On February 1, 2021, amendments to the Environmental
Management Act (EMA) and associated changes to the
Contaminated Sites Regulation relating to the process for
identifying contaminated sites came into force. A notable amendment
for commercial real estate lawyers is the replacement of the former
"site profile" with a "site disclosure
statement" in the context of a sale or redevelopment of a site
that has been used for a specific industrial/commercial
activity.
Site Disclosure Statements
Fundamentally serving the same purpose as a site profile, a site
disclosure statement is a form that requires information about the
past and present uses of a site to identify the potential
requirement of a site investigation or to disclose past uses that
may have caused land contamination to a prospective purchaser as a
part of due diligence. Unless waived by a purchaser in its
discretion (as permitted pursuant to the Regulation), a vendor of
real property must deliver a site