|
ErnestBidder
|
 |
« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2018, 11:15:28 AM » |
|
Years ago, i was talking to a guy who had searched out a defunct marina, somewhere around Peterborough, because he was too cheap to pay the boat storage fees for his sailboat. After parking (squatting) there for a few years, he got curious about the marina, found out that no one wanted it, asked questions in various Ontario gov't offices, got the right guy, who told him the main concern expressed, in the old paper work, was gasoline contamination, and told him that all he had to do was excavate the old tank location until water started seeping in, then have someone from his office drive up & do a visual check: if no shiny petroleum product was floating on the water surface, they could sign off that there was no contamination. He checked around, and found a guy working a backhoe, just a few blocks away, told him he needed a 15'-20' hole, and the operator said he'd dig it, on Thursday, for two cases of beer. He called the Ontario gov't guy, who said "I'm heading for the cottage, so I'll going right past there tomorrow afternoon. I'll bring the form with me, and stop by". In the end, this guy, who turned out to be a shifty character, bought the marina for less than the price of a cottage lot! And made a small fortune when he sold it a few years later!
I had an experience, decades ago, when I found a weeded 1/2 acre lot, in an industrial area of Oshawa, that had an old two storey house on it, that badly needed repair. Talked to the wrong guy in the city building dep't, who said the house was condemned, and must be torn down, and could not be fixed up. I walked away. 4 months later, a fellow bought it, got a building permit, rebuilt all the walls, one section at a time, ran his business from that house for 8 - 10 years, and then sold it for $250,000. The sale would have taken place in the mid '80s, when a $250k was big money.
I turned to practicing how to kick my own butt.
The morale of the story is, check everything, & talk to people. Then, talk to more people. Early in my foray into the tax sale hobby, there was an old property, south-east of Hamilton, that appeared to have been an auto wrecking yard, or possibly a body shop or used car dealer. It was contaminated with buried tires, and oil. I talked to a Hydrogeologist, who told me that all I had to do was excavate and remove the tires, and spread the contaminated dirt so it was exposed to the sun. It would take some time, but the only expense was turning the dirt, and getting a Hydro-G to sign off after testing. In the end I let it go, because of distance issues, but it was ok for the right person.
Question everyone, and don't accept the first answer.
|
