Property at risk of flooding - would you buy?

tea_deer

Hi all, we've had an offer on a bungalow (1950's-1960's build, we think) accepted, have gone to the bank to sort out a mortgage and in the process of sorting out the insurance have found it it's in a high-risk area for surface water, and a medium-risk area for flooding. From checking the floodassist website & historic flood maps, it seems like the property was flooded at some point after 1946, but not after 1990, and is about a meter (from ground level) above the property down the road that did flood in 1995.

Is there any way of finding out when the propery did flood? I've done a quick check of old newspaper archives just to see if it brought anything up, and I can't find anything there. Would buying a property like this put you off? ...Should I just pack it it now and try and get my money back from the bank before they do the home buyers survey?

Thank you for any help and advice

manc_doc

Probably not what you want to hear but it would be an instant walk-away if it were me. Flooding is only going to get worse with the climate changing, so historical floods aren't necessarily a good guide of future risk. Is this a long-term purchase or would you be looking to sell again? It would probably make it harder to sell on if you needed to.

FinallyStoppedLurking

Yeah I'd walk away. Not worth the devastation it can cause. 

Davesnave

Surface water flooding can sometimes be mitigated, but if it's coupled with a risk from flooding by rivers (your post isn't clear what the other flooding is exactly) then I would be very wary indeed.

Historic records for the area will tell you when the flood water was highest in recent times if you still feel like doing some detective work. A quick way is to use the river monitor for the location on this site which was highest level recorded, and when:

https://riverlevels.uk/levels#.X4VotnV7lF0

pinkteapot

manc_doc said:

Probably not what you want to hear but it would be an instant walk-away if it were me. Flooding is only going to get worse with the climate changing, so historical floods aren't necessarily a good guide of future risk. Is this a long-term purchase or would you be looking to sell again? It would probably make it harder to sell on if you needed to.

Exactly the same view here. For me, flood risk is a risk I'm just not prepared to take. My parents house flooded with a few inches of water when I was younger - it was a £40k insurance claim and a year of their lives getting it sorted, dried out, redecorated, etc. 

I'd be even less inclined to consider it in a bungalow - my parents could at least live upstairs while the downstairs was out of action! Still, best part of a year eating from a microwave plugged in in a spare room isn't great. 

It's a personal thing though - after researching the area you may be willing to live with the risk. A lot of people are as it tends to knock some value off a house, so you get a 'better' house for a bit less money because you're taking on some risk. I'm in Cumbria and there's one area near us that's awful for flooding, so you get lovely houses for peanuts! 

What this thread will show is that there's a percentage of people who just wouldn't consider a house with flood risk, so it reduces your potential market in future and may mean it takes longer to sell, or you have sales fall through. Just something else to consider even if you decide you're comfortable with the risk. 

foxy-stoat

Walk away, insurance will be an issue, lender may not be willing to lend and of course when you sell will be an issue....assuming that the climate change doesn't fix itself it may well flood and you will be in for a world of pain.

cattie

Another vote to walk away from me. No way would I risk buying such a property when there are plenty of other properties out there that don't carry a flood risk.

TBagpuss

I wouldn't buy it.
Insurers are more and more aware of, and strict about flood risk and you could end up unable to get insurance, or paying very high premiums. Being flooded is absolutely horrible and very disruptive even if it is relatively minor, and in a bungalow you an't even move stuff upstairs.

The only situation where I would consider it would be if you have very strong evidence that something significant had changed since it was flooded to remove the risk and if you had checked the insurance position very thoroughly - which might be OK if the flooding was man made but if its a risk from the river then I'd give it a miss.

(My previous house flooded as the local authority had allowed a new estate to be built in such a way that a drainage ditch on their property was blocked at one end. When it rained heavily, the ditch overflowed into mine and my neighbours property. It happened 3 times before we were able to prove that it was caused by the inadequate drainage on the Local Authority's land, and force them to put in a proper storm drain. I had nearly 3' of water in my conservatory, and although excellent seals on the back door meant there was less than 1" in the  house itself, it wasn't high enough to damage any of my soft furnishings  that still meant I have to have the flooring replaced, live with industrial strength dehumidifiers for a months and had to go through a specialist broker to get insurance, and could only get it with a £1,500 excess for flooding. it was horrible, and meant that I was incredibly stressed any time we had heavy rain in case it was going to happen again - I still get stressed now when we have a lot of rain, and it was nearly 10 years and a house ago!) 

tim_london

Insurance doesn't actually tell you the flood risk.  Do you mean this https://flood-map-for-planning.service.gov.uk?

Surface water can be mitigated through drain improvements, it depends how far you are to the nearest river and how wide the water system, ie. how much rainwater it can hold if the river bank is full after a storm.  It is much more difficult if it is combined with fluvial and/or groundwater risk.

Check the council's planning permission portal and search for that postcode.  If it is a flood risk area, then any planning permission that house or the neighbours did (for extensions or building a new house) could have submitted it with a recent independent flood risk report.  You may get lucky and found that they did improve the storm drains within the last 60-70 years.

MalMonroe

Yet another vote for walk away from me.

Similar story to TBagpuss - some friends bought a brand new house in a beautiful area - next to a river. 

A couple of years later, when we had massive flooding in our city, their house flooded and they had to move out for 6 months while it was dried out and renovated. 

They were able to claim on their insurance that time but the next time there was minor flooding, their claim was refused on the grounds that they chose to remain in a property that was known to be prone to flooding in heavy rainfall. Then followed an enormous battle with the developer who had knowingly (shamefully) built properties in an area prone to flooding. A major nightmare.

There are plenty of other properties just waiting to be bought! Leave that one alone.

tea_deer

Thanks everyone for your advice! We called the bank, the solicitor and the estate agent earlier today and everything's been cancelled (thankfully at no cost to us). Time to find another one now...