The Tenth Edition 2019 of the ADLS/REINZ Agreement for Sale and Purchase of Real Estate has included a Yes/No for a Toxicology Report in the just released agreement. On the front page under the Conditions, along with the usual Finance Clause, Lim Report etc, is a Toxicology report for the first time.
Toxicology report required (subclause 9.5): Yes/No
Subclause 9.5
9.5 Toxicology report condition
(1) If the purchaser has indicated on the front page of this agreement that a toxicology report is required, this agreement is conditional upon the purchaser obtaining at the purchaser’s cost on or before the fifteenth working day after the date of this agreement, a toxicology report on the property that is satisfactory to the purchaser, on the basis of an objective assessment.
(2) The purpose of the toxicology report shall be to detect whether the property has been contaminated by the preparation, manufacture or use of drugs including, but not limited to, methamphetamine.
(3) The report must be prepared in good faith by a suitably‐ qualified inspector using accepted principles and methods (and where the testing is in relation to methamphetamine, in accordance with the New Zealand Standard 8510:2017) and it must be in writing.
(4) Subject to the rights of any tenants of the property, the vendor shall allow the inspector to inspect the property at all reasonable times upon reasonable notice for the purposes of carrying out the testing and preparation of the report.
(5) The inspector may not carry out any invasive testing in the course of the inspection without the vendor’s prior written consent.
(6) If the purchaser cancels this agreement for non‐fulfilment of this condition pursuant to subclause 9.10(5), the purchaser must provide the vendor immediately upon request with a copy of the inspectors report.
The introduction of the Toxicology report comes with the referencing of the NZ Standard, NZS8510:2017. NSZS8510:2017 has a recommended safe level of meth contamination of 1.5 micrograms per 100 cm2. This is a different level to the proposed level of 15.0 micrograms as set out in the Gluckman Report.
At the time of writing the REA, Real Estate Authority, the government body that oversees Real Estate Agents, is still saying on its website that disclosure of meth contamination by an agent is not required unless the contamination is above the Gluckman Report level of 15.0 micrograms.
We are unsure of what the Tenancy Tribunal have decided to do. Tenancy Services website still says that the NZ Standard and the Gluckman Report are in play – it is up the individual to decide.
Since the Gluckman Report was released in May 2018 we have maintained that when buying a property why would you not spend a few hundred dollars to make sure that the property was not meth contaminated. Hopefully with the option of this new condition being included in the S&P Agreement we will see a reduction in the number of families inadvertently buying meth contaminated properties.