Potential Environmental and Regulatory Liabilities at Real Estate Entities

The most common environmental and regulatory exposures encountered by real estate entities include:

• Contaminants from known and unknown historical usage/operations or neighboring properties.

• Investigation and defense due to local and regional soil and groundwater contamination.

• Air emissions from ammonia-based refrigeration systems.

• Construction debris containing hazardous materials (e.g. paint cans, tars, etc.)

• Sick Building Syndrome (i.e. carbon monoxide, mold or bacterial air releases from faulty heating, ventilation or air conditioning systems).

• Hazardous chemical storage including laboratory chemicals, medical wastes from doctor and dentist offices, dry cleaning solvents, pesticides and herbicides used both indoors and outdoors, etc.

• Inadequate containment at loading/unloading areas.

• Inadequate containment for hazardous materials, waste and process areas.

• Lead, asbestos, PCBs and radioactive material.

• Methane contamination from buried tree stumps and construction debris.

• “Midnight dumping” on vacant land parcels.

• Past landfills, lagoons and other solid waste disposal areas.

This is not an exhaustive list of environmental exposures. It represents the most common environmental exposures for this industry.

Source – Zywave, Inc.