Live.Anyone who sells a house from before 2001 from November 23 is required to undergo an asbestos test. Many owners with sales intentions are not yet involved in this today, but a house cannot be sold without a certificate. “In the beginning, the experts will be overwhelmed with requests and this will certainly cause delays,” says Filip Dewaele of Dewaele Vastgoedgroep.
“Even if you have an agreement with the buyers, without an asbestos test a house built before 2001 can no longer be sold from November 23. A possible compromise is therefore of no value at that moment. That will certainly happen, because I notice that many sellers put off the application for such asbestos for a while, but that is not without danger. In the beginning, the experts will be caught off guard, which can lead to long waiting times. The agendas of many certified experts are already full.”
Only a certified asbestos expert can draw up an asbestos test that easily costs around 500 to 600 euros. The site of the Public Flemish Waste Company OVAM, which not only provides soil certificates but also the new asbestos certificate, states that about 600 asbestos experts are needed to meet a basic capacity in the first few years. Even though more than 1,200 people have currently completed pre-training, only about a hundred are currently licensed.
“Theoretically, obtaining an asbestos test quickly takes two weeks,” says Dewaele. “The seller has to fill in an application form, after which an inspector in a safety suit and with a mouth mask comes on site to examine the property and take samples. These, in turn, have to be examined in a lab. Only when the results are known can the inspector send his inventory to the government service OVAM, which delivers the final asbestos test. And they will certainly have their hands more than full in the beginning.”
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