I gave A potential buyer of a property I am selling the right to have a lead paint analysis and feel certain it wasn't the wisest move. Along with a lot of other issues, they found lead in the soil all around the house, and are now telling me its "got to be cleaned up immediately - under any circustances."

Does anyone know if I can just cover it with mulch?

Many thanks for any insight on selling and this whole lead abatement nightmare

I really hate this happened. I would check the laws and see what levels of lead require any action. The cost to fix this is probably outrageous. You might get a second opinion. Doubt you can just cover it with mulch.

Who is telling you it must be cleaned up under any circumstances? The potential buyer? The realtor?

Covering with mulch doesn’t remove the lead. You are in a different situation from just protecting tenants, so I suggest you ask the buyer what they are expecting.

For rentals, On a house I had where a grandchild tested positive for lead, my city had a stupid ( and WRONG!!) policy where if you just replaced the windows, NO MATTER where the lead was, they (city officials) considered problem solved. Uh-huh? Nope, what I did was, besides replacing windows, took my biggest shop vac, sucked up years of old paint chips, leaves, composted leaves off of the neighbor’s section of space between houses. Took about eight trash bags of debris to dump ( legal to take it to dump according to my lead RRRP training, local laws). Also sucked up loose top layers around front and back of my house, then planted thorny, scratchy, thorny plants under front and back windows where grandkids liked to dig in the dirt. And, reminded Grandma to get the kids a covered sandbox! And, a step stool in bathroom to wash the kids hands at the sink!

Next tenant decided to plant a vegetable garden along the back of neighbor’s garage. I mentioned soil might have lead from neighbor’s garage; I would gladly help them put a garden in the middle of the lawn away from any buildings. We ended up settling on a container garden over mulch, away from the buildings, and I put hostas in the space along the neighbor’s garage, like I had been planning to do anyway. (Gardeners reading this would realize tenants’ melons and squash weren’t going to grow well in that space if hostas were best plant for the space anyway. *grin*)

My thought is to fix for YOUR situation, dig out top foot or EVEN two of soil, mulch, debris around house. That goes in landfill, following your state’s laws/ directions. Refill that space with clean clay soil. ( yes, top two feet of soil should be clay/ clayish, if available. Properly sloped, it will shed rain away before soaking in. Looser soils allow rain to soak in around foundation. Lower layers, below two foot mark, should be well draining. But a cap of clay promotes draining AWAY from foundation. )

This shouldn’t be all that expensive, just mostly labor. And, of course, you need to make sure the clay soil you bring in is clean. How far out from house you have to go depends on how many times in the house’s history the house was washed with pressure washer, spreading paint chips everywhere.

A lot of information is in the lead paint pamphlet.

Wouldn’t it be funny if scientists found out that lead ingestion prevents autism? No, no, no, DO NOT Spread a rumor about this. Just, autism used to seem rare, and everyone probably had a little lead in their system , especially from leaded gasoline. Now, lead is being eradicated, and autism is being diagnosed ever more frequently. And comfort animals. Definitely correlation between increased anxiety over heavy metals and need for comfort animals.

I purchased an old 1907 house that the previous owners had it pressure washed before painting and "lead" chips went everywhere.

Another potential buyer had the property tested for "lead paint", "asbestos" and "mold". It came back positive for lead in the soil.

This information had to now be disclosed. So the collection of top soil wasn't too much of the issue, but where to dispose of the soil. Based in my findings, if I reduced the concentrations to an acceptable level, I found disposal sights that would accept the material.

I purchased the property and then removed to top soil with most of the lead. Then I removed another few layers of hard soil for good measure. Since I'm a contractor and licensed to deal with lead paint, this process wasn't too costly. The collection of soil had to be done not to expose the workers or release lead dust into the air.

The top soil had small concentrations of lead particles and had to be bagged and placed in special containers. The bottom soil had "no lead"

Doubt you can in Mass and priobably other Gedtapo states, but this is why I sell everything AS-IS.

I see an additional problem. Now that u know about the lead-- if you are in a "disclosure state" you will have to let all know about it--- or be liable.

Exactly what myob and CGB said. Folks have to learn how to not get all frantic when tenants and buyers overreact to stuff.

Did they say there was lead in the yard or did they show you a document proving there is lead in the yard. Totally different things. One is proof, the other could be a negotiating tactic to have you lower your price based on fear tactics.

If you have been shown, by a professional study, you should probably remedy the situation. If you know there's lead in the soil, you'll have to disclose that in your seller's disclosures for the listing. Leaving it unresolved, if it's been professionally proven, will either scare buyers, or cost you more in sales price than the repairs. Or you'll be putting yourself at risk of lawsuit if you try to hide it.

1) unless you have the report from a certified guy - you got nothing to deal with

2) If you do have the report then you immediately have to know your state laws regarding the solution.....IF .......you choose to do it

3) rent a bobcat- remove top 4" and place in dumpster with refuse company that knows what you are doing

4) have lead FREE loam trucked in and spread it

5) retest

6)plant grass

PS - I was our States Laed Paint Remediation Director

Unless you currently have kids living at this property, IMO the statement "got to be cleaned up immediately - under any circumstances." doesn't require any action on your part. If there are kids living there it would be in your best interest to either cover with tarps or fence off to prevent access to the effected areas while this problem gets sorted out.

Did they actually have a MA licensed inspector test the property or did they do their own testing? Without an independent 3rd party inspection their claims don't mean much. Either way this knowledge is now something that you will have to share with any potential buyers.

I imagine that any elevated lead readings that may be found are the result of scraping & sanding the exterior surfaces that had lead paint on them.

Is this a SFD or a multi family property?

What part of MA is it located in?

During your ownership, have kids ever lived at this property?

Since it appears as thought lead readings in the soil are going to have an effect on the sale of this property, would you rather make it lead compliant or reduced the sales price?

Steve Ma asks make lead compliant or reduce the sales price?

Negotiate.

Offer to fix if they come up halfway on the price. Find out what it costs to fix and offer them half of that as a credit at closing. If it cost 10 grand to fix, offer them a 5k credit.

If they demand the entire thing fixed and don't want to negotiate on the price at all, then I would hold that money in escrow until they fix it and any difference in cost comes back to you.

Nine times out of 10 they're going to take the discounted price and not care about any solution to the problem.

I work to give buyers nothing during a sale, but sometimes it happens.