,00 even though it was appraised at $38,000. I'm so frustrated right now and at a loss on what to do. I hate to involve lawyers and never had been keen on suing anyone, but the shop that did my pre-buy should have found this problem. The mech even looked at the logs and said all was good. This is now really screwing me up. The prospective buyer still wants the plane, but now he's afraid he's going to get screwed down the road if he buys an airplane with incomplete logs. Will missing those entries have such a big impact on the value of the plane? Any advice would be much appreciated! :mad2:

 

[Jim Logajan]

The log book represents half the total value of an aircraft.

However, certified appraisers seem to think that a deduction of 30% for missing logs isn't out of line.

I presume then that there should be an observable bifurcation in the market, where planes with incomplete logs have selling prices that cluster 30 to 50% lower than planes with complete logs? Or are planes with incomplete logs too rare to create a separate market?

Point being, if I and others wanted a cheaper plane and the above claims are true, we'd go looking for the ones that look good right now mechanically but have missing logs. Of course if there are enough of us doing that, demand may exceed supply and next thing you know the selling price isn't discounted as much as we like.

So is there supporting sales statistics for what bankers and appraisers are claiming?