To buy a house on a flood plain?

[Arkbuilder]

We have fallen in love with a house, offer accepted etc. Turns out it's the highest level of flood risk (3). There is a small brook that runs along one boundary. The owners had said it has flooded but never got to the house. We intended to build something bigger on the land. Is this a show stopper? Am I being a fool to proceed?

Personally...I wouldn't.

It might be worth trying to get some insurance quotes to see 1) the cost 2) whether you'd be able to get cover at all.

That may sway your opinion!

Just make sure you can get house and contents insurance . We live in a flood zone and couldn’t get insurance for years !!! The government changed things a few years ago so now you should be able to get insurance

I wouldn't. NO way.

Speaking as an ex underwriter, do NOT go without insurance. Check for policies now- check exclusions and check excesses!

The other thing to consider is can you afford to put flood protections in place? There are many options, most will then make insurance cheaper, someone's insurers will only work with you on the basis of having protections built in.

Personally, I wouldn't buy if I couldn't afford to build protections- and not without interim insurance cover.

I have seen on TV where people have built on a flood plain but it is very expensive as the design has to cater for stilts to raise the house level.

It might be worth talking to architects and checking flood levels in recent years.

Assuming you need planning permission to build the larger property (is that it’s not PD), you’ll need to pay a consultant to prep a Flood Risk Assessment and it may well be a show stopper in terms of your ability to get permission. Insurance also often an issue as raised above.

No! Where I live there are hundreds (possibly thousands) of houses built on numerous flood plains - I am old enough to remember when they flooded and we skated on the ice, however so many people move into the area and they have no idea... until they get flooded out. And they have. And all the locals were saying 'well what did they expect?' I think they expected houses not to built on a place that was known to flood...

Not a chance in hell would I buy that.

Even if you can get insurance now, it may not last. Many insurers (including the one I worked for) were going to up their premiums to be commercially viable after the 2013 flood "season". Which would have left thousands of houses uninsurable (and effectively) unsaleable. The government had a mild panic, and bribed promised insurers that there would be a massive infrastructure boost to prevent flooding, so could they please, pretty please, pretty please with cherries on top, not increase their premiums and cause a fuss.

(You can see where this is going ...)

So the insurance industry sat on its hands. Meanwhile, stuff all work was done, and the risk of flooding is the same - if not more - than it was 6 years ago. Meaning you might be able to insure your house now, but next year, insurers might have upped the premium to a realistic level, making it unaffordable.

There are house designs on stilts - but that would have to be new builds really. I did like the examples I saw - with a space underneath to tie your boats up for the flood season.

No. Absolutely no way.

Rainfall events are getting worse (so a '1 in 100 year event' is now happening more often than once every 100 years) and with lege scale building on flood plains and more artificial grass and concrete etc, so just because somewhere hasn't flooded before is absolutely no indicator it wont flood in the future. 'One off' events are becoming more common.

I would call a couple of insurers and see what they say about the address - their systems are actually more advanced than the environment agency ie can assess the potential flood risk of individual properties

Only buy the house if

You arent worried about paying a higher excess and premium

You aremt worried about selling it ever

You dont get attached to possessions and wont mind moving out for months at a time while the damage is assessed and then waiting for drying out and then waiting for builders because they are all tied up with other flooding in the area.

You can get flood defences but they are expensive and will depend on the lie of the land (eg detached house easier to protect than a terrace)

There are things you can do to protect against a flood for example move all furniture upstairs, sandbags, hang curtains high over hooks etc but there is obviously less time in a flash flood.

If you are planning on staying in the house for say 25 years, the likelihood is, you will be dealing with a flood at least once. Some people are happy to live with that. I definitely wouldn't be

Absolutely not, no way in hell.

I've had a house flood with clean water (interior pipe failure - water as gushing down for 12 hours while the house was unoccupied) and it is a complete nightmare. I cannot even imagine how much worse it would be with mud and sewage in the mix. It takes months and months to dry out a place that has been thoroughly wetter. I still have nightmares about it and sincerely hope I'll never have to do it again.

No no no no.

Also, worth noting that flooding that was a rare event in past decades is now becoming much, much more frequent. As climate change hits, it's only going to get worse.

Don't do it.

Within 20 years, the whole area is likely to be almost constantly flooded.
Prior to that, if you wanted to sell, you'd be stuck.

No.

Am I being a fool to proceed?

Yes.

My parents house is on land where once every 10 years or so they have floods when extreme weather makes the river rise. Sandbags at doors. It's a nightmare.
The weather is getting worse and more extreme, you'd be mad to buy it.

Insurance will be a nightmare - even if you manage to get one now, you haven't got any guaranty you will be able to insure in the future if you ever make a claim.

Being flooded is REALLY grim, I would run a mile. It's bad enough when your property is destroyed and it stinks for months, but friends of mine got caught in flash flood and it was the scariest experience of their life.

No planning permission should be given on a flood plain frankly, and the builds themselves are part of the problem and will make it 10 times worst.

In short, don't.

I wouldn't.

A significant part of the town where I live flooded a few years ago, and several friends were flooded. The disruption and distress was awful to see, I can't believe what it must have been like to live through. Several friends were out of their homes for over 6 months, one couple I know were living with family for nearly 11 months. Several local businesses never recovered. The water almost reached first floor level in places ad it was 48 hours before it had gone down enough for them to get in and see what the damage was.

The EA had the area down as a 1 in 150-year event, but it had flooded just as badly only 40 years earlier. Despite all that, pp has been granted for 400 homes on one site that flooded, and 250 homes on a greenfield site that was under water. And the the more they build, the greater the risk will be, because housing estates don't soak up water the way fields do!

Having seen what people went through here, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

As PP has said, if by building something bigger, you mean a new house, planning permission could be a real issue.

There is a general presumption against building in flood plains, and even as a replacement property there will be issues. Not only will there be concerns about a property in the floodplain, but what impact any development will have on the likelihood of increasing flood risk elsewhere.

You will need to employ drainage experts to submit a specialist report with the application. It is also highly likely that the new house will have to include specialist adaptations to reduce any risk from flooding (if it gets the go-ahead). I too have seen stilts used, or an upside down house, with garaging at ground level and living accommodation above, shutters etc.

Even then you may well have insurance issues.

No better safe than sorry.

I wouldn't

As PP has said, if by building something bigger, you mean a new house, planning permission could be a real issue.

It's a shame you couldn't (re) build it on stilts but won't be approved as it might alert other homeowners, which is strictly Not Allowed. As a few posters have noticed, there's a degree of secrecy going on here, otherwise the UK could lose a few tens of thousands of homes overnight.

Not a chance in hell. Sorry but no house is worth the heartache and hassle of it being flooded.

Where we used to live the houses had a brook running alongside and several houses were flooded more than once. These houses do still sell but they've all had flood defence things put on the doors.

No way. Not worth the risk, especially with the seemingly increasing extremes of bad weather.