NAFA member, Adam Meredith, President of AOPA Aviation Finance Company, discusses why lenders request logbooks and what they are looking for.
Lenders need to know that an asset—their asset—is in good shape. Logbooks tell the story of the airplane—where it was owned, how it was maintained, if it needed repairs. If it did need repairs, how often and who did the work? Did each owner take equally good (or bad) care of the airplane? Logbooks are a forensically valuable part of what the lender sees as a property they’re going to own.
Look at it another way. Think of logbooks as you might think of your own medical history. From the first page to the last, logbooks paint a picture of the airplane’s overall health. The lender may not scan every page, but certainly enough pages to discern any trends. Logbooks can significantly raise or lower the value of an aircraft. If pages—or complete logbooks—are missing, that lessens the airplane’s overall value.
This article was originally published by AOPA Finance on October 4, 2021.
