Environmental search

lookstraightahead

we have had our environmental searches back. Contaminated land is passed, but there are other issues.
Obviously they go on postcode. There are (low) issues with Radon, moderate ground stability risk, surface water and groundwater flooding within 250m. It's quite hilly where we are buying so I suspect this is part of the reason. 
Solicitor has advised to get some quotes on the postcode for building insurance - should I ask my broker? 
I would be really interested to know whether our report is relatively normal, or potentially a disaster. We have a local structural surveyor carrying out a survey next week, who could probably help with the subsidence issue.
Im thinking of throwing in the towel 🥺

davidmcn

What's the reason for the structural survey? Moderate ground stability risk is, as it says, moderate - not "high".
You can sort out buildings insurance quotes yourself - see the advice elsewhere on this site.

lookstraightahead

davidmcn said:

What's the reason for the structural survey? Moderate ground stability risk is, as it says, moderate - not "high".
You can sort out buildings insurance quotes yourself - see the advice elsewhere on this site.

The house is c1850s so we have booked a full structural survey. 

rainbow_fountains

Radon always comes up, especially in the south. You can pretty much ignore it unless it’s in a very high area (like Cornwall), groundwater flooding often comes up too, you just have to check what drainage system is in place (does it go into sewer etc), and you can check your postcode on those flood report websites to see how often it’s flooded in the past 25 years.

I’d be more concerned about the subsidence tbh, but the other stuff is fairly standard and comes back in most surveys. 

Sure ask your broker about buildings insurance, but shop around yourself, we just used comparethemarket for ours, ended up just adding it to the contents insurance we already had, took about 10 mins over the phone to organise and then we sent the confirmation paperwork to our solicitor in the post. 

For context - our survey came back with flood risk (but after further research turned out it was only the bottom of the garden at risk and it had never flooded in the last 25 years). We also got low radon, but after looking at a map of the area most of south England came back as low radon. Plus we also got contaminated land risk as well, because the plot these houses were built in used to be a garage/shop years ago, the land isn’t actually contaminated it just flags as a potential risk, and my particular property is at the top of a steep hill that was nowhere near the original garage site so not effected (it’s our parking space that’s on the land, that’s why it flags up), all it needed was some very cheap indemnity insurance which our seller paid for us. 

In short I wouldn’t panic and throw in the towel just yet, just check that subsidence risk as that is important - structural survey will reveal more. Also check if the building is Grade II listed or not.

Davesnave

Your buildings survey ought to identify any issues with subsidence, which would then need further investigation by a structural engineer, but the house has been there a long time and any serious issues would surely have manifested themselves long ago.

The sort of environmental report you've had probably applies to millions of homes and you need to use your local knowledge to interpret it. For example, there is ground water flooding within 250m of my home, but it would be fluvial Armageddon if it actually affected the house!

Irishpearce26

We had a similar environment search as yours (Worcestershire) and its fine. Our Radon was fine but the report showed risk of surface water flooding as there is a emergency drainage system close to the house that is there to prevent surface flooding. The house was built in 1998 and the owner has said that the emergency drainage system has never been needed. We also had a moderate risk of subsidence but I think that's down to the county being mainly clay based again im not worried as this would have been considered when building the house.

lookstraightahead

Thank you everyone this has clarified things for me. I've carefully gone through everything and one that sticks out is the moderate subsidence - we have a structural survey next week - in fact in the paperwork there is a structural engineer report stating that some underpinning work had been done years ago (when the house was updated) but no further movement. We will have to see what our structural surveyor says.