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Spokane.net »
Sudoku
 | Tuesday, September 3, 2002 |
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Spokane Contaminated homes sold without warnings Karen Dorn Steele
Some real estate agents selling homes in Idaho's Silver Valley failed to comply in recent years with a 1996 federal law requiring full disclosure of lead hazards in paint, dust and soils. The Shoshone County Board of Realtors has tightened its disclosure rules in the last year, requiring prospective buyers to sign a form saying they're aware of mine waste in the area. The federal Lead Paint Hazard Reduction Act mandates disclosure of any lead hazards in properties built before 1978. It sets fines of up to $10,000 per violation. The problem was first flagged by Tina and Harve Paddock, an Oregon couple who paid $104,000 in cash for an old house in Wallace in 1997 after falling in love with the scenic mining town. The Paddocks didn't learn until the next year that their 1915 Craftsman house and yard were contaminated with dangerous amounts of lead. Concerned with the health hazard, they pulled their three kids out of school and moved back to O They sued several Coeur d'Alene and Wallace Realtors over the sale. The civil case, filed in 1999, is scheduled for trial Sept. 24 in U.S. District Court in Coeur d'Alene. The Paddock case has had a big impact in the Silver Valley, triggering a federal investigation and prompting Realtors to make new disclosures to prospective buyers about the area's mining past. It also revealed that many real estate agents erroneously thought they only needed to disclose contamination inside the 21-square-mile Superfund site at Kellogg. After the Paddocks complained in 1998 to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, federal investigators searched a sampling of real estate transactions in Coeur d'Alene and Wallace. The investigation was delayed for a year while EPA officials in Seattle and Washington, D.C., debated whether any action was appropriate under federal rules for lead disclosure, records show. The agency concluded the law applies to mine wastes in the Silver Valley as well as to lead paint hazards, said Michael Le of EPA's lead program in Seattle. In their fall 2000 review, EPA investigators found half the 10 real estate files they inspected in Wallace and three others in Coeur d'Alene lacked the proper paperwork disclosing lead hazards to buyers and renters, records show. EPA notified two Coeur d'Alene companies, Lake Shore Realty and Prudential Acuff Northwest Real Estate, of disclosure violations. Anne Anderson of Lake Shore Realty (previously with Prudential Acuff) wrote the Paddocks' purchase offer on the house in Wallace. She was notified she'd failed to comply in that transaction. Anderson did not reply to a request for comment. In court documents for the upcoming trial, her attorney argues any mistakes she made were "inadvertent." Peggy Sawicki, a former Prudential Acuff manager now with Century 21 Beutler & Associates in Coeur d'Alene, said she is a defendant in the Paddock lawsuit and can't comment. EPA also notified Marty Sleezer, a former Century 21 agent in Wallace, that disclosure forms on five of his home sales were incomplete, lacking signatures of either the buyer or seller. EPA also told Sleezer he'd failed to comply on the Paddock transaction, where he was the seller's agent. Sleezer lost his Century 21 franchise in August 1999, when his sales fell far below the average. The entire Wallace office has been closed. Sleezer, asked for comment through his attorney, didn't respond last week. The Idaho Real Estate Commission has revoked Sleezer's license, but commission executive director Donna Jones said the revocation was unrelated to the Paddock sale. Idaho law makes it mandatory to disclose "the known presence of hazardous materials or substances" before a property sale. But the commission has never enforced the lead rule. "We never get involved with that -- it's a federal law," Jones said. The EPA letters were the first lead non-disclosure notices in the Pacific Northwest. But they didn't result in any fines. Because the law was new, the EPA decided to offer "compliance assistance" -- a warning to follow the law, said EPA spokesman Bill Dunbar. This year, the EPA is ramping up inspections nationwide, and is starting to fine real estate brokers and landlords for non-disclosure. Tim Hyllested, a former Californian who calls himself a ski fanatic, said he also wasn't told about lead contamination when he paid $80,000 for a house in Wallace two years ago. He commutes daily to his computer hardware engineering job at Liberty Lake. "We came here in the winter. It was beautiful. But our real estate papers say nothing about contamination," he said. "When we moved here, people told us we were near a Superfund area, but it was all cleaned up. I assumed it was true," said his wife, Julie Hyllested. EPA says there are 1,000 homes outside the 21-square-mile Superfund site that still need to be scrubbed of lead from past mining practices. The Hyllesteds learned their 1929 house might be contaminated when they met Paddock at a Superfund meeting in Wallace last fall. Paddock's still-unsold house is three doors away from the Hyllesteds, on a street of tidy homes. Signs in some neighbors' windows show hostility to EPA's plans to clean up Wallace. "Superfund? Been there, done that ... no thanks," they say. One neighbor, Lonnie Phay, says he's aware of the lead problem and isn't concerned he got no notice of it in a recent real estate deal. Phay paid $17,000 for two small houses on High Street near the Hyllesteds. The property is listed among those lacking lead disclosure papers for a previous sale in EPA's compliance inspection. Phay said he bought the houses with a quit-claim deed. He knows lead is present because the houses are built over a dead creek filled with mine tailings. He plans to knock down one house to create a side yard and bring in a backhoe to clean out the polluted soil. Phay, who commutes to work at a sawmill in Coeur d'Alene, said he knows about the lead problem because he's a Wallace native. The Hyllesteds, however, are newcomers. The Realtor who sold them the house is a former in-law of Tim's who worked at the now-defunct Century 21 office in Wallace. Tests this year by an EPA contractor show lead in the driveway at 21/2 times the EPA's 1,000 parts per million limit -- qualifying it for a government cleanup. The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality will clean the Hyllesteds' yard and seven others in Wallace this year, said Scott Peterson of DEQ. The Hyllesteds are angry they weren't told about the lead. They won't let their young grandchildren return for visits until it's cleaned up. The Paddocks' yard was scrubbed of lead in a 1998 cleanup overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that cost $28,000. It was one of the first in Wallace to be cleaned up. Paddock says her lawsuit was a "last resort" after the real estate agents refused to rescind the sale and Idaho regulators declined to get involved. At a Superfund meeting in 1998, Paddock learned that her house might have been tested in a 1996 sampling program for houses outside the Superfund site. The Panhandle Health District confirmed the testing and sent her the report. It showed elevated lead levels in the yard and noted that X-rays had detected lead paint. The Paddocks had received a disclosure form noting lead paint in the house, and waived a further lead paint inspection. But the papers didn't mention the 1996 report or any yard or attic dust contamination. According to the Panhandle Health District, the report was mailed to the previous owners, Sara Beth Dul-Huning and Paul Huning, on July 3, 1997 -- a month before the house was listed. The Hunings said they never received the report. However, they paid the Paddocks $20,000 last year in a settlement that removes them as defendants in the litigation. The Paddock case got the attention of lawyers for two major real estate companies. Steve Tanner, senior counsel for Century 21 in New Jersey, notified all its franchises that many brokers weren't complying with federal lead disclosure rules. He warned of "substantial hazards" for non-compliance, including $10,000 fines. Century 21 also apologized to the Paddocks. Jonathan Hubbell, attorney for Prudential's franchise headquarters in California, also warned agents to disclose any contamination. He noted the EPA's plans to expand its Superfund cleanup beyond Kellogg. The EPA's expanded regional cleanup plan for mine waste is scheduled for release today. It addresses the Silver Valley disclosure issue. Soil sampling and yard cleanups "will provide property owners the information necessary for lead disclosures required for property transactions," it says. For a year, Silver Valley agents have been requiring clients to sign a disclaimer that they've been informed of lead in the area, said Rose Breazeal, a Kellogg real estate agent and a director of the Shoshone County Board of Realtors. Prospective buyers are also told how to contact the Panhandle Health District to check for any property tests and are given a required federal pamphlet on lead hazards, she said.
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