Under the law, if you owned a particular property even for one day, you could be held liable for any environmental problems which existed at that point. Even years after you sold the property someone could come after you and make you pay for the cleanup and/or demand damages for occupational disease or personal injury (one very good reason to hold each property in its own LLC).
Environmental hazards can be costly is an understatement. Unfortunately, a routine inspection will not automatically uncover even the most obvious environmental problems. If you know what to look out for, you can take preemptive steps and avoid assuming liability for someone else’s faults.
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