Groundwater flood risk for leasehold flat

UnsureTenant

I'm a first time buyer so have a lot to learn about the process, but I'm in the process of buying a leasehold flat as a first home. It is a 2nd floor apartment in a building with underground parking. The solicitor has warned that a flood search has returned high risk of groundwater flooding, but I'm struggling to understand the impact of this. From what I can tell, as a leaseholder I wouldn't need to obtain building insurance and I'm not concerned as the flat is on the 2nd floor. 

The only issue would be the underground parking but I can't work out how serious this could be. The report the solicitor provided is a bit cryptic to me and contains a map where the entire apartment building is actually shown as a "low" risk area, but there is very small "high" risk area within a 125m radius of the building. It increasingly looks like a non-issue to me, but would appreciate any pointers or research I can do to learn more about this. 

Many thanks

MikeJXE

Is the high risk area near water ? A river ? that could be high risk 

Maybe that would flood the basement that is low risk 

user1977

You wouldn't be arranging the insurance, but you'd be paying for it. And paying for any damage caused by flooding to the communal parts of the building (to the extent it isn't covered by the insurers). But if the building itself is actually in a low risk area then it does seem a non-issue.

UnsureTenant

MikeJXE said:

Is the high risk area near water ? A river ? that could be high risk 

Maybe that would flood the basement that is low risk 

The search says low risk of all other types of flooding including river. Only groundwater flooding which seems to be high risk within 125m.

user1977 said:

You wouldn't be arranging the insurance, but you'd be paying for it. And paying for any damage caused by flooding to the communal parts of the building (to the extent it isn't covered by the insurers). But if the building itself is actually in a low risk area then it does seem a non-issue.

Thanks for the advice.

Variogram

A low risk is defined by the Environment Agency of having between 0.1 and 1% chance of happening each year (high risk is over 3.3%).

One of the problems with groundwater flooding is that if it happens there is little you can do to prevent it. It can also last for a long time. The two key risks I see are:

1) depending on how the building was designed, over time groundwater flooding can cause damage to the structure.  
2) that there is a potential that you will not be able to park your car in the basement for several weeks or months if flooding occurred.

Unlike river flooding it is very hard to know the risk of groundwater flooding. The models which are often used are calibrated on a national scale and the accuracy is not always great. 

I would talk to other residents and ask them if they have experienced flooding in the past. You could also look at insurance quotes and see if they are different to a similar property which is not at risk of flooding.