Pamela,
A tip of the hat to you, and since you asked.....................I never say that a property has:
1. Lead based paint
2. Radon
3. Asbestos
4. PCB's
5. Mold
Or any other potentially harmful environmental hazard or contamination by same. What I do say is....."The possibility of contamination by lead contamination, lead based paint, radon, asbestos, PCB's, mold, or such things as under ground storage tanks, leaking underground storage tanks, and a whole host of other things............cannot be ruled out based on:"
1, What I observed
2. Subjects age(Think Title 10 USC requiring real estate professionals to disclose the possibility of lead and lead based paint in homes built prior to 1978(single family), 1980 other residential.
3. what I smelled
4. What I heard
5. Or what I tasted
6. What I discovered in public records or other documents in the NORMAL research conducted in preperation of the appraisal.
I just did a Ranch style house. It had an attached recreational building that was almost as large as the house(2,000+ SqFt). In the recreation building was a swimming pool that took up over half the buildings area. It has a blue vinyl lining instead of being ceramic lined. It looked as tho it had not been cleaned(the pool), or filled in a very long time. The blue vinyl was black with what appeared to be mold. The building has a brick exterior same as house. It opens directly into the living area by a large glass patio door. I did not linger in that area. After enumerating other repairs(this is a VA Appraisal), I said:
"The subject property was built prior to 1978. The possibility of lead contamination and lead based paint cannot be ruled out based on subject age. The possibility of asbestos and other contaminants cannot be rule out. The possibility of contamination by mold, a potentially toxic substance, cannot be ruled out based on the appraisers observations and in particular the area of the recreation building and pool area. However, the appraiser is not an expert in such matters. It is recommended that an inspection be performed by an invironmental inspection firm to ascertain any such contamination and possible remediation cost".
I did not say any of those things were true, just that I could not rule them out.
I take this caution although I have an extensive background in preventive medicine, nuclear, chemical and biological warfare traing and treatmen, and have been on the E-50 Ebnvironmental Committee of the ASTM(American Society of Testing and Materials), a 202 year old standards writing organization that writes standards of practice for every service and product in the world, and that wrote the standards of practice for a Phase I and a Phase II environmental site assessment. However, I am not a scientist, and do not do scientific testing which would be the only way to determine if any of my suspicions are true. I have also taught this stuff for years to Appraisers, Environmental Engineers and Scientist at all levels(Phase I and II Site assessments). I am presently re-writing my course to conform to the new Advisory opinion on the subject, effective 1-1-2003.
All I am saying is to be careful no matter what you suspect, and disclose everything your senses tell you or you discover in gathering data to do an appraisal. However, the moment you step outside an appraisers shoes and go looking for stuff, commentin on stuff, you put yourself out on a long limb of potential liability.
To that end I never:
1. Look for problems
2. Take samples of anything
3. Lift things up
4. Turn things over
5. Do an intrusive investigation of any type
6. Ask any additional questions I usually do not ask.
BTW, the house I mentioned is assessed at $174,000 and is being sold to the tenant for $150,000. I appraised for $170,000. "As Repaired". One could say there is over $20,000 loss in market value by stigma.
Don Clark, IFA
