Underground oil tank on Houston property

[Axel Norvell]

Hi all,

Has anyone here dealt with an oil tank on a property they purchased in the Houston area? I'm about to go under contract to purchase a SFH with an extra lot that happens to have an old oil/gas tank underground.

I've done some preliminary searching and all I could find in terms of cost to remedy is anywhere from $2,500 for a basic removal, all the way up to $100k for a major contamination problem (replacing all the contaminated soil).

The sellers are selling the property as-is, but this is an item that has a massive range of risk so I'm wondering how to better mitigate and reduce that risk.

Thank you!

[Lawrence P. Schnapf]

Many home oil tanks are unregulated because they are too small. happens alot of time. quickest thing to do is take some samples in the area of the tank during your diligence period. The good news is that heating oil tends not to migrate too far. In addition, if the area of Houston has a Municipal Setting Designation, you can ignore groundwater impacts. Reasonable worst case scenario is usually $15K to $25K depending on size of tank and depth of contamination. If the tank is near the house, there are limits on how deep you can dig without undermining structure so this will act as a ceiling on cleanup costs as well.