Whenever you acquire a Commercial property, you would normally investigate this as part of your Due Diligence — depending upon the current use made of the property.
However, you may have owned your Industrial property for sometime. And, during that time, your tenant conducted a business that has the potential to contaminate the property to some degree.
As you’ll appreciate, when it comes time for you to sell … either you or your purchaser will need to accept any contamination risk.
And, if you are able to address the potential risk and uncertainty with site contamination … you will then be more likely to maximise your ultimate selling price.
The best way to do that is to arrange for an Environmental Site Assessment for your property. And then, you make this available to potential purchasers as part of your marketing material.
That Assessment will either confirm that there is no risk of contamination, and put their minds at rest. Or it will specifically detail any areas of concern — which enables your purchasers to accurately quantify the cost of any remediation works required.
There are two issues here …
# Obtaining an Assessment will take time — so it is far better done by you, before going to the market.
# Without an Assessment, your purchasers will always tend to over-estimate any potential problems; and then, deduct that inflated cost from what they are prepared to pay you.
What’s important is that you engage an approved Consultant to carry out your Site Assessment.
