Hiring a Consultant: Begin at the Bank
If you are interested in hiring an environmental consultant, it may be wise to heed the advice of Joel Moskowitz, author of “Environmental Liability and Real Property Transactions,” published in May.
Moskowitz recently characterized the mushrooming industry in real estate environmental assessments as “akin to the Gold Rush, in the same way that all the miners who were attracted to California were not necessarily the world’s best miners.”
No license or certification is required at present to hang out a shingle as a consultant. But many banks keep lists of consultants with whom they are familiar. And the California Office of Environmental Affairs has established a registry of consultants who meet the following standards:
- Five years’ experience in their general field of expertise.
- Two years, within the past four years, doing environmental assessments.
- A bachelor’s degree or higher in a physical or biological science, engineering or law.
- Three personal references for competence and character.
Most people familiar with the field recommend looking for specialists; if you’re worried about water, find a consultant with extensive experience assessing potential water problems. In this growing industry, experience can count more than a diploma on the wall. Sound environmental assessments may be made by engineers, attorneys managing subcontractors or consultants with fairly wide-ranging backgrounds.
Moskowitz counsels buyers to first ask their lending bank for recommended consultants, since in many cases the bank will want approval of the consultant anyway.
Otherwise, Moskowitz, an attorney, has set up many environmental assessments for clients and recommends going through a lawyer to help keep such studies confidential. A client who contracts directly with a consulting firm, he notes, may later find a government agency asking to see the results. Work done through an attorney is protected by attorney-client privilege, says Moskowitz.
If the client wants to work without a lawyer in the middle, Moskowitz recommends going to a larger, established firm. It will likely cost more than a smaller consultant, but experience and quality control are less likely to be a problem, he contends.
And what happens if the consultant misses an environmental hazard?
The potential liability is so high that many consultants draw up contracts that limit their liability to a client. In some cases, these contracts even ask clients to indemnify the consultant against any possible liability for working up their site assessments.
