Offered lovely house with a problem, to buy or not to buy, that is the question.

moneyistooshorttomention

kittie wrote: »

op, I could not imagine the stress you would be under, each and every time you get torrential and/or constant rain. It isn`t just about replacing simple floorcoverings, it is about damp everywhere downstairs

Distant relatives are taking you for a mug

That too....ie the constant stress of worrying.

I've got a friend living very near a river - and for some years now she's taken to sending her husband down to have a good look at the river every time there is heavy rain. Fortunately - it's England and not rainy West Wales - but he's still being sent down there at pretty frequent intervals to see how the river is.

You can bet your life they keep a darn good eye out on all flood prevention schemes in the area.

ProDave

You need to define "flooded"

Are you talking of 1" of water on the floor, or half way up the ground floor walls. What repairs were needed.

A house near where I used to live was next to a river and regularly flooded, but only slightly. So it had been adapted. Quarry tile flooring on concrete, quarry tile skirting, all sockets a little higher than normal.

When a flood was due, he lifted all the furniture up onto blocks and removed the kick boards from the kitchen. At most it had 2" of water for a few days and he paddled around in wellies living mostly upstairs.

When the flood wend down, he mopped the floor clean, put the furniture back and replaced the kirchen kick boards and carried on.

Slinky

ProDave wrote: »

You need to define "flooded"

Are you talking of 1" of water on the floor, or half way up the ground floor walls. What repairs were needed.

A house near where I used to live was next to a river and regularly flooded, but only slightly. So it had been adapted. Quarry tile flooring on concrete, quarry tile skirting, all sockets a little higher than normal.

When a flood was due, he lifted all the furniture up onto blocks and removed the kick boards from the kitchen. At most it had 2" of water for a few days and he paddled around in wellies living mostly upstairs.

When the flood wend down, he mopped the floor clean, put the furniture back and replaced the kirchen kick boards and carried on.

Did he never go on holiday or did he have a backup plan for if this happened while he was away?

ProDave

Slinky wrote: »

Did he never go on holiday or did he have a backup plan for if this happened while he was away?

He was retired so home all day.

In his case if I went for a holiday I would set it all up for a flood just in case.

A better idea would be raise the floor level 6 inches so it didn't flood but the low ceiling height prevents that.

Still not ideal and would surely impact it's value.

fairy_lights

ProDave wrote: »

You need to define "flooded"

Are you talking of 1" of water on the floor, or half way up the ground floor walls. What repairs were needed.

A house near where I used to live was next to a river and regularly flooded, but only slightly. So it had been adapted. Quarry tile flooring on concrete, quarry tile skirting, all sockets a little higher than normal.

When a flood was due, he lifted all the furniture up onto blocks and removed the kick boards from the kitchen. At most it had 2" of water for a few days and he paddled around in wellies living mostly upstairs.

When the flood wend down, he mopped the floor clean, put the furniture back and replaced the kirchen kick boards and carried on.

That sounds exhausting, and what happens if he goes away during bad weather or is no longer able to lift heavy furniture on his own?
I lived in a flat which flooded, only by about an inch but that was still enough to do some serious damage. Even if you can hoist the flooring and all your furniture out of the way, the dirt and smell of flood water and the lingering damp afterwards aren't fun to live with.

TBagpuss

I agre that knowing how bad the flooding was and what measures have been taken (or could be taken ) to prevent it recurring would be absolutely key for me.

In my previous home I had flooding. As flooding goes, it was relatively mild - not high enough to go over the skirting boards, only affected one room, and didn't damage any of the soft furnishings. But I had to have the flooring ripped out and replaced, dehumidifiers etc for weeks, problems getting insurance (and a hefty flood excess).

All then happened two more times.

Eventually fixed once we were able to prove that he council had blocked up a culvert and created the issue, and once that was sorted it didn't happen again, but the last time was over 10 years ago (and in a house I no longer live in) and I still get stressed when we have heavy rain...

So I wouldn't do it unless I was very, very sure that the issue causing the flooding had been resolved.

also, i wouldn't buy a house where getting insurance was likely to be a problem as it could make it unsaleable, and even if you are buying with a view to getting your forever home, circumstances change.

dirty_magic

I keep looking at a beautiful house on the river that's been on the market since last summer. It's already cheap and they've dropped the price 3 times but it still hasn't sold.

I checked the other day on the flood risk website and there's currently a flood warning for it with all the rain we've had. This is obviously why such a lovely house has been on the market so long at such a low price.

If I could pick it up and drop it somewhere else I'd love to buy it, but the problem is if it were anywhere else it would probably be a 400k house.

I'm with everyone else, I think it's a big risk to take.

teddysmum

Even if the house only floor level flooded twice, there may be other times when the foundations were flooded, thus weakening them.
Also,as the brother-in-law has only observed two floodings , as above mentioned, something construction work may have been done before the first, making flooding more likely in the future.

Noctu

Three things come to mind for me:

a) Do you need the space anyway, and is it somewhere you would genuinely want to live?

b) I would want to find out specifics about the flooding - as others have said - is it a several feet of water job, or a couple of inches? What measures did they take to prevent it, and could you take more e.g. sandbags?

c) How much is it worth on the open market and how much discount would you get?

Mgman1965

Noctu wrote: »

Three things come to mind for me:

a) Do you need the space anyway, and is it somewhere you would genuinely want to live?

b) I would want to find out specifics about the flooding - as others have said - is it a several feet of water job, or a couple of inches? What measures did they take to prevent it, and could you take more e.g. sandbags?

c) How much is it worth on the open market and how much discount would you get?

A/Don't really need a 4 bed cottage so no, it wouldn't be my first choice of location but is a lovely village 5 miles from nearest town but nice place to live.

B/ flooding was couple of inches, think sandbags were used to reduce damage.

C/ Has been on the market for £375k for 6 months without a real sniff of genuine interest (it's got a big garden to the side with the brook running by and with good frontage and told a few developers wanted it, hoping I suppose to demolish it and put a mini estate on its land and make a killing as no uplift clause, pull out as soon as they realise it won't happen as was refused a few years ago due to flooding ).
BIL says I could likely have it for around the 250k mark.