There are some things that raise a red flag for house hunters. Rotted wood and shoddy repairs can be signs of problems down the road.
Same with finding a meth lab in the basement.
Concord police arrested two men suspected of producing methamphetamine in a Perley Street duplex on July 1. At the time, the property – 25 Perley St. – was for sale, according to the Northern New England Real Estate Network.
On July 6, the the listing was removed. Because of the toxins involved with manufacturing methamphetamine, experts say such a find would sour the sales process.
“Once they’ve discovered a meth lab in the property, it could no longer be sold,” said Matthew Neuman, the managing partner at Absolute Title, a Bedford-based real estate title company.
A spike of methamphetamine arrests in New Hampshire could prove costly for property owners and landlords. After a meth lab is discovered, a property must be professionally cleaned and inspected to certify it’s safe for people to live there again. It also affects the value of the property for years to come, which can be vexing for landlords who have little control over tenants.
“What it comes down to is, it’s the location of a crime,” Neuman said. “And most crime scenes cause the value of a property to plummet.”
Methamphetamine production is so serious, there is a specific question addressing it on real estate disclosure forms.
Sellers must answer: “Do you have knowledge of methamphetamine production ever occurring on the property?”
If the answer is yes, the sale of the property gets a lot more complicated, said Rachel Eames, president-elect of the New Hampshire Association of Realtors.
“You’d be looking at the interchange between public safety, health and trying to sell the property,” Eames said. “You’re getting involved with many different regulatory bodies, and that’s not going to make it an easier process.”
To what degree the disclosure of a former meth lab will affect the value of a property can only be determined on a case-by-case basis.
“It devalues the house as much as any one buyer thinks it devalues the house,” said Dave Cummings, director of communications for New Hampshire Association of Realtors.
“If it were me, it probably would,” he added.
It can often become a piece of the negotiation. A lot of it depends on whether or not the stigma sticks with the house, Eames said.
“I’m sure in some cases people will look at the place and think, ‘Wow, that’s where that happened,’ ” she said.
Buyers should do their research and talk to their real estate agent to find out what information is available, Eames said.
“It could be possible that something happened five years ago, 10 years ago, and we don’t know about it,” she said. “In my opinion, when you’re working with buyers, you should have had that conversation about what you know prior to even looking at houses.”
In scenarios where a meth lab is found on a for-sale property, as police said was the case with the Perley Street duplex, the disclosure the seller signed would no longer be valid, Neuman said.
“Until it can be determined that the property does not pose a health risk, they’d need to pull it off the market,” he said.
The Monitor was unable to contact the Perley Street listing agent or the property owner.
Eames has been a licensed Realtor for 24 years and said to her knowledge, she has never handled the transaction for a property on which a crime occurred. Neuman said it just doesn’t happen very often.
Yet, methamphetamine cases in New Hampshire are becoming more and more common each day. To simply say there’s been an increase in crimes involving the illegal drug would be an understatement, said Sgt. Marc McGonagle of the Concord police’s drug unit.
“What’s going on in our area is the one-pot method, using a plastic bottle to mix up the ingredients,” he said. “Nowadays, an internet search is all it takes.”
Matthew Partington, a state police trooper and member of DEA’s drug lab team, said officers first saw the one-pot manufacturing in New England in 2010. The method is utilized to produce methamphetamine primarily for personal use and low-level distribution.
“You still have chemicals mixing, still have fumes going out,” Partington said. “It’s important for anyone living there to do cleanup.”
A number of environmental cleanup agencies are trained to deal with meth remediation. The cleaning process is fairly quick – especially for one-pot operations. It ultimately depends upon the size of the lab, McGonagle said.
But for homeowners, the consequences can be much more lasting.
“It’d entail soil samples, air quality samples, things that are going to be out of the norm of a normal inspection process,” Neuman said. “Once a property is deemed to be a meth lab, it takes a significant amount of time to remedy the situation.”
(Katie Galioto can be reached at 369-3302, kgalioto@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @katiegalioto.)