I am within days of closing on my home and the owners have been so gratious as to let me rent while the paperwork is completed and closing is accomplished. I have had visits from 3 different neighbors, at 3 different times and each has told me of the current owner’s activities. He had quite an automotive junkyard here as is told, and there are car parts buried in the side yard. We have been cleaning up a burn pile of his where we have retrieved several small auto parts and what appears to be asbestos shingles.
Yesturday, the next door neighbor paid us a visit and informed us that there is a 1924 Ford buried in the back yard. :smack: It has cost me so much to move into this house, but I fear I am looking at an environmental nightmare. Furthermore, I received the disclosure and he has clearly marked “no” under environmental items buried or covered.
First, run, do not walk, to the nearest lawyer’s office. If you have one retained for the closing, use him. This is a case where you need one; “saving money” by not consulting one would be like saving money by failing to do needed maintenance on the giant boiler in your basement that you expect to depend on for heat.
Have him consult with the EPA and the state DHEC. Depending on the results of those inquiries, be prepared to institute suit against your “gracious” landlord/sellor. If there are in fact buried automobiles or parts, that “No” on the disclosure is clear evidence of attempted fraud. And with you having run up expenses to buy and move into your (prospective) house, he can probably be compelled to reimburse you for what you’ve paid out in consequence.
IANAL; this isn’t legal advice. It’s possible I’m all wet and talking through my hat. That’s why I said, “Get a lawyer!”
A buried (any trash) is a big deal, yes. A buried car is even worse, if it was buried with fluids in it.
After contacting your lawyer (to broughtv), I’d strongly also suggest taking some soil samples around the property, and having them analyzed. Since you are in SC here, Clemson University Agricultural Extension Services will perform a soil analysis for a very small fee. Let them know that you are worried about contaminants, such as oils and asbestos.
Catch it as early as you can, because remediation of soil contaminants gets very expensive, very quickly.
ETA - Another worry about contaminants would be if you are on well water. I don’t know where in the state you are, but down here by me, the wells are very shallow. My suction line is at all of 35 feet or so deep, and I have water 15 feet deep. You don’t want nasties getting into your water supply!
I’ve never heard of any agricultural extension that will test for contaminants. An agricultural extension soil test generally only tests for nutrients.
Absolutely.
As an environmental professional, based on what you have described, I would personally cancel this sale and consult an attorney. You are walking into a potential minefield here. (Note that you are not my client; I am not familiar with the specifics of this site, nor am I familiar with the environmental laws of your state.)
I have actually investigated and overseen the remediation of small automotive repair sites and auto body shops in other states. A complete sequence of environmental site assessments, including soil and groundwater sampling, easily gets into the tens of thousands of dollars. Depending on what is found, remediation costs go up from there. I had a one-acre automotive repair site a couple of years ago in which remediation costs got into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, due to several leaking underground storage tanks. Our initial site assessment identified over 12 areas of concern (AOCs), all of which has to be investigated and dealt with. You’ve already mentioned four AOCs in your initial post (the buried car, buried car parts, burn pile, and asbestos shingles).
get a metal detector and scan the yard. see if the neighbor might be telling the truth.
if it seems there is metal buried don’t bother closing the deal, you don’t have to do any other tests. it is cheaper just moving.
you will has metal in the way of planting bushes or any other digging even if it isn’t a major environmental problem. if he buried car parts then likely it might have been used for general garbage that will also be in the way and work its way to the surface.
Here’s a thread - with pics - from another forum I frequent, where a guy dug up a Model A he found buried on his property. According to several posters, it sounds as tho simply buying unwanted vehicles is not at all uncommon.
This is a residential property, right? I ask because many states have exceptions for the remediation requirements of residential properties. So - while a business will typically be on the hook for any remediation for asbestos, heavy metals, etc. - residential properties often do not have the same requirements. If the former resident actually operated a business from the site - then the liability would probably go back to him. If he did not, then there may not be much legal liability since it may fall under residential exemptions. All of this is very site-specific, however - so you need to check with your lawyer.
Despite the liability issues which your lawyer should be able to help with, there are still potential hazards from a health and environment standpoint that you should clearly investigate as well. Do you have kids? One of the most common contaminants from junk-yard activities is lead. Lead bioaccumulates and can be quite toxic if ingested, and kids like to eat it - so I would be careful. Pets can be at risk as well. There are also plenty of volatile organics and acids that could be involved as well.
As others have wisely suggested - talk to your lawyer about this.
My guess is that a buried car will sooner or later rust away and leave a large void.
The soil above the car will then fall into the void leaving a possibly large sinkhole.
You think you only have one car buried, and you have no idea what else might be down there, nor do you have any idea of the possible effects or cost of clear up.
As another environmental professional, I agree completely with robby. While it’s true that your liability may be limited by it being residential, do you really want to live on a toxic waste dump? And it’s not like you’re going to be able to resell the property when the time comes, either.
You already know this guy was willing to illegally dispose of hazardous materials on his property, create more hazards on the process (that burn pile is probably full of carcinogens), and lie about it on the disclosure form.
Run away! It would be good if you can get him to reimburse your costs, but if not, consider the whole thing a bullet dodged.
Wasn’t there a Garrison Keilor story about the guy that had a car buried in his back yard? IIRC it was put there as a septic tank, and eventually needed to be removed. The owner figured that out when he put a ladder against the house, and as he started climbing found he was going down not up.
So one long weekend he borrowed the equipment, dug it up and loaded it on his flatbed trailer. he was taking it to the dump, but had to go through town. Unfortunately he had forgotten this was the local Memorial Day and found himself face-to-face with the parade, hauling a car-load of septic tank contents, unable to back up while the parade floats were too traffic-jammed to back up either…
His daughter, the parade queen on the lead float, was even more mortified…
Only Garrison can tell it so well.
So - what’s inside your car? I would check the neighbour’s story first. It takes a LOT of effort to bury an older car; dig a 7 foot hole bigger than the car, then what - flip it in? Roll it in without jamming it needs a heck of a ramp. If it’s more than 2 feet down the guy sure put a lot of effort into it, more than I would have; it had to be cheaper and easier to just haul it to the dump.
How much pollution are you going to get from one junker, vs some backyard mechanic who probably just dumped the oil from frequent oil cjhanges onto the earth? One leaky parked car could probably do as much damage over a year or two…
The biggest expense will be hauling it out if that is true, especially if the access to the back yard is difficult for big equipment…
I’d be a LOT more worried about those asbestos tiles.
Dude, here in SC they’re giving away houses. They’re throwing them through your car window along with your USC diploma if you drive through campus too slowly. Why buy a toxic one?
I think the most important thing you need to do is to consult an “expert” about how much danger the contents of cars buried underground pose to the environment.
The following post is just “my guess”. I know a little bit about cars but I don’t really know anything about the dangers to the environment posed by the contents of cars buried in the ground. I have worked on cars for many years and know the kinds of fluids they contain. But you need to know exactly how dangerous these fluids are to the environment and exactly how much of these fluids are contained in a car buried underground.
I would try to determine if there are any harmful solvents in the car. If so, I would try to remove them. These include:
gasoline in the gas tank
oil in the crank case
differential oil in the differential
transmission oil in the transmission
radiator fluid contained in the radiator
brake fluid in the brake fluid chamber
power steering fluid in the power steering fluid chamber
battery acid in the battery
I’m pretty sure there are some other kinds of fluids that are found in junk cars. I started this list so that other people could contribute other kinds of fluids to help you check for them and remove them. Accessing the car is the hard part. If you can access the car, then removing these fluids is not very difficult. But you should probably try to get an idea of just how harmful these fluids are and how much of these fluids are usually found in a derelict car. Depending on where the cars are buried and how close they are to ground water, I would be mostly concerned with any oil in the car.
Also, you should know that if a car is an automatic, it will have automatic transmission fluid, but it will not have a standard transmission and thus will not have any oil in a standard transimission. Likewise, if it does not have power steering, you will not have to worry about any power steering fluid. Similarly, if it is air cooled, it will not have a radiator and so you won’t need to worry about any fluid in the radiator. There are likewise other obvious conclusions like those that you can make.
I’d guess that some of these fluids can be extremely dangerous if they get into your drinkinking water supply and so, I would definitely advise you consult with an environmental expert about that. I don’t think you can afford to let any of this stuff contaminate your drinking water supply.
