Online cleanup guide for homeowners and small businesses

The online guide focuses on helping homeowners and small business owners, and people who are preparing to buy or sell residential property.

Homeowners and small business owners

These links and frequently asked questions are for those who have discovered a contamination problem on their property (or suspect there is a problem). If you need to investigate and clean up contamination, check out:

• Common cleanup situations
• Investigating and reporting toxic releases
• FAQ: Evaluate options and clean up homes and small businesses

Buyers and sellers of residential properties

Washington law requires purchasers to make a serious effort to find out before they buy a property if contamination exists. This helps avoid becoming liable for part or all of the cleanup costs. If you're planning to buy or sell residential property and are concerned about possible contamination, go to:

• Records search checklist
• Property inspection checklist
• Contaminated Property Considerations: Focus on Real Estate Transactions
• Sellers' disclosures (Form 17)

A legal notice about this online guide

We’ve tried to ensure information in this guide is correct, but we can’t promise it is completely up-to-date and free from errors. Because environmental conditions and histories of sites vary so much, this guide can’t provide a complete and final resource for everyone. You shouldn't use information in this guide to replace the advice and knowledge of legal or technical experts who have experience in environmental site assessments.

Before entering into a purchase or lease agreement on potentially contaminated property, we recommend that you seek the advice of professionals experienced in environmental site assessments. Users of this guide may not rely on it legally to create substantive or procedural rights enforceable by any party in a lawsuit with the state of Washington.