WOW, i guess the WTS never heard of a PERC test before, lol. All they needed to do, was get a soil sample from a few "strategic" places around the property. Do a ground bore down to 6 to 8 feet, and get the soil tested. It is very simple, and any real estate attorney, property inspector, or even an average layman, knows this should be done. Especially, on a major land purchase like this one, where there was a huge commercial company operating on it for years.
I have bought about a dozen multi-family, residential homes, over the years, and even i knew to get them PERC tested before i closed on them. These were just residential properties, nothing commercial, but there could still be underground, buried, oil tanks, on the property leaking oil. In fact, i happened to find out about a buried oil tank, BEFORE i fully closed on the property, by doing a soil sample PERC test.
This is just basic stuff, nothing mind blowing. The fact that the WTS did a MAJOR purchase like this, without checking for contaminated soil, is absurd. They either, do things on their own, in house so to speak, and have no outside attorneys advising them, or they have very stupid people working with them.
If they think they are going to sue the previous owners, they are going to be in for a rude awakening. 99 percent of the time, once you close on a property, YOU are responsible for it from that point. All purchasers of property, have a right, BEFORE hand, to get all inspections, and to do, due diligence. Once you close on the property, YOU are then responsible for whatever is wrong with it. The ONLY time, this would not be true, is if the seller of the property KNOWINGLY, or fraudulantly, hid that it was contaminated. This is very hard to prove, hence why the responsibility is on the purchaser to do their tests, BEFORE hand.
These tests, typically, are not even that expensive, but they ARE the would be purchaser's expense. So, maybe, the WTS is so cheap, they didnt go for the SMART, additional expense of a soil test, and got screwed. I bet that if they did not do any proper testing beforehand, then they have NO leg to stand on now. They could be, truly, and rightly SCREWED on this deal. It is now their responsibility to clean up the property.