If you flip a property or have owned a property, by law (at least in MD, VA and DC) you have to disclose EVERY defect that you know about that property that has not been fully addressed, or risk losing your license or, at the very least, get fined for not disclosing latent defects discovered by the buyer.

However, if there are defects in the origination, which sounds like there probably are, you could have an uphill battle.  

if you can get 1 or 2 experienced plumbers to testify that the work was defective that will help a lot. 

This is not an idea where $5k puts you into an $60k or more property value, when the price is that low, there is something wrong, a substainial defect, that could eviserate your investment if you are talking about a proeprty value above $50k or the value is simply wrong.

A broker/agent has a fiduciary duty to their client but not when it comes to knowing about defects made aware to them by the seller.

Otherwise this is a defect that can't be overcome, thus the "seemingly" good deal.

This led the State agency to require a.) that there can be no disturbance of the soil at all within a certain footprint of where the tank was located b.) this defect has to be registered on the deed, c.) all neighboring properties have to be checked for active and passive water wells and if any water wells are not properly decommissioned (I believe this involves removing the hardware and plugging the well with concrete) they have to be tested now and over the next several years for contamination.

Unfortunayely this is one of those "defects" you can't fix.

You've got to remember, some tenants will go weeks with a broken window or some other defect, which can lead to much larger problems.

However if There is some title defect and I am not concerned about that defect I may take a property without insurance.