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ARTICLE · 30 JUNE 2015

Purchaser Of Contaminated Site Loses Case Against Own Lawyer

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I continue to be surprised by how many people knowingly purchase a contaminated site, and regret it afterwards. Buy in haste, repent at leisure?

CanadaEnvironment
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I continue to be surprised by how many people knowingly purchase a contaminated site, and regret it afterwards. Buy in haste, repent at leisure?

Sometimes the purchaser of a contaminated site is merely unlucky, or suffers from a change of rules or approach by government regulators; sometimes I see incompetence by purchasers' consultants, and/or lawyers. But sometimes the problem is due to the purchasers themselves.

In 6038212 Canada Inc. v. 1230367 Ontario Ltd., 2014 ONCA 415, a Mr. Yang (an experienced businessman and PhD chemist) bought a commercial plaza. The property was contaminated by tetrachloroethylene (perc) from a dry cleaners' that had been operated by a former tenant. Chlorinated solvent contamination of soil and groundwater is common at drycleaning sites and can be astonishingly expensive to remediate.

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