environmental search - flood risk?

Grimbo82

Hi all,

I am wondering whether anyone can help. we are house buying newbies so please bear with me. We have had the searches through from our solicitor for the property we are buying. He says that it is within 250m of an indicative floodplain and the searches he has enclosed from the homecheck professional environmental report say the following:

Pluvial flood: is the property in or within 250m of an area at potential risk of surface water flooding - Yes.

I assume this is what the solicitor is referring to as all the other flood questions are no. He says we should speak to our insurer to see if they will provide cover and that we will not have to pay additional premium. I have spoken to an insurer but they say that i just need to check on the environment agency's map. I have done this and it comes up with nothing showing on the map at all. this means i cannot tell from the map what the flood risk is and am unsure what this means. I don't know whether i need to tell any potential insurer the above or will it be ok?

any help much appreciated.


grimbo82

ognum

The flood information is not very accurate, my daughters home came back as a flood risk as is within 250 m of a river that has flooded but her house is up a steep hill above the river, this does not seem to be taken into account!

abankerbutnotafatcat

Our survey didn't highlight anything but when it hit the news last year about the Government's underwriting of flood risk ending I checked the Environment Agency's map and we were very close to/on the edge of a flood risk area (it didn't zoom close enough to tell). So on insurance renewal I phoned my insurance company and asked them for their definition of the question 'is your home at risk of flooding?'. Their response was - if it's never flooded to your knowledge in the last 40 years.

I think the real answer is that unless you are one of those unlucky people who has actualy been flooded in recent years/easily traceable history then it's a bit of a grey area.

Grimbo82

ok thanks,

I'm guessing that also the risk is priced into any home insurance quotes?

Hailstorm

You can get a flood risk report against an individual property. Ask your solicitor about it. They are not that expensive (cost me about £20).

With the house I bought, I knew there was a river and a canal within 3/4 mile of the house so I checked the environment agency website before putting in an offer. That didn't show any areas at risk within half a mile of the property.

When I got my survey though it did highlight that the property was in a flood risk area although the surveyor noted he could see no evidence of flooding. The vendors also confirmed in writing that the property had not flooded in the 11 years they lived there.

My environmental search, like yours said that there was a risk of flooding within 250 metres of the property. I asked my solicitor for advice and he suggested the flood risk report.

The flood risk report models of different types and severities of flood. None of which showed the property I was buying as at risk, but some of them did show other roads on the estate as at risk. Something the environment agency website did not show.

I also spoke to some insurers and asked them if they considered the property to be at risk of flooding. None of those I spoke to did.

girl_withno_name

Some insurers will use the 'distance from water/river' question to determine your flood risk, whereas other will use postcodes - which don't necessarily take into account hills, etc. (as ognum has said)

andy_stenning

Hi. I would suggest asking your solicitor to carry out a Flood Search which are not very expensive and it will provide more information for you. Please click the link here which will take you to the Searches UK website where you can get more information on flood searches. I am unable to post a link to the page here but if you go onto Google and type Searches UK the site will come up. We offer a full range of conveyancing searches so hopefully this will assist you.