Home Buyer Searches

JenniferZenn

FlorayG said:

Flood risk will not affect them being able to get buildings insurance, they will just have to go to a specialist insurer and accept a huge excess for flood. I have a property seen to be at 'high risk', the insurance is about £50 a year more than the usual and my flood excess is £5,000 rather than a couple of hundred. Where the house actually IS, is almost zero risk of actually flooding; the risk is based on the postcode
So don't worry about not being able to get insurance; but do take into account the ACTUAL risk of flooding and how much you may have to pay out if it happens

Thanks. Can I ask what flood excess is? It is the amount you pay on the top of general building & content isurance? Is that yearly? As you and others have suggested, it might not be a big risk but definitely will affect the salability in the future.

JenniferZenn

Bigphil1474 said:

None of that says there is a flood risk, no potential for flooding in a 1000 years, and the surface flood risk is highest at Low. I'd ignore.

The sewer is typical, our old house had one across the rear garden - funnily enough most houses need one to get rid of your bits and blobs. As above, if you wish to extend then it needs factoring in, but so does moving downpipes, and other drains that belong to the property anyway. Being in the middle of the run, does mean that there's a small risk you end up with crap coming out of the manhole cover if the people upstream chuck all sorts down their toilet, but didn't happen to us in 25 years. 

Unless they are buying with the intention to extend, none of that would bother me and I wouldn't pay out for another report. Even if they are planning to extend, it's just an additional cost to consider, but will be at most properties.

Thanks. They don't seem to have intention to extend
 but rather thinking this way that the land around 3m is just a waste which would be no use to you. Also their main concern is future salability. They were actually looking houses around kjeeping this as priority.

JenniferZenn

EssexExile said:

I'm going through this sort of thing at the moment. To a layman the flood aspect doesn't seem to be a problem, it has never flooded, isn't likely to flood. There are no contours on those maps so is it higher or lower than surrounding land? I suppose it would be worth speaking to an insurer to find out how they see it.

The sewer thing is only a problem if they want to extend, when it will obviously add to the cost. The same will apply when they want to sell in the future.

Searches can be scary things at first sight. Mine brought up a mining problem but when I read it in detail it appeared than another property a several yards away had claimed for subsidence due to mining but had their claim rejected. So nothing of concern really.

Thanks. You are right. Their priority was always 'future salability'. Indeed the searches gives panic attacks to FTBs. Also the surveyors/solicitor do their due deligence to cover their backs too. Not sure how we check if it's higher or lower than surrounding land. Is there any websites online?

Albermarle

On the map there seem to be two 'No 15's' 

JenniferZenn

TheJP said:

This sounds less about risk but how can they use this to get a reduction. If they are that concerned about the report then they would pull out rather than get a reduction.

Your friend has more chance winning the lottery than the house suffering surface flooding, even if it did flood it would be puddles on the driveway. My house is high risk surface flooding and in 30 years there has been no sign of even puddles on the drive.

How much do you think they could get in the reduction? any idea? Currently they are doing as cash purchase at the asking price of £159,000.

JenniferZenn

Albermarle said:

On the map there seem to be two 'No 15's' 

The corner one has a different street name.

Neil49

JenniferZenn said:

TheJP said:

This sounds less about risk but how can they use this to get a reduction. If they are that concerned about the report then they would pull out rather than get a reduction.

Your friend has more chance winning the lottery than the house suffering surface flooding, even if it did flood it would be puddles on the driveway. My house is high risk surface flooding and in 30 years there has been no sign of even puddles on the drive.

How much do you think they could get in the reduction? any idea? Currently they are doing as cash purchase at the asking price of £159,000.

Given that the risk of flooding is virtually zero then I can't see any chance of a reduction in the price using flooding risk as the argument. I can't even see why they are worrying about this issue at all. It certainly won't have any impact on selling it in the future.

Your other question above was "what is flood excess"? Basically, if your house floods then the insurance company will pay out for the repairs etc but deduct the "excess" from what they give you. If your repairs cost £15k and you have an excess of say £5k then you will get £10k. From the details of the property you mention the excess they will be quoted will be low given that the likelihood of the insurance company paying out is also low. 

chanz4

most say risk, just been cash buyer means nothin these days

JenniferZenn

Neil49 said:

JenniferZenn said:

TheJP said:

This sounds less about risk but how can they use this to get a reduction. If they are that concerned about the report then they would pull out rather than get a reduction.

Your friend has more chance winning the lottery than the house suffering surface flooding, even if it did flood it would be puddles on the driveway. My house is high risk surface flooding and in 30 years there has been no sign of even puddles on the drive.

How much do you think they could get in the reduction? any idea? Currently they are doing as cash purchase at the asking price of £159,000.

Given that the risk of flooding is virtually zero then I can't see any chance of a reduction in the price using flooding risk as the argument. I can't even see why they are worrying about this issue at all. It certainly won't have any impact on selling it in the future.

Your other question above was "what is flood excess"? Basically, if your house floods then the insurance company will pay out for the repairs etc but deduct the "excess" from what they give you. If your repairs cost £15k and you have an excess of say £5k then you will get £10k. From the details of the property you mention the excess they will be quoted will be low given that the likelihood of the insurance company paying out is also low. 

Thanks for the explanation. That make sense. May be they will be using this with the sewer thing & any other findings maybe ( Home buyer survey yet to be done and Local searches yet to come back). But interesting to see many on this thread not finding it serious at all just like me.

fullyrendered

If I was the seller and they started haggling on the basis of these searches I'd be straight on the phone to the estate agent to get it back on the market.

The last laugh was this: 'the land around 3m is just a waste which would be no use to you'. I think it's called a garden?