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Prior to the Skymaster I owned a Beech Sierra with three other people.

We did not put together a very binding contract with ourselves.

Two of the other owners fell on relatively hard times. One of them sold his share of the airplane to Jenny at a reduced price. Jenny could not really afford to pay market value for his share, but she offered what we could to buy his share. He accepted and was thankful to get out of the burden of fixed expenses for his share (Jenny and I assumed those fixed expenses).

The other owner who had fallen on hard times refused to pay his portion of the agreed upon expenses. This went on for a year. He told us that he would not sell his share as he felt we had taken advantage of the owner we had bought out. We made offers to him at fair market value. he would neither accept the offer nor pay his share of the expenses. We ended up going to court with the judge ordering him to sell his share to the corporation at the fair market offer we had made. Unfortunately, the corporation had to bear the legal expenses.

Jenny and I found the Skymaster and were interested in upgrading to this twin. The third owner of the Sierra (Who had faithfully paid his portion of the fixed expenses and who rarely flew the airplane) chose to not move into the Skymaster.

We calculated the fair market value of the airplane, made him an offer, which he accepted, and bought his share of the Sierra. We then made the trade for the Skymaster.

Jenny and I have chosen to not have other owners for the 'family' airplane. Our experience with joint ownership had been both good and bad. Unfortunately, the bad outweighed the good in our case.

You can certainly set up a good ownership agreement. Be sure to do that. Approach the deal as a BUISNESS arrangement. Even if you are making the deal with friends... especially if you are making the deal with friends.

The loss of a friend is a big loss.