The Commercial Property Standard Enquiries contain comprehensive
environmental enquiries. Particularly relevant are those in ss8 (relating
to physical condition), 14 (statutory and other requirements), and 15
(environmental). However, it is worth noting that there are some aspects
that are not covered and accordingly buyers may want to raise additional
enquiries about:
contamination (and remediation work) at neighbouring properties: the
concern here is with contamination that may have migrated from a
neighbouring property, and also with remediation work that has
pushed the contamination from one property to another;
storage tanks of neighbouring properties: storage tanks and spillages
from neighbouring sites may cause contamination to leak or migrate;
asbestos: if there are multiple interests in a property, you need to
know who is the duty holder for each relevant part of the property;
reports/audits: consider asking whether any existing reports which
the seller has disclosed will be assignable to the buyer (and, if not,
what arrangements are being made to procure reliance on them). This
can be a useful method of beginning the process early of procuring
letters of reliance, or deeds of collateral warranty, for those reports
on which the buyer (or his lender) will want reliance.
