Buying a “flood risk” property

[TwoDrifters2]

I don’t know if we’re even crazy to be considering this and wondered if anyone had any stories of either success or woe to help us make our minds up.

Basically, we have fallen in love with a rural property. It’s pretty much perfect in all regards but we have hit the following snag…

We did a land registry search which included a “flood risk indicator” that said there was a “very low chance of flooding from rivers or the sea which means that it is unlikely to flood except in extreme conditions.”

HOWEVER…

When you enter the postcode into the government’s site for checking flood risk (flood-warning-information.service.gov.uk/long-term-flood-risk/postcode) it comes back as a HIGH RISK for surface water or flash flooding.

We have asked the vendors if they’ve ever had issues and they have said the field at the back can sometimes get a little waterlogged but that there is sufficient drainage generally.

My own childhood home, if you enter the postcode in the above website, ALSO comes up S high risk for surface flooding. But I know for a fact that we have never had issues there in over 40 years. So I’m not sure whether to take comfort in this or not!

Would this put others off? Will we find insurance to be a hassle?! Help please!!!

You can go through a company called JBA that do fairly advanced flood risk modelling, you could also write to the environment agency for their records. Surface water / flash flooding is much more likely than river / sea flooding in Most places. You may be able to get someone to visit the site and assess the risk for you by looking at the land.

It depends a lot on where it is too.
Don’t forget that although you may not be directly flooded in terms of water in the house, living in an area prone to flooding can be a massively problematic, not just in terms of problems with local infrastructure , road closures etc, but in the very real effect on the local economy. It can be quite devastating and shouldn’t be overlooked.

I wouldn’t my brother bought a house very low flood risk and the insurance is astronomical.

Don't do it.

I wouldn’t do it. I had a friend who bought a house close to a river and had the cellar flood a couple of times. She said the stress of watching the water levels rise, wondering if it would reach the ground floor and being totally powerless to do anything was unbearable. She eventually sold the house.

If it has flooded previously it’s in your vendor’s interests to keep quiet.

Just done the postcode check on a nearby property I know has flooded at least once in the last 20 years and they were also high risk surface water.

Requires further research - can someone explain the anomaly? I vaguely remember a house I bought being listed as moderate risk because it was withins 200m of the sea, but was actually 50m above sea level so wouldn't flood from that.

Our house is close to water, but has never flooded as it’s slightly higher than a huge expanse of surrounding fields. Insurance isn’t a problem. (Touches wood).
The road is closed occasionally. Because it’s rural (not in a village) there’s no impact on the wider community if the area we’re in floods.

However, I would expect to have problems selling it in the future.

Don’t. You’ll never get insurance. My house is on an ex flood plain, it hasn’t flooded in over 40 years and there’s a flood relief thing in the river. Still a nightmare to get insurance.

Lots of food for thought here. Thanks @Dobbyhasnomaster we definitely would not proceed without getting expert advice so that’s good to know, thank you!

@Therollockingrogue those are also good points I hadn’t really considered.

@Cottipus yes I thought the same - how do we trust the vendors are being truthful?! The only thing that makes me think they’ve never had issues is that they’ve been there over 10 years and the kitchen and utility room both have underfloor heating, which surely you wouldn’t install if flooding was an issue?

I have a vested interest here (work in flood risk) but I would say that if you love the house you should do a bit of research into property flood resilience. You might know about it already but if not try the National Flood Forum website. For surface water risk you often need passive measures rather than equipment you put up yourself because of shorter notice flood events. Things like air brick covers and flood doors.

Also worth doing a bit of research for any previous flooding (google usually brings it up), and see if the council have any s19 reports for flooded properties. These are usually on their website too.

For insurance issues check with your current insurer what the premium would be (mention Flood Re to them too).

@PlatinumBrunette if you’re at high flood risk Flood Re can help. If medium risk I’m afraid not. Worth checking it out though as premiums for flood risk are based on council task bands rather than actual (or previous) risk

I would say No. House and contents insurance will be v high and you'll live in fear when we get other areas flooding

I've seen a documentary on flooding a few months ago and it's horrendous for the home owners. Dream homes reduced to waist high in water and with global warming it will only become more common

We were evacuated from our last house twice for flood risks although it never actually flooded. There is an area where ALL houses flooded badly some decades ago which may well have caused structural issues current residents are unaware of.

The emotional toll of 'will it, won't it' was enough for me to avoid any prospect of it in a new house.

We did. We are at high risk of surface water flooding of depths less than 30cm. I wouldn't buy a property at high risk of river flooding though.

The surface water flooding maps were introduced in 2013 so brought a lot of properties into higher risk.

We got a number of additional experts in to assess and they all said different things but in the main, they thought it wasn't a massive risk.

The property has never flooded (although obviously this is no indication that it won't in future).

Also, ours was high risk of surface water flooding of less than 30cm which is important because most doorstep thresholds and damp proof courses are set at that level so even if there was flooding, it wouldn't come in the house at that level.

It was low risk of surface water flooding of depths of greater than 30cm.

Oh and also very important is to phone up a number of different insurance companies and check whether there would be a problem with insurance. We told all the companies that it was at high risk of surface water flooding and they weren't interested. Made no difference at all to the premium.

No way, climate change will make flooding so much worse. Read the projections. Don't even think about buying it.

Surface water flooding comes under the remit of local council as does flooding from small rivers/streams. Flooding from major rivers is dealt with by the environment agency (in England). A good example of a surface water flood is Boscastle - the damage there was incredible but fortunately noone was injured. Surface water flooding is more likely to be severe in steep sided valleys where water flow could be limited. It's often caused by short intense rain, like when we have heavy downpours with thunder and hail. These storms are increasing in intensity due to climate change, so the risk of flooding is increasing but it's still relatively rare. I work with flood data and there is probably around 1 significant surface water flood in the UK each year. Sadly because of the nature of the flood previous history means nothing, the risk is based on topography and land use. Exceptionally poorly maintained drains and sewers (especially combined with storm surge) will exacerbate surface water flooding.

In summary, would I buy a place with a high surface water flood risk? Yes, but I'd have a plan in place if it started raining heavily and I would make sure valuables were protected. You have about an hour's notice if you are lucky of a surface water flood, maybe less in really severe weather.

Don't do it. Climate change will mean more extreme weather and more flooding. Buy a house on a hill, ideally with solar panels.

@twodrIfters I was freaking out about this, but then I put in our current house and it is too, i then tried another postcode and that was too... I think a lot of houses are because of everyone having driveways rather than grass in their front gardens.
I was worried as there’s a stream at the bottom of the garden, but that’s low risk...
I’m going for it, because I’ll be no worse than I am now and I had no idea here was high risk too...
@TwoDrifters2 we should get our searches back soon, so I’ll be interested in what our solicitor says...

@Lurkingforawhile Thank you! Very helpful indeed.

No I wouldn't buy it. There were floods to the height of the top of a garage not so far from here. It wasn't an area of significant flood risk but it looks like measures to save more populous areas half an hour away had a devastating knock on effect. The 'on paper' risk may not be up to date.

@zebbyzebbo That is what we REALLY don’t want. That worry every time it starts to rain… Or if you’re abroad on holiday but frantically checking the weather report for back home!

@idril and @Random63638 those are all useful points to consider. Thank you!

@Karcheer If you don’t mind, I’d be interested to see if your solicitor mentions it too!

Thanks so much to everyone for all the comments, both positive (cautiously so) and negative. I’m trying not to let my heart rule my head but also it’s the only house we’ve seen in almost 2 years of having daily alerts pinged to our phones that we both instantly loved and felt a connection to.

Arrrggh.

Don’t ever buy a house which is at any risk of flooding at all. We bought a house that had flooded in the past because we were assured work had been done to ensure it didn’t happen again. It did, just as we were selling the house five years later. The stress of being flooded is like nothing I have ever experienced. It will get worse as global warming gets worse and any works done will not be up to the increased risks in the future. It just isn’t worth the risk.

I just ran that check on my house and it came back as very low risk, but having spent the last year looking at forecasting for rising sea levels, as well as the likelihood of longer periods of greater seasonal perspiration, it seems clear to me that my property will not remain low risk for long enough to be considered a 'forever home'; I absolutely love it and would love to grow old here, but I expect it'll be another decade before people won't touch homes like mine with a barge pole, and come midcentury, rising sea levels will have impacted the tidal estuary to the extent that we'll find ourselves in a really risky position. It'll come around quickly.

@TwoDrifters2 coastal.climatecentral.org/map/9/0.8746/52.1407/?theme=sea_level_rise&map_type=coastal_dem_comparison&contiguous=true&elevation_model=coastal_dem&forecast_year=2050&pathway=rcp45&percentile=p50&return_level=return_level_1&slr_model=kopp_2014

This is to do with rising water due to emissions etc (if we all do nothing). Which is different to our high risks... which is to do with the council - probably not maintaining pipes etc I think...