Any purchaser of a new home should spend money on inspecting certain key items before going forward with the purchase. Professional home inspectors can do most of the required work, and depending on where you live, these services will cost several hundred dollars. Since many purchasers quickly become cash strapped, this might be money that is not readily available. But, a qualified inspection is always worth a reasonable fee.

If the house relies on well water, rather than water supplied by a public water supplier, a very important inspection item concerns the well. You need to ensure that the well works and is in good order. More importantly, you need to be sure that the water that comes from the well is water that you can safely ingest without making you or your family sick.

A qualified individual must be employed for this service. He or she must understand how potable wells (wells that produce drinking water) operate and how to take good water quality samples. Those samples will be taken to a certified laboratory and sampled for a variety of metals, minerals, and contaminants. To some extent, exactly what is sampled for will be determined by what is likely to be in the water in a worst case scenario.

For example, if your dream house is located near factories, there may be a reason to check for degreasers, perhaps petroleum (if any tanks had leaked), and any constituents peculiar to what is manufactured in the plants. A common issue in rural areas is bacteria levels found in well water caused by animal waste runoff. Rural residents need to also concern themselves with pesticide contaminants. You need to rely on you contractor to determine what you should sample for. If there is any question, you may ask local or state environmental and/or health agencies for assistance.

The federal government has developed guidelines to establish safe levels of various pollutants that may be found in drinking water. The list is a good guidance document. But it does not mean that well water with contaminant levels under those identified as dangerous by the government is water that should be considered to be acceptable. First, there is some controversy over the accuracy of these limits. This is illustrated by the fact that some states have limits that are more stringent than federal limits. Second, you need to look at the source. Groundwater contaminants travel or migrate in a plume. Are you sampling the beginning of a plume? If so, it might be that higher levels will appear in the near future -- after you have purchased your home.

What to do. First, you may not find a new home to be desirable if the water from its well is not drinkable. This is a serious issue, some contaminants have been linked to cancer and other diseases. However, small treatment systems can occasionally treat well water to acceptable standards. If you wish to explore this route, there will have to be an agreement concerning who will pay for the filtration mechanism, how much will it cost to maintain the system, and whether any adjustment is appropriate to the purchase price.

All of these scenarios are ultimately property specific. Make sure that the proposed treatment mechanism is legal in your community. Make sure that experts believe it will work. Make sure that sources of off site contamination have been stabilized so that the problem will not worsen or change.

Some States have funds set up to assist home owners with bad well water. In such cases, the buyer and seller need to determine who will apply for such funds, and who will benefit from the proceeds if they are forthcoming. Again, competent legal and engineering counsel is required to evaluate these kinds of options.

In conclusion, even dream houses require drinkable water. Bad water can make people sick. And even the stigma of bad water (whether or not the water is bad) may lower the value of a house. Before purchasing a house, qualified experts must evaluate the quality of the potable water supply, and provide viable alternatives in the event the water is inferior.

The information provided in this column is written by Stuart Lieberman,a practicing environmental attorney, and is for general information purposes only. It is not legal advice and should not be used in place of legal advice.

Stuart Lieberman, Esq., and IRED.Com, Inc., will not accept any responsibilty for any reliance on the information in this column or any damages whatsoever resulting from reading this column.