Failed Contaminated land Environmental Searches

housebuyers93

Evening all,

looking for advice or past experiences regarding a failed environmental search on a property we expected to be purchasing next week!

we've had our searches back and it has failed on potentially contaminated land due to being built on the outskirts of landfill. (Apparently inert waste)

Our solicitors have tried obtaining the (expired) NHBC certificate to attempt to change the report to a pass, however the NHBC didn't come with contamination cover so that route can't work.

The seller has agreed to take out an indemnity insurance policy to cover any further costs associated with the land if anything ever goes wrong from it. Another option was to approach the local authority to obtain planning permissions and certification that the correct work was carried out prior to building, unfortunately the seller doesn't want to do this as if you approach the local authority, that then opens up cans of worms and voids any indemnity insurances going forward.

I've trawled through the online planning permissions and found what I believe to be a documents for the whole site stating contamination works need to be carried out correctly prior to starting building to comply with the granted planning permission, so in theory if planning permission was followed you'd expect the work to have been done, however the only way to prove this is by approaching the council as per above which the seller isn't willing to take the risk of doing.

The House was built in 2007 along with the rest of the 50+ houses on the estate and looking at previous sold data at least 10 houses shown in the contaminated land map around ours have sold.

we don't have much worry in terms of having issues with the property in 5/10/20 years from contamination as we believe the works to have been actually carried out, what does concern us is having the stigma of contaminated land always stuck to future property searches if we were in a position of having to sell the property.

What would people recommend from here? Walk away? or go with the indemnity insurance? as these are seemingly our only 2 options.

The sellers solicitor claims he sold a house 3 doors down recently and the environmental searches passed and no indemnity was ever needed, so he's also ordering another search from a different company.

any advice would be brilliant please

user1977

If it's a substantial estate from 2007 with contamination having been identified pre-development, I would think it improbable that the developers then skipped doing the cleanup. Just get the insurance and forget about it.

RelievedSheff

If you can get onto the local authority planning portal you may be able to go that far back and see the planning history for the site.

If you can find the site there will be documents on there that outline how the site will be remediated to make it suitable for residential use.

chrisw

I can't see how using different search companies until one comes up without mentioning the contaminated land will help. If you ever moved, it's still likely to flag up on a buyers search which seems to be your main concern.

daveyjp

2007 is recent enough for any documents to be on the local council planning system.

housebuyers93

I've trawled through (what seems) a million and one documents on the online planning portal. I've researched and found I need to be looking for either a validation report or discharge of conditions report. None of which can be found on the portal. When clicking a link that says "documents" that are attached to the original plans, this then advises you that the plans may be in archive and to email the local authority.

However emailing to find said documents is classed as approaching the local authority and in turn voids the indemnity insurance 😭

feel like we're inbetween a rock and a hard place and can't see a way forward without huge risks

GDB2222

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81884772#Comment_81884772

Surely, if in doubt, the way forward is to buy a property without these issues? Of course, I’m assuming here that the property is about the right price for the area. If it is at a discount then it is a different matter, as you are trying to assess whether the discount is big enough.

You say that the landfill has inert materials in it. But, just as an example, plasterboard used to be classed as inert, yet now it’s banned from landfill as it emits foul smelling, poisonous gas when it breaks down in water underground.

housebuyers93

we are now swaying towards walking about but it's difficult when you've fallen in love with the property. I've been desperately searching for documents that support correct procedures were done prior to building but I can't find nothing and sellers are just saying indemnity insurance take it or leave it. Having done the research on indemnity cover it seems to cover the contaminated land aspect (local authority stuff) but doesn't touch potential subsidence in regards to the ex landfill. For me I'd be happy with the indemnity insurance for the contaminated land but the subsidence is the big issue

genuinely feel between a rock and a hard place but my head can only see one direction and that's walking away 😭

RelievedSheff

I personally would just take the indemnity insurance.

The NHBC would not have signed the house off unless the correct remediation works were carried out.

user1977

potential subsidence in regards to the ex landfill. For me I'd be happy with the indemnity insurance for the contaminated land but the subsidence is the big issue

You're overthinking this (or wrongly thinking it) - the developer would have obtained a site investigation report on the ground stability (much more detailed than your search) and engineered their foundations accordingly. It may well be among the planning papers. You really don't need to second-guess what the developers did in a modern development like this.