House near a flood risk area - necessary for solicitor to contact mortgage provider?

ScreamerUK

Hi there,

We're in the middle of buying a house that backs onto a railway line and then a canal. The railway is broadly at the same height as the canal, but the house is at the top of a steep embankment - it's significantly higher than both the canal and railway.

Because the house has a driveway that slopes slightly towards the property, after discussing this with our solicitor, we paid for a flood report that we assumed would investigate the chances of the house (particularly the garage) being compromised in heavy rain.

Needless to say, the report doesn't appear to go into anywhere near enough detail to describe the risk presented by the driveway. It does, however, claim there to be a substantial "Surface Water (Pluvial) Flood Risk", which I believe mostly refers to rainwater. Upon inspection of the details, it's actually referring to a point 25m east of the property - the railway line. All the diagrams contained in the report show that the property is at no risk at all - the flood areas are neatly contained along the path of the railway line (because the property and its neighbours are at the top of the embankment).

Unfortunately, after advising us to pay for a report that doesn't contain the detail we were interested in, our solicitor then announced that she needs to inform our mortgage provider of the findings of the report, despite us already having a formal offer. Having thought about it for a while, I'm beginning to wonder whether this is an attempt to charge us for additional letters to-and-from the mortgage provider that are unnecessary.

Can anyone shed any light on whether a solicitor is indeed required to inform a mortgage provider if a house is found to be near (but crucially NOT in) a flood risk area? I'm trying to prepare myself as best I can before we are billed! I'm doubly suspicious as this comes the day after we informed the solicitor that we were no longer rushing to complete this week and have now set a date in January.

Thanks!

kingstreet

Your solicitor is acting for the lender as well as for you and is required to bring to the lender's attention anything which may affect the security.

The lender will refer the report to its surveyor for his view on the implications and from what you've said, it will make no difference whatsoever.

You may want to run it past your insurers though, to be on the safe side.

On the cost issue, check your initial quotation to see if there is a fixed fee for "acting for lender" or if it's part of the headline fee. If that's the case, there should be no additional cost. If you've employed a solicitor on a "per-item" basis, you may be charged extra.

ScreamerUK

Thanks so much kingstreet! That really puts my mind at rest, on several levels!