The alphabet soup of federal and state statutes and rules regulating the purchase and sale of property can quickly become overwhelming. Nevertheless, parties to commercial and residential real estate transactions ignore such laws at their own peril: failure to comply with these regulations, whether intentional or not, can impose serious costs on all parties involved.
This Article focuses on some practical approaches to due diligence inquiries and allocations of potential liabilities, and includes only brief comments on some of the legal liabilities regarding environmental disclosure requirements in real property transactions. The main take-away from this article is that the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (“ADEQ”) is the key environmental regulatory agency in Arizona with a mission to protect the environment. As such, the Agency is a great resource for information and cooperative ideas to ensure the deal will close.