Any sophisticated real estate purchaser or investor is aware of the environmental pitfalls associated with purchasing a piece of property.When you buy a piece of property, you are not just buying the land and improvements, you are also buying any environmental liabilities associated with the property.

For this reason, the standard for protecting one's self from this kind of exposure is the Phase I and Phase II site investigation.These are costly and vital precautions.Lenders usually will not lend unless this is done, insurers will often not insure, and generally, buyers will not buy unless a competent due diligence investigation has been performed and understood.

Now, somemeasure of environmental investigation is available, sometimes within minutes, to anyone who owns a desk top computer.This does not replace a professional due diligence investigation, but it certainly provides essential, prompt up-front information which can be used in assessing whether there will be further interest in the property.

Environmental data base information is now available on the world wide web.For a fairly modest fees, ranging from under $50 to several hundred dollars, interested property owners, Realtors, insurance companies, and government officials can tap into a wide variety of reports which can reveal otherwise hard to detect environmental issues.

For example, you can now determine whether there are any registered underground tanks within several miles of the property in question.You can find out whether there are any known contaminated properties, or superfund sites in the neighborhood.You can also learn whether any property owners or operators have been fined by the government for failing to meet environmental safety standards.

Information such as this used to be only available to environmental professionals.For everyone else, this kind of valuable information was hard to come by.But now, if you can access the world wide web, you can tap into a vast amountof important information which may very well help you decide whether this will bea good deal or a bad nightmare.

Several nationalcompanies now offer this information.Probably the best known is VISTA Information Systems, located in San Diego, California.VISTA was formed in 1988 and over the years has acquired other companies, to the point where it has amassed a significant data base.VISTA is well known to many environmental consultants.

According to VISTA Vice President Mark F. Catone, VISTA is an important resource for real estatepurchasers, Realtors, and insurers.He said that they can rely on VISTA "to quickly and economically identify environmental issues and verify seller-provided environmental disclosure information."He added that all buyers should require this kind of data base review to protect their real estate investment.

The most frequentreports sold by VISTA are the Site Assessment Report (SAR) and the Comprehensive Environmental Summary (CES). The SAR lists hazards near a property and other related information.The CES identifies spills and violations attributed to specific businesses.The two reports together can provide an excellent "first step" in evaluating a prospective parcel.

VISTA is found at http://www.vistacheck.com/. You can register with the service for free and you can search its data bank for free as well.If you find something that might be of interest, you then pay for the reports that you want to purchase.All report prices are clearly listed before you purchaseand some information, including environmental mapping, is readily available by return e-mail.Other reports are mailed.

Other companies that are in this business include ERIIS, located in Herndon, Virginia, and E Data Resources located in Southport, Connecticut.

Each company has environmental database materials, but differ in terms of exact offerings.All three companies can be accessed on-line.

Clearly, these databases will play a major role in commercial transactionsas more purchasers, lenders and insurers learn about them.The bottom line is simple: this is important, cheap information.It is hard to imagine why anyone would not want to obtain this kind of priceless information before making a significant real estate purchase.Its is much better to learn ofa problem before you purchase, whenyou can still do something about it.After you purchase is often too late.

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.