flooding basement

arturski

Hi everyone,

Last month my basement got flooded, not extremely but enough to cause discomfort and mould we only bought the house last January and always knew that the basement had a damp issue as some other small parts of the house but had no idea it could flood. It is not until i scooped all the water out that i realized that the small plastic manhole cover on the floor which i thought was for a gas valve or something like that was just basically a hole in the ground and all the water from the ground was just rising up straight into the basement.

In the long run we were always planning to tank it because its so damp so that it either becomes a spare room or a utility room to store things but it will take us a bit of time to get the funds together as it will probably cost us in the area of £8000.

Now I am not sure what to do because who knows how many times it will flood ruining everything we store there. Are we able to get an insurance claim with this? I have read on the financial ombudsman website that as a general rule the insurance company should not only replace damaged things but also prevent it from happening again.

Out of curiosity I also had a look at the mortgage valuation survey that the bank did and it had mention of damp in the house and that there is no fire insulation in the cellar but no mention of risk of flooding.

Could somebody please help us decide how we should approach this? Is it a lost cause?

I_have_spoken

basically a hole in the ground and all the water from the ground was just rising up straight into the basement.

I'd fit a sump-pump.