buying on 'contaminated land'

londonhouse

We just got our environment report back on a flat in London to say that it is near potentially contaminated land. The details of the report show that it isn't readioactive waste or anything but just that the property was built on an old landfill site and that it is very close to the railway line so that affects the report. Other properties seem to have sold for asking price so we are not sure if this is something to worry about? Should we negotiate for the price to be lowered or worry about having to take out some sort of insurance? How common is this?

stator

It's quite common these days. Personally I wouldn't worry about it but your mortgage provider may require you to take out an indemnity policy. You can ask the seller to pay for this but they might say no.

davidmcn

How old is the house? If it was built relatively recently then the landfill will have been known about, and the planners will no doubt have required remediation be done to it. The more problematic properties tend to be older ones built when developers/planners were a bit more laid-back about such things.

Railway line doesn't really matter from a contamination point of view (unless you're actually on an old goods yard etc).

elsien

My house is on potentially contaminated land due to being near an old battery factory. The factory site has now been cleaned up and built over, and the council has been taking soil samples from gardens in the street to try to work out how whether contamination is still an issue.
I knew about it when I bought the house, and was advised the only precaution I needed to take was not to grow veg directly into the soil but to use containers for growing just in case. (I spoke to the planning dept directly before buying the house about the plans for the contaminated land, so I knew what was likely to happen in the future. They said the general principal was that the polluter pays, however as the battery factory was long shut, it was the developer who had to deal with the problems.)
It's not made any difference to my lifestyle or house prices as far as I am aware, and with any luck the latest lot of samples will show there's nothing to worry about anyway. If in doubt, see if the council can give you any more info.