We had our local board luncheon this afternoon.  At our luncheons the board generally tries to have a speaker come and speak about issues that affect us and our business.  Today we had a local engineering company come and speak about soil testing, as well as environmental and structural concerns.  The reason behind it is that in our area we have a lot of blue clay, and other soils that cause problems with foundations.

The long and short of it is, that now our local governments are require the soil engineering to be done on new construction prior to the certificate of occupancy being issued.  This has been a requirement for a while, but they are really cracking down on it.  That means that new construction will cost more even in areas where there haven't been a lot of problems.  I guess that is something that we will have to deal with, and to be sure it is easier to have a problem fixed prior to construction than it is to repair the problem once in becomes evident in a building.

One of the things that went unaddressed that concerns me is the issue of underground heating oil tanks.  That is going to be a huge issue once governments get around to requiring those tests.  We have all heard the gory details of gasoline stations that have had leaking underground storage tanks.  I think that the next big wave of liability will come from the heating oil tanks.  At least in our area, there were a lot of them buried in the yard instead of being placed in the basement.

The amount of fuel leaking is a lot less than that from a gasoline station, but it is also more likely to have gone undetected, especially if the homeowner has switched his furnace to a natural gas furnace (which is the most common heating system in our area now) and left the tank buried in the back yard.  My concern is the liability to the home buyer, seller and of course to ourselves. 

My question is this: have any of you as realtors had to deal with this?  If so, do you recommend to your sellers/buyers to have those tanks tested and either filled with inert material or removed?  Do you just pretend that they aren't there?  It can really get expensive if there has been a leak.  It also stigmatises a property that has had this problem.  Darcy's parents had a old farm house that they purchased that had a leaking farm tank.  They were finally able to get the groundwater cleaned up enough to pass EPA standards which made the home much more saleable.  Any input from other agents would be appreciated.