Environmental searches on house I am buying

moneyistooshorttomention

I've just been reading my way through the pages ..and pages...of the search that has come back on my house-to-be and wondering how on earth someone is supposed to find any house anywhere in Britain that is (and will remain) 100% safe from absolutely everything bad and with a location suiting the purchasers personal requirements.:cool:

The house (and road its in) aren't at risk of flooding from any source. The maps have come back of anything and everything that might be within however-many-hundred metres of the property.

A few properties some minutes walk away are deemed in Environment Agency's flood plains - Zone 2 and Zone 3 - and "local knowledge" has duly informed me that a couple of properties there had a "bit of a problem" at one point. They are some minutes and a bit of an uphill walk away from my property-to-be and I wouldn't buy one of them, but I deem "mine" safe to buy. NB; the "water" that is near these "flood plain" properties is a brook - and not a river or the sea and I have seen this myself and it is really a "brook".

What are insurance companies specifications re continuing to pay "normal level" insurance premiums on this? Do they go by common sense by and large or by a certain distance from a flood plain (and, if so, what distance away from a flood plain constitutes premiums will be "normal level") or does it vary according to a mix of commonsense (ie some distance away) and a certain gradient (ie up a hill from the flood risk area properties)?

Obviously a property literally only 10 metres away from a flood risk property is totally safe and the insurance premium should, accordingly, be "normal level" if that property is up a steep hill, whereas the "flood risk property" is not just in "flood zone territory" but down on the level to the nearby river or sea iyswim - so I would assume this would be taken into account.

moneyistooshorttomention

Anyone got any thoughts please?

I know this is an unusual query for this sub-forum, as I don't recall anyone ever having any issues with this sort of thing before...

buddabudda

Sorry, Ive no idea what the view insurance companies will take of the Environmental search.

But I can tell you I used to look at these enviro search reports routinely as part of contaminated land work I used to do.... and I can tell you most of the information is relatively useless or of no consequence from a contaminated land/health/structural point of view.

moneyistooshorttomention

Thanks.

There is very little there from a general environmental viewpoint - with the area being so "rural".

But, my specific concern is re the distance from a local "watercourse" being more than 200 meters, but less than 500 meters from a titchy little "watercourse" (ie a "brook" - both in fact and in name only a brook). The "brook" is a different postcode to the property I am looking to buy and a safe distance and gradient from this property - but is less than "500 meters" from the "brook". Hence knowing this isn't a problem, but wondering whether insurance companies might deem it to be iyswim (ie protecting their "own back" at the expense of everyone else's "back").

vl2588

Well I'm no expert on buying property (struggling FTB in fact) but as an environmental consultant I would check the flood risk level here for peace of mind, and then get some 'dummy' quotes for house insurance...I presume they have their own database about properties/areas they will and will not insure/will charge the Earth for.

Not sure if this helps but though it was worth a try

moneyistooshorttomention

That is a good thought re "dummy quotes" and I have in fact just spent some time online putting in for a quote on that address and it came up with:

- 38 insurers will quote and the quotes started at half the level I am currently paying:D. Guess that's partly down to it being a detached property (unlike current mid-terrace one) and the fact that the crime rate there is noticeably lower than here (still suffering the effects right now of having been woken up by noise in the middle of last night by what I think was a break-in or attempted break-in a nearby house:eek::mad:) and that's not the first time that's happened:mad:. I felt a lot "safer" there than I do here. The highest quote given was about the same as I am currently paying here.

- 44 insurers wont quote - but I am guessing that there may be some perfectly innocent reasons for at least some of them not doing so (eg not insuring properties of that type or value or something).??? Wonders if anyone knows likely reasons for sure just why some of those insurers wouldn't quote...

So, by the look of those noticeably cheaper first few premiums that came up, then I guess I shouldn't ever have a problem during the rest of my life with getting an affordable insurance quote for there?

lessonlearned

We are having similar issues with our new house.

The insurance companies have loaded our insurance premiums because the flood report puts the property at high risk.

Utter nonsense of course. I would not buy a property at risk from flooding - I'm not that daft.......

I know this house well, lived next door for a while in 1966. I know the area. I know my city.

Our city had a major flood event in 1965, the house was not flooded. Since then the City Corporation has diverted the course of the river, built two weirs at strategic places, has a 20 year programme for further flood defences and has a rolling programme of dredging and weed clearance etc. There have been no major flood events since.

We spoke to our solicitor about this who also knows the area extremely well and she confirmed what you suspect. Basically, the insurance companies simply arrive at their figures by using the postcode and proximity to the river. They do not take into account the incline of the ground or the layout and geographical features of the land.

They simply apply a loading to all properties within the area, in pretty much the same way as they penalise all young drivers because of a few hot heads and boy racers.

Your house sounds safe enough but I'm afraid you will probably find that most insurers will load the premiums anyway. Some may even decline. We have definitely found this to be the case.

lessonlearned

Posts crossed.

Good to see your rural area crime stats etc compensate for the "perceived" flood risk.

moneyistooshorttomention

Lessonlearned - have those insurance companies "loaded" the premiums by much then? 20%, 50% or what level of loading are they applying?

phoebe1989seb

Our last house - a detached 400+ year old period property, extremely close to an area that flooded badly in the 1950s and where they still test the flood sirens on a regular basis - was never a problem to insure and our premiums were perfectly reasonable.

After we moved here in 2011 our insurers agreed to continue providing cover, but one year on they changed their minds and refused to insure the house. It's an attached 200 year old three-storey stone-built thatched house that sits around 6' above the level of a shallow stream that runs 200' from the house across the bottom of our garden.

I must admit I assumed the refusal to provide cover was down to the (newly done in 2008) thatch, but have since come to the conclusion it was a result of the proximity to the stream......even though I know that the stream has not flooded in living memory as that fact was raised in a recent planning application close by.

After our old insurers declined to cover us we used an online facility and found that no-one was prepared to give a quote. The previous owners used NFU, but although they were happy to insure us, their quote was astronomical. We instead found a small specialist insurer for similar period/unusual properties that charge us half that amount and not a great deal more than our previous insurers charged the first year

lessonlearned

Phoebe - I would be very gratgeful if you could let me know the name of your specialist insurer......

Money - the cheapest quote was £512 - for buildings and contents. Many of the quotes came in at around the £800 mark, some were well over £1K.

Standard brick construction, slate roof not thatch, crime stats ok.

Spoke to a broker who told me that there were three reasons for the high cost.

age of property - built 1756 - Grade 11 listed, so high rebuild costs
flood risk
my son is a first time "buildings" insurer (other than the usual student digs type contents insurance) and therefore has no no claims bonus

Problem is we exchange on Friday so have to get a wiggle on and don't have much time to shop around.

We will probably go with this quote and then make sure we give ourselves sufficient time to shop around at the next renewal time.

PS I think insurers have definitely moved the goal posts in the last couple of years - probably as a result of the increased flooding over the last few years.

They cite climate change and increasing incidence and severity of flooding, many companies are simply refusing to insure.

I recently looked at some cottages near a marina - very pretty and a lovely spot.

I double checked the environmental website and discovered that although the housing in that area had not flooded within living memory there was serious flooding in the surrounding fields and some road closures last November. Apparently the area is downstream from a confluence of 3 rivers and therefore exceptionally high risk and yet the houses were fine, not one had flooded.