The report that closes the transaction.

This is the side of the work with a deadline attached to somebody else's calendar: a lender, a buyer, a reviewer, a settlement date. The useful skill is knowing what the reviewer is going to ask before they ask it.

Due diligence

Phase I environmental site assessments are what a lender or a buyer asks for, built on the All Appropriate Inquiries standard and aimed at identifying recognized environmental conditions. Where a Phase I turns something up, Phase II sampling establishes whether it is real and what it means for the transaction.

Wetlands and permitting

Delineation and jurisdictional determinations decide what you can build and what you cannot, and the ground under that question has moved recently. Federal jurisdiction narrowed after Sackett, and in July 2026 Delaware signed a Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act creating a state program over roughly 75,000 acres that had lost federal protection. A delineation done a few years ago may not answer today's question.

The 2026 federal nationwide permits took effect in March and run to March 2031. The stormwater one now covers bioretention, bioswales, constructed wetlands and regenerative stormwater conveyance, which widens what can be authorized without an individual permit.

Closing out a project

• As-built certification packages, seen through the reviewer's comments
• Bond release documentation
• Operation and maintenance manuals, and maintenance agreements
• HOA turnover packages — so the community inherits a facility with a record, not a surprise

Trees

We have Certified Arborists on staff, which means tree assessment and arborist reports are done by someone qualified to sign for them. On stormwater facilities this matters more than it sounds: woody growth on an embankment is a deficiency, not a landscaping preference, and the question of which trees have to go and which can stay is one a board would rather have answered properly once.