Selling house - some garden flooding a few years ago - dilemma

busy_dad

Hello, I have a bit of a dilemma I am chewing myself up about and would like some views on how to proceed.

I am in the process of selling my property and have been completing solicitor paperwork. One of the questions asks if the property has ever been flooded (whether buildings, surrounding garden or land).

Well strictly speaking the answer is yes as the bottom of my back garden did get very waterlogged and there was standing water there a few feet in from the fence. It happened around 5 years ago (I remember as my wife was pregnant at the time). It's never happened since (and not to my knowledge before). It drained away after a few hours and the house/shed were not affected.
I had therefore planned to answer yes and state the above. I am of course worried it will put the buyer off, but don't want to lie and be worried about any recourse in the future. My wife at the time panicked (pregnancy hormones she tells me!) and rang the council for sandbags - these were never close to being needed, but assume the council would have a record now anyway.

If I remember next door to the left got no flooding and next door to the right got a little (less than we did). Basically our grass slopes down at the back near the fence and it was this bit that flooded.

The main dilemma is around home insurance. I took it out a number of years ago and have always renewed with them. I don't ever remember this being a question when I took out the insurance it may well have asked if the property had flooded, if so, I would have answered no as would have taken 'property' to mean the house, rather than part of the garden. Going on my insurer's website now one of the questions asks if there has been flooding to the property or land around it in the last 5 years. If I was a new customer I would now answer 'no' as the above incident happened at least 5 years ago.

The question is, should I get in touch with my insurer to check if there is/was an increased premium as also asks this on the property information form. I've never made a claim. Obviously if I flag this to them there is no going back.

I'm not sure what to do as don't want to open a big can of worms, but at the same time I don't wan't to lie to the seller. I've asked family and there is quite a split on what I should do. I've been up all night worrying about it so not sure how clearly I am thinking now!

Thanks in advance,

JP1978

Personally, I would have thought that the concern would be flooding from nearby watercourses - your instance sounds like adverse rain that couldn't soak away quick enough? I think that a huge amount of properties could suffer that.

I cant really answer for you to be honest - in our old house we had a torrent of rain water running alongside our fence about two inches deep at one point and it took a few hours to drain away once the rain had subsided. I wouldn't think of declaring that tbh.

moneyistooshorttomention

When you say "standing water" it's difficult to picture exactly what you mean by this - ie the depth of it.

I would think there is quite a difference between a few feet of water that sticks around for some time on the one hand v. a couple of inches down the bottom of a bit of an incline that vanishes in a few hours. There must be many people that have the latter situation.

I know that every time it rains heavily (and yep...being Wales - that's quite frequent:() I have a spot in the garden a few feet long that gets an inch or two of water that waits around a few hours before it gets absorbed by the ground - but it's gone completely that few hours later and it's down to the ground leading down to it being at a bit of an incline (coupled with previous owners not having done a drainage type channel that I would have done at that point). The thought wouldnt occur to me to regard it as "flooding" - it's just a small temporary puddle down to poor garden design.

So how would you describe yours more exactly?

Doozergirl

That doesn't sound much like flooding to me. It sounds like a puddle.

Asking for sandbags doesn't mean that anything actually flooded.

busy_dad

Thanks for the replies. Basically it encroached about 1m from the fence (but was the entire width of the garden) and I went out in wellies and the water just came over the top of my foot, so talking an inch or two. I also have a shed at the bottom of the garden it it did not flood (as shed obviously raised).

It drained in a few hours (I cant remember exactly but definitely gone by the next day).

Its basically down to poor drainage (lots of clay under the soil).

My worry is that if I put 'yes' and my buyer pulls out I will have to put 'yes' every time thereafter.

I've gone on the flood risk assessment tool on the gov website and shows my address is 'in or near' flood risk area (yet next door neighbour gets low risk).

Should I even ring my solicitor and describe it to them and ask if they would class this as flooding?

DaftyDuck

Puddle.

Not flood.

Nothing to declare.

Sleep well and relax.

Cakeguts

Flood means that local stream/ river is depositing water on your garden. Your garden just sounds as if it has got poor drainage so that it holds water when it rains. Poor drainage from water when it rains hard is not a flood.

busy_dad

Thanks for all of your replies - sounds like I am over thinking things. Obviously it wasn't caused by river/streams but the property form does ask if it is surface water or ground water amongst other things so this is why I thought it could be classed under this.

Is it worth double checking with my solicitor on the definition or would this be counter productive with the solicitor erring on the side of caution and advising me to declare it?

Fosterdog

I agree with the others that is not flooding just a big puddle, it was a one off over five years ago, only reached a few inches deep and was gone by the next day and I'm assuming there was no lasting damage from it. I wouldn't tell them there is a flood risk at most if they ask, and only if they ask I'd say it got waterlogged for a day once over five years ago and it has been fine since. A waterlogged area of a garden is very different to a flood prone property.

Cakeguts

If you are really worried get someone to put some drainage into the garden and then it won't ever happen again.

ladymarmalade222

We recently moved into a house which is an end town house built into a hill. At the top of the steep garden is a path which in the winter turns into a stream.

About 10 yrs ago the other 3 houses were badly flooded but ours did not flood inside and any damage that did occur the owners were careful not to make a claim.

The council have now made alterations to the path pushing it back and a slight incline so no more flooding.

We do however have a very soggy side garden and the water runs down when the stream is heavy. There is also a culvert next door and next door continue to let it block so it pours onto our garden.

The sellers had been here nearly 30 years and I feel they should have been honest with us. The neighbours are lovely and were shocked that we didnt know about the "stream" ( it was summer when we viewed) or any of the flooding problems. The houses further along had their council tax dropped due to the flooding as they agreed the VOA would be more difficult to sell. Our sellers did not get involved with the council tax situation as they were obviously worried about when they come to sell so kept quiet. We are now stuck with a higher band than the rest. The VOA turned us down.

Probably a grey area as they answered no to the flooding question but the garden definately floods constantly throughout the winter and we will have to answer honestly when we come to sell.

Good luck

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