Flood Risk for House Purchase!

david1951

MobileSaver wrote: »

So the chances are that the property may flood somewhere between once in 100 years and once in 1000 years...

The chance of a "100-year flood" occurring in 100 years is 63.4% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100-year_flood), and similar for a "1000-year flood" occurring in 1000 years.

Even a 1000-year flood still has a 9.5% chance of occurring in 100 years.

It's more likely than the "1%" suggests... (FYI)

swest4

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I'll make some local enquiries and have gone for this more detailed flood risk for my specific property: a homecheck professional flood risk report

This was £20 so should be a good guide to begin with.

booksurr

swest4 wrote: »

a homecheck professional flood risk report

This was £20 so should be a good guide to begin with.

do you really think that for £20 you will get more than someone looking at the map and repeating what you already know yourself? £20 is barely 20 minutes work for a qualified professional, hardly enough time to input more than the address to the template report their software generates from their standard flooding risk info

as said if you want to know trawl round the neighbours.

i live in the Thames floodplain in zone 3. The whole area made the national news not so long ago and residents were evacuated from as near as 4 streets away from me. My house remained dry throughout because the land where it sits is 30 cm higher than the house at the bottom of my garden (which did flood). The map does not reflect that. I am solid blue!

as Davesnave so rightly says all the stats in the world are irrelevant if you are exposed to surface water run off. It was that which did for my neighbours, not the Thames bursting its banks.

so I can truthfully say my house has not flooded but the insurance company take a different view to flooding risk round here! Do I care? Yes I have flood barriers ready to put up when I get the Enviro Agency flood warning alert.

Flooding is an unquantifiable risk in my opinion. If you are that concerned by it then buy somewhere else.

swest4

I did say that it would be a good start and so certainly wont be the end of the investigations!

Planning to pay another visit (it's a 4hr drive for us) next week. I did get the chance to speak with the local farmer (it is quite rural) who said that the house has not flooded as long as he has been there (35 years) and that he has dug ditches that protect his land and the houses in the hamlet. This was quite reassuring!

I agree that there is always a risk but I am reluctant to withdraw from what could be a great house if the flood risk is, in practical terms, extremely minimal.

Mickygg

swest4 wrote: »

I did say that it would be a good start and so certainly wont be the end of the investigations!

Planning to pay another visit (it's a 4hr drive for us) next week. I did get the chance to speak with the local farmer (it is quite rural) who said that the house has not flooded as long as he has been there (35 years) and that he has dug ditches that protect his land and the houses in the hamlet. This was quite reassuring!

I agree that there is always a risk but I am reluctant to withdraw from what could be a great house if the flood risk is, in practical terms, extremely minimal.

If the farmer has dug ditches then it must have flooded at the farm before.

I would be thinking, there is a chance it could flood. You could have a downpour and flooding in 6 months time. How would you feel? Ok to cope with the stress of refurb and living elsewhere for a period of time? Ok that as its flooded it will be much more difficult to sell and could of course happen again? Would you be constantly worrying about every drop of rain?

I think for you to proceed with the house you must be ok with the above. Just a few weeks ago I was at a show and it shut down due to flooding. Never happened before in not far off 100 years. It does happen when you least expect it.

swest4

I take your point Mickygg but the ditches were not to protect his farm buildings. They were to make sure that his crops/livestock did not get affected by standing water. I accept that there are always risks and that a biblical 1:1000 year flood can occur tomorrow. I'm just trying to establish how high/low the risks are to make a relatively informed decision.

We'll be going back in a weeks time so that I can have a look at whether or not we are slightly raised or on a downward slope etc... I hadn't thought to do this on the first two viewings (it's the first house we've bought so perhaps not as savvy as some on this forum).

BrassicWoman

enter the postcode here and see if it helps

http://maps.environment-agency.gov.uk/wiyby/wiybyController?x=357683.0&y=355134.0&scale=1&layerGroups=default&ep=map&textonly=off&lang=_e&topic=floodmap

JJG

david1951 wrote: »

The chance of a "100-year flood" occurring in 100 years is 63.4% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100-year_flood), and similar for a "1000-year flood" occurring in 1000 years.

Even a 1000-year flood still has a 9.5% chance of occurring in 100 years.

It's more likely than the "1%" suggests... (FYI)

That's actually less than a 1% chance per year. If it was accurate there should be a 100% chance of a 100 year flood happening within 100 years.

Chanes

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/environment-agency