Need advice; not car related

[Dave Rifkin]

My mother-in-law passed away last year and she left a duplex (built in 1920) to her four daughters as an inheritence. The house needs work and also has an abandoned heating oil tank under the concrete patio. None of the daughters have the money to fix the place up so they want to sell it but, in order to sell it, they would have to sink a fair amount of money back into the place in order to bring it up to the standards to get a proper CO. They also would rather not have to deal with any possible problems involving the buried oil tank.

They're thinking that it would be best to find a builder who would want the house for the land; someone who would tear it down and build a nice new home in it's place. That or sell it "as is" to someone who is willing to invest the money into the building to make it really nice.

Any suggestions how we should proceed? If the house is sold as is are the girls responsible for anything? I have read where, as long as any known issues are disclosed prior to the sale, the seller is not responsible to make any repairs and the new owner assumes that responsibility.

Would we be better off trying to find a builder and market it as a tear down? I know that would seriously reduce the sale price but, if we list it as a home that should be remodeled we fear that we'll have to remove the oil tank and make other repairs which will ultimately cut into the profit.

We want to sell the home quickly but, we don't want to rush into something that is going to cause problems down the road; any advice would be greatly appreciated.

BTW: my sister-in-law has been working with a lawyer and he's been helping her find potential buyers and offering advice. The one odd thing is that he says he will not join us at the settlement table if we get a real estate broker involved. Any idea why that would be?