Flood risk change

ss2020jd

Just wondering if anyone has had any issues with the find your flood risk search ranking on the gov.uk site? I am in the process of selling and was surprised to see that 20m from my postcode is now at high risk of surface water flooding. I checked my original purchase environmental report conducted over 10 years ago and the risk was ‘none’. It does say it doesn’t relate to a particular house but within 20m. I do realise things change over time and that due to climate change and weather patterns most people are at risk of things getting worse. The more things are paved over etc and the more drains get overwhelmed with freak rainfall etc all contribute. Nothing has changed in terms of the paving aspect on the road in this case. I’m sure the buyer will have their own flood search conducted but I’m worried that it might cause them to pull out. Out of all the worries I did not expect this one, mistakenly believing that I was in a very low flood risk area. 

AnotherJoe

Yeh, mine is the same it's BS I've been here in absolutely torrential rain and the water just runs past my house and on down the street.  i bought it knowing this rating . There's a street near my last house  which never flooded in the 30 years I lived there and nearly every house is marked as high risk.  

It may cause some people to back out but certainly the houses in the street behind me didn't seem to have any issues being sold. 

skm1981

The house I'm living in now, it says we're high risk of surface flooding, and the house I lived in previously, it says medium risk.  We haven't been in this house long, but we have had some serious downpours, like the other day when it rained non-stop all day.  No surface flooding, yet in my last house, if we'd have had rain like that, there would have been surface flooding.  

ss2020jd

AnotherJoe said:

Yeh, mine is the same it's BS I've been here in absolutely torrential rain and the water just runs past my house and on down the street.  i bought it knowing this rating . There's a street near my last house  which never flooded in the 30 years I lived there and nearly every house is marked as high risk.  

It may cause some people to back out but certainly the houses in the street behind me didn't seem to have any issues being sold. 

Thanks for the reply. My husband thinks the same as you but I’ve been worrying. That’s good to know. Half the road is medium risk and half is high and one sold last year so hopefully it won’t put them off. 

ss2020jd

skm1981 said:

The house I'm living in now, it says we're high risk of surface flooding, and the house I lived in previously, it says medium risk.  We haven't been in this house long, but we have had some serious downpours, like the other day when it rained non-stop all day.  No surface flooding, yet in my last house, if we'd have had rain like that, there would have been surface flooding.  

It is weird how it varies and doesn’t seem based on actual events just predicted risk. A house we were looking at buying a moving to a few years ago had very low risk yet in the winter we happened to drive by and it looked like the whole road had flooded with sandbags and residual water etc. 

UnderOffer

We discovered similar. Lived for 12 years in a low risk area, moved 4 houses away around the corner High risk surface flooding! Could not believe it as had never seen any issues, thankfully not had any problems but did find last year that houses up the road which fronted a field did put sandbags out as the field flooded for a day. Water very quickly receded within 24 hrs. 

One slight issue we had was on day of Exchange our current insurer would not insure the new property, had to then get a new policy, relatively easy but very annoying. 12 months later we then receive a quote from the very same company who would not insure us, I phoned and complained and asked what had changed in the past year as our new home had not miraculously moved from its plot, they mumbled something about environmental mapping changes all the time and their database showed we were low risk based on postcode 🙄. 

ss2020jd

UnderOffer said:

We discovered similar. Lived for 12 years in a low risk area, moved 4 houses away around the corner High risk surface flooding! Could not believe it as had never seen any issues, thankfully not had any problems but did find last year that houses up the road which fronted a field did put sandbags out as the field flooded for a day. Water very quickly receded within 24 hrs. 

One slight issue we had was on day of Exchange our current insurer would not insure the new property, had to then get a new policy, relatively easy but very annoying. 12 months later we then receive a quote from the very same company who would not insure us, I phoned and complained and asked what had changed in the past year as our new home had not miraculously moved from its plot, they mumbled something about environmental mapping changes all the time and their database showed we were low risk based on postcode 🙄. 

Oh that must have been just what you needed on exchange day! Glad it all worked out. From what I can see it’s a BETA service based on long-term risk and it says my area maps are created by the local authority. It says ‘This service uses computer models to assess an area’s long term risk’. 

Hopefully the fuller flood search doesn’t just use predicted computer modelling. I’m not sure I would trust these results when buying a new place as it seems so variable and could be lulled into a false sense of security, or be scared off from buying somewhere where nothing may ever happen. 

user1977

ss2020jd said:

UnderOffer said:

We discovered similar. Lived for 12 years in a low risk area, moved 4 houses away around the corner High risk surface flooding! Could not believe it as had never seen any issues, thankfully not had any problems but did find last year that houses up the road which fronted a field did put sandbags out as the field flooded for a day. Water very quickly receded within 24 hrs. 

One slight issue we had was on day of Exchange our current insurer would not insure the new property, had to then get a new policy, relatively easy but very annoying. 12 months later we then receive a quote from the very same company who would not insure us, I phoned and complained and asked what had changed in the past year as our new home had not miraculously moved from its plot, they mumbled something about environmental mapping changes all the time and their database showed we were low risk based on postcode 🙄. 

Hopefully the fuller flood search doesn’t just use predicted computer modelling. 

I'm not sure what else you think it would use? These things are pretty low resolution. If you want a detailed report with somebody actually inspecting an individual property, you're going to have to pay accordingly. Look at for example the flood reports submitted with planning applications for new developments.

ss2020jd

@user1977
Something like this:

https://www.searchesuk.co.uk/residential/flood/homecheck-flood/

Originally known as Homecheck Flood this report has been improved and relaunched as Landmark Flood. High Risk reports receive an assessment of a qualified Flood Risk Consultant rather than relying on data alone to inform whether a report has a Further Action outcome, reducing the number of false positives that are flagged and meaning more Passed reports.