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 Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2010 9:23 am Post subject: here's the situation. what would you do? |
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Hi Larry,
Thanks for the insight. Right now, I'm waiting to see what he wants to do. I sent him both invoices, i.e., with and without the stuff he ordered and paid for. If he wants to leave the seats, Power Flow, and cowling out of the equation, he can pick up the plane for the expenses incurred prior to him not coming back to work on his plane, plus the storage fees. He is supposed to get back to me by Sunday. I made the suggestion to him (when he was here) to just sign the plane over to me and let it go at that. I'd drop all the charges. So, I'm waiting to see.
Gary
From: lmassaro <lmassaro(at)tac-eng.com>
To: teamgrumman-list(at)matronics.com
Sent: Thu, October 14, 2010 4:44:05 AM
Subject: Re: here's the situation. what would you do?
--> TeamGrumman-List message posted by: "lmassaro" <lmassaro(at)tac-eng.com (lmassaro(at)tac-eng.com)>
| Quote: | [b]In 2004, I did an annual on a plane based at Mather Field in Sacramento. The owner had heard I was moving to Auburn, 7 flying miles from Mather. At the time of the annual, I recorded a few minor cracks in the horizontal supports. The CE was new at that time. I told him, we'd look at it the next year.
(text deleted)
At this point, the plane needs an engine, reassembly, paint, interior, horizontal braces replaces, avionics, and who knows what else. Without labor, there is at least $50,000 in expenses to make the plane airworthy.
What would you do?
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What to do now:
Spend a few $$$ and get a lawyer to draft up a letter stating your intentions to :
1) Store the plane at your facility (outside) effective immediately at a rate of $$$ / mo. until the plane (or whats left of it) is moved by the owner.
2) File a lein for XX dollars for past storage time (x months at 200.00 per month). My opinion on fling a lein for all the other work performed to date may be contested in court (if it ever got that far) unless the work you performed was "pre-approved" in some manner.
Herein lies the fun running a business as yours. Trusting the customer. When you go to Totoya to get service, they provide an estimate of the repair and have you sign a doc stating you "authorize" the work. Do you have anything like that or was everything a simple handshake?
3) As backup, prepare a chronological list of all work performed and items purchased for the restoration including credits applied for the sale of any avionics removed as per his request in the event he contests in court.
4) Get a quote to ship the aircraft (are the wings still off?) to wherever he would like it moved to and provide that estimate.
5) Consult with a lawyer and consider notifying the owner your intention to treat the aircraft as "abandoned" and your intention to take it through "adverse possession". Provide a time frame at which this would occur. Obviously, this would be a tactic to get him off his ass to take some action (paying you, moving the plane, whatever)
Based on his (or his wife's) obvious desire not to spend any $$$ on this issue, I doubt he'd spend any money on lawyer costs and simply wants a "cheap" way out of this quagmire. Obviously, his desire would be to leave everything at your place for eternity at no cost which is not realistic.
Have this letter sent officially (registered mail) which legally satisfies your obligation to "formally" notify him of your intentions. Make sure the letter provides a specific "time is of the essence" statement or a specific time a reply must be received in writing from him or specific action defined in (1), (2) and (4) above will be taken.
What to do in the future:
Well, it just sucks that some people are like this. Protect yourself in the future (especially with any new customers) who have no prior history with you. When preparing an estimate, get the approval to start work in writing. If you are approved to to XX and you find you need to do YY, again, do what Toyota would do:
"Hey Joe, in fixing XX, we found out YY is all F'ed up, it'll cost you $$$, whaddya want to do?".
If the customer gives a verbal over the phone, document it in the invoice and in a confirmation email. If you have any issues, you at least have it documented which makes for a strong case vice the "he said, she said" situation.
The overall tone here is you are a business, plain and simple. In a perfect world, handshakes and trust are great, but all it takes is one case like this to change the way you do business in the future. One of the great things in this business is you can have a personal relationship with your customers which benefits both you and customer, but you have to balance the level of trust you have with each customer based on how much $$$ you are willing to risk in the event something happens with respect to that customer where a dispute arises.
I had a friend who was going through a divorce. Ive known him since 1st grade. Trust him with my life. But when he needed 20K to get him through a rough patch and to pay his divorce lawyer, I lent him the money. I also drafted up a legal Promissory Note that he executed prior to me writing the check. Had my lawyer review for $150.00. Might have
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