• When are you eligible to treat environmental cleanup expenses as a deduction?
• If a property is to be cleaned up in conjunction with a sale, who receives the tax benefit of the cleanup?
• Can you enjoy a one- to two-year reduction in the annual property tax assessment of a property?
• If share price is a concern, is it cost effective to clean up a property, and remove an environmental liability, thus bettering the bottom line for shareholders to see?
• Reference: The points listed above are but a few of the informative issues discussed in the article below written by Bruce Keys (of Foley and Lardner law firm, www.Foley.com) and published by Society of Real Estate Counselors).
• Comment: I thought the discussion was interesting about the idea that it might benefit a corporation to sell an environmentally distressed property because it could potentially remove a large liability from their balance sheet, which hopefully could counterbalance some of the same corporation’s fears about selling the property. Another point I found interesting was that it’s often easier for new, innocent buyers of brownfield properties to obtain funding (grants, tax credits, TIF, etc.) than it would be for the current owner of the property.
• Call for Discussion: Have any of our readers used any of these “tricks of the trade”, or any others?
  

  The brownfield laws enacted during the last decade are not enough to make this an appealing offer to any but the most daring or determined. In fact, very few people ever find themselves choosing to be involved in a transaction involving a poster property for the brownfield cause. Nevertheless, the widespread impact from a number of brownfield laws may also benefit even the most mundane transactions.

  This article discusses two issues of interest to anyone involved in acquiring or managing real estate:

  1. Why does federal brownfields’ legislation enacted on January 11, 2002, require more due diligence to discover and disclose environmental liabilities on property? Will it lead to greater corporate disclosure obligations in the wake of Enron and SEC Regulation FD?

  2. When there is something to disclose, a few often overlooked brownfield tricks-of-the-trade can

  bring real value to the bottom line:

  see balance of article at the following link http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3681/is_200204/ai_n9075614

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 5th, 2006 at 8:52 pm and is filed under ●Brownfields Corporate World: SOX,FIN 47,Sell or Not?, ●Brownfields Developer's Corner, ●Brownfields Financing, ●Environmental Liability Issues.

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