Environmental Considerations for Real Estate

We're currently working on a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment for a potential puchaser of a supermarket in a small town. The current owner bought the property with cash a few years back without performing any type of environmental due diligence assessment - so they missed out on discovering that the property operated as a gasoline service station from 1925 through the mid-1960's. Proper delineation and remediation activities were requested by the state leaking underground storage tank program, but were never completed. The owner of the property now owns the residual contamination, and will likely be responsible for the cleanup if they want to sell the property. For around $2,000, a Phase I ESA could have prevented this situation. Do your due diligence!!