Are you buying a home in Victoria BC with asbestos in it?
Don’t let a hot market fool you!
Did you know that 80% of the homes in the CRD could contain asbestos?
WorkSafeBC regulations state that if a home is older than 1990, it could contain asbestos. According to 2006 Census data, 80% of homes within the CRD were built prior to 1990, and as such could have asbestos containing materials present.
Buying a home is a big purchase and renovation budgets are limited. It can be quite a shock for new home owners to discover that they require a hazardous material survey prior to a renovation or demolition, and depending on the results, potentially also have asbestos removal work done. This can result in a substantial increase in costs and cause time delays.
From our experience, insurance and financial companies are getting stricter in their requirements when it comes to asbestos in the home. Many require that certain types of asbestos materials are removed prior to obtaining insurance or a mortgage. This is almost always an unexpected situation for the new home owner, and can be avoided by dealing with the hazardous materials prior to purchasing the home.
The best solution is to ensure that a hazardous material survey is completed prior to purchasing a home. Many home buyers will add a hazmat survey into their “Subject To” conditions when making an offer on a home. Some benefits of doing this are:
- Knowing if asbestos is present and the potential remediation costs prior to purchasing the home
- Allows you to negotiate pricing of the home
- Reduces the potential of health risks during future renovations as the hazardous materials are already identified and mapped
- Potentially reduce the costs of the hazmat survey by splitting the costs with the seller
- Identifies possible problems that could occur when trying to obtain home insurance or a mortgage and allows for these concerns to be addressed prior to purchasing
Some key things to remember when having a hazmat survey completed:
- Ensure that the hazmat survey is completed by a qualified AHERA certified inspector, so that the survey can be used to obtain a building/demo permit and satisfy WorkSafeBC regulations when hiring contractors
- Remember that asbestos can be found in drywall, lathe and plaster, sheet vinyl flooring, vinyl tiles, asbestos duct tape, fiberboard, texture coatings, vermiculite, pipe lagging, boiler parging, roofing, asbestos siding, stucco, ceiling tiles, mastic and more. Make sure that all of the possibly containing materials are being sampled
