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Should we reduce our offer due to flood risk?
Comments
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In our case, eliminating entire towns from the list was really not an option. The property is located in Warwickshire/West Midlands, so it will take a while for the ocean/sea to reach it in case of some "end of times" event.
I was thinking much the same when I read Simby's post. I'm all for a bit of forward planning but there are limits and short of building an ark...0 -
The sellers are not part of a chain or anything like that. They are not in the position to be forced to sell. They are not paying for the property anymore. They are mortgage free. They could have just walk away straight away.
We didn't get exactly what we wanted in terms of numbers, but at least we got something. The front garden has the biggest risk. After clearing it (cause at the moment there are a lot of bushes and shrubs on the edges), we can hire some company to do a proper evaluation and come up with a plan.
Why are they selling?0 -
In my case discounting towns was possible I work near the coast so discounted all the towns on the coast... maps show they may not exist much longer... and bought 40 Miles inland .. but I did check the height above sea level there too.. but I agree an ark would be too far...
With the hill piece I agree being on a hill can give a higher risk ( run down from higher up).. happily I am at the highest point on the hill.0 -
Crashy_Time wrote: »Why are they selling?
They live in France. The property was used occasionally. Most probably they wanted to release the equity. A lot of equity :wall:0 -
PasturesNew wrote: »Agents will have known of past sales being hindered by buyers discovering it's a high flood risk, so they'll have priced it accordingly in the first place.
On the other hand, if you don't ask, you don't get.
Have you googled for images of flooding in that road? If it's flooded in the last 5-10 years there'll have been loads of people taking snaps and posting them online because that's what people do.
Not very sure about the pricing accordingly part, but doing a bit of research, it appears the town was indeed affected to some extent by the 2007 floods. We're talking about areas at 1.5 km (less than 1 mile) away from the property (in straight line).
There is a river at roughly 150 m away from this property. The properties affected in 2007 were at roughly 125-150 m away from the same river. So only local topography and some luck kept this property away from the floods back then.
My concern was 100% legitimate and the people that are calculating these risks are not idiots.0 -
In my case discounting towns was possible I work near the coast so discounted all the towns on the coast... maps show they may not exist much longer... and bought 40 Miles inland .. but I did check the height above sea level there too.. but I agree an ark would be too far...
With the hill piece I agree being on a hill can give a higher risk ( run down from higher up).. happily I am at the highest point on the hill.
Ah- makes sense Simby. I had visions of you living up in the Alps somewhere like the grandfather in 'Heidi' :rotfl:0 -
Being on a hill doesn't make a surface water flood unlikely at all; it increases the risk, if there is land above the property from which water might flow. It might only be for half an hour that extreme conditions persist.
But as you've discovered there are other factors connected with individual houses which could mean that they won't flood, even when the roadway outside does. Being 1/2m above the road is a good start! Flood maps can't allow for that.
We had one surface water flood at my old house in 21years. Thanks to the way we'd sloped our drive and the patio beyond, the water didn't even reach the walls of the house; it took the lowest route though the neighbour's garage instead, eventually pooling up at the end of the garden where it was briefly about 30cm deep. Half an hour later there was little to show it had happened.
I've been trying to look at the data a bit more, as the map info was total data for both high, medium and low risk. High risk is confined very much to the middle of the road, medium a little outside and low risk towards the edge but not touching the edge in any part. There is a bit of a field to the rear, but even that isn't at risk of anything like a major flood. And with no historical info found to suggest the street has ever had anything major flood wise I'm somewhat satisfied that its highly unlikely to happen in our case, more so in that as said, the floor as we walk in is about 2 ft about the road surface, as there is the path outside the gate, a slightly upwards sloping path to the door and then 2 chunky steps up to enter.
But like you said, even the most extreme risk as per map might be for such a short period as an hour or so, something the flood maps also might not account for in its info.0 -
....the people that are calculating these risks are not idiots.
My parents had lived in their house for about 10 years.
A couple of years ago they were suddenly unable to get insurance due to "the risk of surface water flooding".
They lived on the top of a hill and a neighbour who had lived there since the 1930's had never known the area to flood.
It took about 6 months to sort and was eventually tracked down to somebody who was updating the maps clicking in the wrong place.
I've since heard of numerous reports of the same thing happening elsewhere so sorry, but I don't agree with your statement.0 -
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ciderboy2009 wrote: »My parents had lived in their house for about 10 years.
A couple of years ago they were suddenly unable to get insurance due to "the risk of surface water flooding".
They lived on the top of a hill and a neighbour who had lived there since the 1930's had never known the area to flood.
It took about 6 months to sort and was eventually tracked down to somebody who was updating the maps clicking in the wrong place.
I've since heard of numerous reports of the same thing happening elsewhere so sorry, but I don't agree with your statement.
Fair enough. Mistakes do happen. We are not machines. This doesn't make these people idiots. The basic idea remains and it's a valid one. This sort of models and simulations are necessary.0
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