Do we need an environmental and drainage search?

klmwong

Hiya,

Got 2 quotes from the solicitors for our house purchase. One quote has an environmental and a drainage search while the other doesn't. The environmental is £55.20 and the drainage is £41.76. Do I need them?

The new house is apx 4 years old and built on a brand new housing estate in a suburban area. What do you think?

Richard_Webster

Always safer to have the searches done. but in your case I would tend to say if you really need to save moneythat the drainage is the one to miss. Highly unlikely not on mains drainage. Only other thing a search tells you is where the water company know there are public sewers nearby. Sometimes they go through your back garden and prevent an extension being built without a lot of extra cost. Mind you most water company plans are hopelessly out of date and have not taken into account all the ex private sewers that became public on 1 October 2011

If it is 4 years old what was it built on - a tip? Or is there a strong possibility of flooding? Depends on local knowledge but unless I knew the area well I would tend to go for the Environmental Search in a case like that.