That wasn't the issue. The problem was that the guy wanted his
mechanic to do an *annual*. That means that the mech. could declare
the aircraft unairworthy for perhaps ridiculous reasons, write 'em up
in the logs and ground the airplane away from home.

Not to nit-pick, but technically there is no such thing as IA "writing
up" an aircraft. The worst that can happen is a logbook entry that
states "Perfomed xyz inspection this date... list of discrepancies
given to owner", NOTHING MORE (part 43.11). Your A&P (or yourself,
under supervision or if the discrepancies fall under preventive
maintenance in appendix A) can then correct such items an approve the
a/c for return to service (without further involving the IA who
performed the inspection, BTW). Two separate tasks that can be
perfomed by two different people - inspection and return to service
(43.7).

That said, as an owner, I do understand the concern of having an
unknown party (presumably loyal to the buyer) poke around the airplane
and look for trouble, I guess I would get some basic references and
certainly not release the *original* logs to them. But I don't think
its outrageous that a buyer would want to perform a prepurchase
inspection that happens to include all the items spelled out by the
service manual for an annual inspection (hint, hint). Always two ways
to slice a cat, to both parties satisfaction, I guess that's my
point...

Martin