Buying a property in a flood plain

Yorkie1

Bear in mind that flooding insurance is in a state of some uncertainty at present. The existing agreement between the government and insurers, that insurers will offer cover in flood risk areas, expires at the end of July. Negotiations for a replacement agreement are certainly going to the wire, and who knows what the situation will be once resolved.

Not trying to be alarmist, but just pointing out the state of flux at present.

Moonraker71

Thanks for all the replies. I can't get a quote from my current insurer as I currently live in a leasehold flat and building insurance is taken care of by the managing agents.

Yes, I've been reading up about this state of flux, and will certainly bear that in mind. It's frustrating there's no resolution yet. Which? suggest that Aviva are a good bet as they now offer insurance which uses new technology to assess the flood risk of the specific property you want to insure, rather than just look at the postcode. This could potentially work in my favour as on closer examination of the Environment Agency map, the house I'm buying sits *just* outside the area shaded blue though other houses nearby - in the same postcode - sit just within it. (Although I also understand that this has not worked in everyone's favour, with lots of Aviva customers suddenly finding their premiums rising by £££ overnight.)

It's a lot to think about. The town has a river running through it and a good portion of it lies within the flood plain. So there are hundreds of other houses in this position, and I assume they must have got insurance ok. At what price though, is the question. I personally feel the risk is fairly small - there's a massive tidal walls project in motion and there is a big development of flats opposite - the river would have to break its banks, go around the flats then up a sharply sloping road about 100 metres in the opposite direction *away* from my road, and then over a roundabout and back down another 100 metres before it reached my house. Not saying it would couldn't happen, but I think I'm prepared to risk it.

ash28

We are on the edge of a flood plain, the village has a river running along one boundary, we live right on the edge of the opposite boundary and it is slightly uphill from the river to the boundary where we live.

The village has flooded in the past, but only the lower lying parts near the river, when you do a post code search on the environment agency website for flooding from rivers and sea we can see our postcode is in the "dry zone", which in ancient times would have been an island in the winter months. There was plenty of historical information available when we looked, going back hundreds of years. The part of the village we live in sits on a ridge and has never flooded.

The last time a low lying end of the village flooded was in 1968 when water from the river seeped through flood defence banks......

We've lived here 18 months and when we moved our insurer of many years more than tripled the cost of our insurance policy although we do live on higher ground than the flood plain and actually just outside it. It would have to be flooding of biblical proportions before we would actually flood.

We got insurance from Aviva at a similar cost to that which we were paying before we moved.

Moonraker71

Interesting thanks. I just phoned Aviva, and they confirmed that according to their own data, the property is NOT a flood risk. Which is a relief, although I'm not sure where this leaves me with the land registry document that says it is.

They quoted me £403 for the year. Not sure if this is good or bad, but because I've never had buildings insurance before, I don't have any no claims built up.

Land_Registry

Moonraker71 wrote: »

Interesting thanks. I just phoned Aviva, and they confirmed that according to their own data, the property is NOT a flood risk. Which is a relief, although I'm not sure where this leaves me with the land registry document that says it is.

The flood risk data supplied via our website is a combinaiton of the Environment Agency flood data with our own property data. We have a number of FAQs around the Flood Risk Indicator which may be of interest if not read already.

The Environment Agency also produce Flood Map - your questions answered and numbers 10 and 11 appear to be relevant here

DominicJ_2

Moonraker71 wrote: »

the river would have to break its banks, go around the flats then up a sharply sloping road about 100 metres in the opposite direction *away* from my road, and then over a roundabout and back down another 100 metres before it reached my house. Not saying it would couldn't happen, but I think I'm prepared to risk it.

My house was shown as a flood risk on one of the surveys I got when buying.
I'm at least 50m above the river and 100m away, which also dumps in to a canal when it floods.
I'm not saying my house wont flood ever, but Manchester will be wiped off the map if it does...