Buried Oil Tank?? (insurance, house, buy)

[leo06]

Looking to purchase a home that has a buried oil tank that is supposedly insured in the front yard. It seems as though the seller wants to sell as is. I know I would need to get the soil tested. What is the average price to remove from the yard? What else should I be considering? TIA

[imoapie]

Dont do it, can't test underneath and that is where the leak will be.

[King of the South]

Originally Posted by leo06

Looking to purchase a home that has a buried oil tank that is supposedly insured in the front yard. It seems as though the seller wants to sell as is. I know I would need to get the soil tested. What is the average price to remove from the yard? What else should I be considering? TIA

Never buy a house with an underground oil tank unless seller agrees to contingency that he will first remove it and gets the necessary document from the state that the soil has been tested and is cleared AND hands you the paperwork by closing.

Seller would need to go drastically below market rate to convince anyone otherwise. 10k below won't work if you have to spend 50k in cleanup costs.

Surely your realtor has advised you not to fall for this?

[Kiru]

I agree. I am an environmental consultant and have done residential tank removal. Costs vary widely. Make sure the seller agrees to take on all environmental costs and obtain closure with the State (a 'No Further Action Letter'). Irregardless of the cost, if there is an issue, it will take some time (months to potentially years) to obtain that closure. So unless you can wait, it's just not worth it on any level.

[HalfFull]

Originally Posted by leo06

Looking to purchase a home that has a buried oil tank that is supposedly insured in the front yard. It seems as though the seller wants to sell as is. I know I would need to get the soil tested. What is the average price to remove from the yard? What else should I be considering? TIA

People, including realtors, like to throw around the term "insured" and people get a false sense that it covers them like their auto or home insurance. Tank policies are much flimsier, and have many specific conditions. And they almost always are limited to soil contamination -- if oil has contaminated water, almost certainly not covered by the tank policy, and water contamination is where the really big costs kick in.

We went through a tank removal. We had a tank policy (which, by the way, required that we install a new oil tank -- above ground -- but complicates matters if you're looking to convert to gas) and through dumb lcuk, we had one of the rare homeowner policies that gave 3rd part coverage (ie water contamination) for a leak. We had 6 months of absolute nightmares with a giant hole in our front yard. We ended up out of pocket only about $10K for a job that was about $150K, but that was dumb luck and hard to replicate. It took another 18 months to get the NFA and I can safely say I will never consider an underground tank again under any circumstances.