Pre-Purchase Site Evaluations
Buying a convenience store is a major investment. The stories are legion of those who have followed their dream only to have it become a nightmare when they learn of serious expenses relative to the UST system they were not made aware of at closing.
Bill bought a convenience store at, he thought, a good price. The seller was anxious to close and the deal went through. We were called after closing to give advice on upgrading the fueling system and here is what we found:
- Steel tanks protected by an impressed current system that was over a year past its triennial test date. We had the system tested and it failed. The minimum fix is to have the tanks internally inspected at a cost of roughly $4-5000.00 each (4 tanks here) If any or all of these tanks fail the internal inspection, they must be replaced.
- The product lines were bare steel. Since the corrosion protection test was over a year late and failed, the product lines cannot be used and must be replaced. This will cost the new site owner anywhere from$80,000 to &120,000.
- With the new product lines and their sumps, spill containment manholes an ATG must be installed. Cost for this is around $12-14,000.00.
- The tanks were over 30 years old. Bill faces spending all this money using quite old tanks, or prudently, I believe, replace them with new double wall monitored tanks. Cost for this will probably be in the $100,000.00 range when you consider removing the old tanks as well.
- The total could run well over $200,000.00 when spending $400.00 with us would have alerted Bill to these issues.
This is the worst situation we’ve found in over 26 years but, unfortunately, its not the only one. I could go on and on. Knowledge is power they say. Armed with the facts you can walk away from a site like the one Bill has. You can also use those facts to negotiate a better deal from the seller to make those expenses easier to cover.