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The
Affidavit of Ownership
Form
8050-88a
This form is the official document that will certify to the FAA who exactly owns the aircraft. You will see several choices to check. For existing “Ultralight Trainer” aircraft it is recommended that you check the second option, and the box that says you cannot provide evidence of ownership, and that the original documents have been lost and you can‘t get replacements. Oh, you say, but I have the original documents. Do you?
The only document accepted by the FAA for selling aircraft is a form 8050-2 Bill of Sale. However only a registered "AIRCRAFT" can use that bill of sale form. Is your pileof parts an aircraft yet? No it isn't, not until it gets registered. So bottom line is, you don't have the paperwork. That is why the FAA put the second option and the "lost all paperwork" option and allowed you to get it notorized as a way of certfying ownership. The first two options under the second option is for ASTM kits of which existing ultralight trainers are not and your aircraft wasn't previously manufactured since it isn't a SLSA. So all you out there that "don't want to lie" saying you lost your documents, well you aren't, you didn't have the correct documents in the first place.
The best way to have your application for registration sail through without a
lot of questions is to say you lost the original documents and sign the
affidavit before a Notary Public and send it in.
Or you can send in a bunch of documents that are meaningless to the FAA Aircraft Registry Branch and have your registration put on the back burner and they will get around to it when they can. I have seen "lost all documents" registrations come back in 2 weeks and "I have all documents" registrations take 4-6 weeks. Your choice