Will buyer of old service station be responsible of cleaning up underground gas tanks and junk motors buried.?

Question

Service Station big days were in the 1940's. A clay pit was in the back and it was filled with old car parts and buried. In the 70's the owner checked with a local plumber to bid on turning one of the gas tanks into a septic tank. I was interested in buying the building but now I'm concerned on who is responsible if it's descovered those tanks are conaminating the ground water.

Answer 1

When you purchase a property like this the bank that is financing you will almost ALWAYS make sure you get the seller to do a Phase 1 Environmental Assessment of the site.

This assessment is mostly a desk study to see what has happened to the site - were there records of tanks being on site, were there records of these being pulled out of the ground and decommissioned? Were there any reported spills and other environmental impacts to the site that are documented?

This gives the bank a bit of 'insurance' that you're not going to buy a site for, for example $40,000, that is going to cost over $2,000,000 to clean up (remediating a dirty site with a tank that has leaked is NOT inexpensive), meaning that you're not going to go bankrupt and the bank will be stuck with the cost of cleaning the site up. Often if they are in the situation where you own a dirty site and they know about it and you aren't making payments on the property they may actually forgive the loan because it's cheaper than remediating the site themselves.

If you own the property, you are responsible, not the previous owner, unless you can show that they willfully deceived you about the tanks on the property (that doesn't mean they didn't tell you about them because you didn't ask, it means you asked and they said there were no tanks).

If you're at all uneasy you can hire a geophysicist to do a survey of the site to see if the tanks are still in the ground. By law tanks that aren't in use have to be removed from the ground within a certain time period (2 to 5 years depending on State/Provincial laws).

You DON'T want to get involved with a site that is possibly dirty - not worth the headache or expense - consultants, ministry of the environment, contractors and remediation are VERY expensive.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

check with the EPA and the local waterworks company. If you own the property then you might be liable, however, I would think the owners would be responsible for any clean up. A big question for a lawyer.

Answer 3

YOU ARE DUDE!! Don't buy it! Evironmental upgrades are costly!! And they MUST be done to specifications...o! and they KNOW those tanks r there...but as long as the property is in negotiations they cannot do anything til new owner has signed the dotted line..then they will come on your property before u even decide on a name!! Search for another property...

Answer 4

under federal law,
all old service station tanks were to
be updated,
meaning dug up and replaced.

in any sale of this stated property,
it is buyer beware,
because a potential owner may be ordered by a court
to clean it up, especially under the super fund laws
for environmental disasters.

any old fuel tanks were to be removed under the law.

Answer 5

It depends on state and local ordinances and the wording of sales agreements. You should check with an attorney before making such a purchase.

Answer 6

And that is why you hire a real estate atty before you buy real estate.

You should require a clean bill of health before you buy, otherwise you'll either have worthless land (best case) or have a huge cleanup bill (worst case).