If it's an active domain name then Spyglass should give you a rundown of all the backlinks and an indication of if they are bad or not.
If you don't have Spyglass running, or it's an inactive domain, ahrefs.com is worth a try.
Should you buy and find that there's a whole world of bad backlinks, Google aren't all that evil. you can go through the motions of requesting that links are removed, then use the Google Disavow tool to have them disregard results.
I would have thought that you could just use the webmaster tool to contact Google, tell them that you recently bought the domain in good faith and the existing links are not your fault. They should assist.
We have had a couple of dealings with Google in relation to the above, we've been impressed with how fast they respond and how helpful they are. They are aware of the accidental thing they have created, with people trying to charge businesses $5 or $10 to get rid of bad backlinks, and are working to beat it.
Best of luck with the domain, whatever it is
