advice please re flood plains

[dizzydo]

in this litigious society nobody wants to give you advice any more because they are frightened of being sued.

Just done an environmental search on property we are buying and it has come up "the property is located within 250 metres of a flood plain". Anyone have any idea of the severity of that? My solicitor says he cant advice me for goodness sake . I am sure somewhere here will have some experience of it. BTW the property is in SW London

TIA

Check the website of whoever did the survey, also there are other ones who can tell you if this is a good or bad risk.

the other peopleto ask are yuor insuarance co. They will increase your prem dramatiaclly if it is a real risk.

When we move dhere we were told ther wasa risk of flooding. The insurance co weren't bothered as it wasn't a great risk. What it actually concerned was the river that is approx 500yds behind the house, plus our road isn't well surfaced so can flood slightly in the rain. We were also told there were chemical probs in the vicinity; this related to the petrol station 1.5 miles down the road!

Good luck.

The flood plain to the North West of where we live is having planning permission submitted for over 1000 homes as part of the overall SE development plans. Means the whole area which is currently quite desirable with good schools etc will expand. Madness though, as the river in that area has burst its banks at least twice in the past 10 years.

To answer your question I don't think being 250m away is necessarily a problem unles it is a very flood prone area but you would probably want to find out how it might affect your insurance. The Insurer should have information as to the likelihood of a such claim being made by postcode and will weight the premium accordingly. Think Upmystreet may have such info too iirc.

Have you phoned your local branch of the Environment Agency?

we recently had to do a Flood Risk Assessment for some plans and dealt directly with the EA (because my SIL works for them). most areas considered a flood risk have Zones. Our zone(3)meant a chance of flooding once in every 75 years to a level of 250mm.......zones one and two were a higer risk.

they might not be able to help but it's always worth trying.

Thanks everyone, great advice. Am going to get on to it this week.

Mumsnet has come up trumps again.

x

Yikes! I'd hate to live near a flood plain in this weather - BIG rain here.

If you put your postcode in the box here under "Flood Map" it takes you to a page from where you can access a colour coded map showing likelihood of flooding.

I have had exactly the same, our search came back as 25m from zone 3&2 flood plain but as it is a new develpment the postcode is not recognized.

it's not necessaruily bad btw, it depends on the geography of the area. I used to live 50 metres from a flood plain but there was a river between us and it so our house never flooded. Likewise if there's a hill I doubt there´ll be a problem.

we had this with a house I wanted to buy. Phone the environment agency as they gave us some good advice. Flood plains come with a risk factor, so a 100 year flood plain would expect to flood every 100 years and so on. They were really helpful when I spoke to them You will need the local number. I got it from the planning dept of local council.

where in sw london? we're probably that close to the river, let alone the flood plain, and as far as I know the thames in sw london hasn't burst its banks for a long long time.

The property is in Fulham. I did look on the internet to see when the Thames last flooded and I think it was 1947 in Windsor but London may have been longer ago or sooner, I can't find any records. Maybe someone knows?

I am reluctant to ask the insurance company because I dont want to find they are sudenly going to load the policy although I have a copy of the vendor's insurance and there is no mention on that of flood excess, come to mention it tho it doesnt say they are covered for it either as I only have the front sheet.

Am really unsure about all this it does make me very nervous, the thought of worrying every time we have excessive rain especially as our weather patterns do seem to be changing.

Thanks for the link Lizs, it says low risk but I dont know if that makes me feel better or not really.

asking the insurance company explicitly isn't going to make any difference to the policy they offer and the price - they know the address and they know you want coverage for flooding - they'll do their sums acordingly whether you say anything about flooding or not, iyswim. I really think you are very low risk - you are 250m away from the flood plain - 250 metres is a LONG way in terms of flooding. Just think how many houses and properties in London are nearer than that to the river itself (me included).

Just wanted to post here and say how much I love Mumsnet!!

We are in exactly the same situation - got the environmental searches through today and the lovely house we want to buy is within 250m of a flood plain - i.e. quite near a small river. Just phoned our current home insurer, Halifax, for a chat about it and ended up putting the phone down on them because they were so rude and unhelpful! So I turned to Mumsnet in my time of need, and of course I find a wealth of good advice. Thank you.