House on contaminated land. Do I need indemnity insurance or is old NHBC good enough?

davidmcn

Avalanche123 said:

withaspritz said:

Avalanche123 what does planning say in terms of the remedial works done on the houses? There should be some info in there, although 15 years ago some data may be incomplete.  Do you know when the tip closed prior to the house being built 15 years ago? 

I have contacted the Environmental Agency and received this answer:

The licence shows that the landfill was only permitted to take inert waste, specifically uncontaminated earth and excavation waste, bricks, stones, concrete, breeze blocks, building sand, gravel tiles, ceramics, slate and inert foundry sand.

According to our records, ownership of the site was transferred to the Council in the early 2000s and the site was restored through the import of inert soils and other material compliant with the licence during 2003-2004.

As the planning permission is from 2001( took some time to build), I think that was the soil for the new built.

It basically boils down to this question: With the Enviro searches passed (after the sellers provided the NHBC), what is the likelihood of any future issues? 

Negligible - I don't think "passing" means anything here other than your lender (and presumably your solicitor) aren't bothered. If it was all inert waste then there's no contamination risk. Probably more a risk is the ground being unstable (if the house was literally built on top of the tip), but the developers ought to have accounted for that when designing the foundations.

withaspritz

Avalanche123 said:

withaspritz said:

Avalanche123 what does planning say in terms of the remedial works done on the houses? There should be some info in there, although 15 years ago some data may be incomplete.  Do you know when the tip closed prior to the house being built 15 years ago? 

I have contacted the Environmental Agency and received this answer:

The licence shows that the landfill was only permitted to take inert waste, specifically uncontaminated earth and excavation waste, bricks, stones, concrete, breeze blocks, building sand, gravel tiles, ceramics, slate and inert foundry sand.

According to our records, ownership of the site was transferred to the Council in the early 2000s and the site was restored through the import of inert soils and other material compliant with the licence during 2003-2004.

As the planning permission is from 2001( took some time to build), I think that was the soil for the new built.

It basically boils down to this question: With the Enviro searches passed (after the sellers provided the NHBC), what is the likelihood of any future issues?

Is there any mention of mandated landfill measures in the planning conditions? Usually a gas membrane is to be installed in the foundations but this might be only for typical (refuse) landfill not inert materials. If that is documented on the planning portal I would save the records (sometimes photos in there too) for safekeeping.  The reason I ask about age is that will determine what was considered inert at the time... for example, in the 1960s asbestos would be considered inert material.  

Avalanche123

withaspritz said:

Avalanche123 said:

withaspritz said:

Avalanche123 what does planning say in terms of the remedial works done on the houses? There should be some info in there, although 15 years ago some data may be incomplete.  Do you know when the tip closed prior to the house being built 15 years ago? 

I have contacted the Environmental Agency and received this answer:

The licence shows that the landfill was only permitted to take inert waste, specifically uncontaminated earth and excavation waste, bricks, stones, concrete, breeze blocks, building sand, gravel tiles, ceramics, slate and inert foundry sand.

According to our records, ownership of the site was transferred to the Council in the early 2000s and the site was restored through the import of inert soils and other material compliant with the licence during 2003-2004.

As the planning permission is from 2001( took some time to build), I think that was the soil for the new built.

It basically boils down to this question: With the Enviro searches passed (after the sellers provided the NHBC), what is the likelihood of any future issues?

Is there any mention of mandated landfill measures in the planning conditions? Usually a gas membrane is to be installed in the foundations but this might be only for typical (refuse) landfill not inert materials. If that is documented on the planning portal I would save the records (sometimes photos in there too) for safekeeping.  The reason I ask about age is that will determine what was considered inert at the time... for example, in the 1960s asbestos would be considered inert material.  

It was a quarry and they made bricks at the site for around 150 years. There was a small tip from around 1970s. This was when the bricks were still made and I assume that it was theirs refuse tips (hence broken bricks etc). The quarry was then filled in and the licence was issued in 1996. The house itself is very near the small refuse tip and not directly on the landfill site.

In the planning permission, they were requested to include gas-impermeable membrane.

I dont think asbestos is a problem when it's buried underground?

Avalanche123

davidmcn said:

Avalanche123 said:

withaspritz said:

Avalanche123 what does planning say in terms of the remedial works done on the houses? There should be some info in there, although 15 years ago some data may be incomplete.  Do you know when the tip closed prior to the house being built 15 years ago? 

I have contacted the Environmental Agency and received this answer:

The licence shows that the landfill was only permitted to take inert waste, specifically uncontaminated earth and excavation waste, bricks, stones, concrete, breeze blocks, building sand, gravel tiles, ceramics, slate and inert foundry sand.

According to our records, ownership of the site was transferred to the Council in the early 2000s and the site was restored through the import of inert soils and other material compliant with the licence during 2003-2004.

As the planning permission is from 2001( took some time to build), I think that was the soil for the new built.

It basically boils down to this question: With the Enviro searches passed (after the sellers provided the NHBC), what is the likelihood of any future issues? 

Negligible - I don't think "passing" means anything here other than your lender (and presumably your solicitor) aren't bothered. If it was all inert waste then there's no contamination risk. Probably more a risk is the ground being unstable (if the house was literally built on top of the tip), but the developers ought to have accounted for that when designing the foundations.

Does this mean that if council will want to charge me for any decontamination works do I have a claim against my solicitors?

I think after all this time the house is settled and I would hope cracks would be visible?

It has pile foundations, so it sounds like they have accounted for the weak soil at the top.

davidmcn

Avalanche123 said:

davidmcn said:

Avalanche123 said:

withaspritz said:

Avalanche123 what does planning say in terms of the remedial works done on the houses? There should be some info in there, although 15 years ago some data may be incomplete.  Do you know when the tip closed prior to the house being built 15 years ago? 

I have contacted the Environmental Agency and received this answer:

The licence shows that the landfill was only permitted to take inert waste, specifically uncontaminated earth and excavation waste, bricks, stones, concrete, breeze blocks, building sand, gravel tiles, ceramics, slate and inert foundry sand.

According to our records, ownership of the site was transferred to the Council in the early 2000s and the site was restored through the import of inert soils and other material compliant with the licence during 2003-2004.

As the planning permission is from 2001( took some time to build), I think that was the soil for the new built.

It basically boils down to this question: With the Enviro searches passed (after the sellers provided the NHBC), what is the likelihood of any future issues? 

Negligible - I don't think "passing" means anything here other than your lender (and presumably your solicitor) aren't bothered. If it was all inert waste then there's no contamination risk. Probably more a risk is the ground being unstable (if the house was literally built on top of the tip), but the developers ought to have accounted for that when designing the foundations.

Does this mean that if council will want to charge me for any decontamination works do I have a claim against my solicitors?

No. No solicitor can remove all the risks associated with owning property, or indemnify you against those which remain. They can advise you on what risks exist and recommend reasonable actions to take in order to mitigate them. You can take out insurance for all sorts of things under the sun, but at some point it really stops being worthwhile because the risks are so negligible. If it helps you to sleep better at night, by all means get the insurance (it's hardly expensive), but the vast majority of people probably wouldn't bother.

This is the trouble with desktop environmental searches - they give you a bunch of vague stuff to start getting worried about, but very little specific data. If you want to know what's really in the soil under your house, you need to get somebody to drill down and send stuff to the lab. And then hope that they've drilled in the right places.