How to check your flood risk

Getting an RICS Chartered Surveyor to carry out a survey before you buy is essential if you don’t want to risk getting lumbered with lots of nasty hidden problems.

Surveyors should flag up any obvious flood risks that they know about.

But you can still hit problems with mortgage lenders who are getting increasingly twitchy about lending on homes potentially at risk of flooding.

So before finalising your purchase it’s a good idea to check Environment Agency records for any known flood risk. Just type in your post code to find out if your property is at risk – from sea/river flooding or from surface water & reservoirs.

If you find that the risk is ‘high’ in the postcode area you’re buying in – don’t panic!  The maps are quite small scale, and crucially they don’t show the height of the plots containing buildings.

This is important because sometimes roads near brooks or streams may occasionally flood if the watercourse isn’t cleared each Autumn, but the houses and gardens may be several metres higher than the road and have never come near to flooding.

You can check other potential risks here.

Our next blog – coming soon ……

Selling privately (continued)

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