After a few weeks of following up every week or two, I received a text message one day from the seller. They stated that they had been working with another buyer who wasn’t able to close on the deal. They also said they were interested in our original offer if the offer still stands. This came out of the blue but it was welcome news. I digitized our offer and emailed it to them using docusign. They signed it and just like that we were under contract.
Closing Attorney
The closing date was set for 2 1/2 weeks later which was just after Christmas and New Years. After receiving the contract, I sent it over to the attorney’s office of Scott, Harris, Bryan, Barra & Jorgensen, PA in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. Their office came highly recommended to us by one of Oceana’s clients. Phyllis was our closing coordinator and she did a great job of keeping everything on track for closing especially with many of the staff taking time off for the holidays.
The underground fuel tank contingency
When I filled out the contract, I left us one contingency – the underground fuel tank. The seller was not interested in removing the tank as part of the deal. That means if we are to purchase the property, we would own the liability that comes from a buried fuel tank. The liability arises from having a tank that may have been leaking for years and has potentially contaminated the soil and aquifer below with home heating oil. The owner of the property is responsible for any environmental clean up costs. I am not interested in purchasing an environmentally contaminated property, so the contingency allowed us to have the soil tested to determine the level of contamination. If contamination was found, it allows us out of the contract.
Environmental inspection
After many, many calls to various tank removal companies, fuel companies, and environmental companies, Greene’s Energy Services referred me to ACT environmental. ACT was able to schedule an inspector to come out on short notice and just 2 days before Christmas. I drove the 2 hours to the property to meet with the inspector as they performed the soil samples.
The soil inspection included locating all sides of the tank and then taking soil samples at 1′ increments down to 10′ from all 4 sides. The samples were then checked visually, checked for any odor, and finally tested with a flame ionization detector, organic vapor analyzer. While the soil samples were being collected and analyzed, I spent some time in the crawl spaces getting acquainted with the framing and plumbing systems that were visible.
No contamination! Woo-hoo!
After the tech analyzed all of the samples, he reported back that there were no indications of contamination in the area of the underground storage tank. Great news!
One clean crawl space
In the crawl space, I found one of the cleanest crawl spaces I’d ever been in. That may have something to do with the excessive amount of moth balls down there, but whatever, it was clean. No major red flags were found. Now, I have a background in doing major structural repairs to houses, so although it’s not a red flag for me, it may be a major concern for someone else. What I found was rot under the master (which I already knew from the soft floor in there), some old termite damage on a beam, and some furry drain pipes. The fur on the pipes is actually from the roots that are clogging the system up. The south foundation wall showed signs of moisture but nothing too concerning.
Just a bit of rot below the water heater 
Floor rot and a furry drain stack. Fur = roots!
Let’s Close
All in all it was a good day. No soil contamination. No major concerns below in the crawl space. Time to get prepared to close.
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