Thou shalt not take undue environmental risks

Before you buy commercial real estate, protect yourself from potential environmental problems by following the 10 Environmental Commandments of Real Estate Buying. These guidelines were put together by ECS, Inc. (www.ecsinc.com), a provider of integrated environmental risk management solutions:

1. Investigate past uses of the property and its abutters.
2. Perform site assessments to identify potential environmental exposures.
3. Check if previous environmental problems were corrected according to today’s environmental laws.
4. Determine if your planned use for the property will expose any hazards.
5. Know your neighbors. Their environmental problems could become yours.
6. Consider potential environmental hazards and if you can afford to pay for their cleanup.
7. Eliminate as many environmental risks from the property as possible.
8. Carefully manage those risks which cannot be eliminated to control incidents and exposures.
9. Look into insurance that may cover some of your environmental liability.
10. Plan for things to go wrong. Reserve funds in the event that environmental incidents occur despite your careful planning.

Buyers & sellers, visit www.texasrealestate.com.
REALTORS®, visit www.tar.org.