The vulnerability of communities to the devastating
effects of flooding has been apparent and recently DEFRA estimated that 5.2
million properties were at risk of flooding in England.
The Flood and Water Management Act 2010 came into
force in August last year to try and protect communities from the risk of
flooding and to try and improve the way we manage water. There are of course
several different types of flooding; Surface Water Flooding, River Flooding,
Coastal Flooding and Ground Water Flooding – all of which can be very expensive
for affected home-owners.
The Act itself moves the focus from flood defence to
risk and water management and encourages the use and development of Sustainable
Drainage Systems (SuDs for short) which manages rainwater in developed areas in
a way that mimics what would have happened to it had there been no development
on the land so that is it efficiently drained away and released back into the
system slowly.
The Act also creates bodies called Lead Local Flood
Authorities (LLFA) that will maintain a register of features that are likely to
have a significant effect on flood risk in their area. Those might be natural
or man-made and might include walls, embankments, raised ground, channels etc.
Once a feature has been placed on the register it cannot be altered, removed or
replaced without the consent of the Environment Agency or the LLFA.
That might have an impact in the future on how land
is developed or dealt with in terms of planning.
More significant for home-owners, however, are the risk
of flooding and the issue of insurance. Checks and searches are ordinarily done during a property purchase but those commonly cover only river and coastal risks. The issue of surface water flood risk needs careful consideration. Sellers should be aware about these issues and how they might affect the saleability of the property or their ability to obtain the asking price. Buyers are best advised to make sure that full checks are undertaken, as this may affect not only the price of the property that they are purchasing but also how easily the property can be insured and mortgaged.
There is currently an agreement in place between the
Government and the Association of British Insurers dealing with insurance for
properties at risk of flooding. That ensures that people can still insure
properties even where there is a significant risk of flooding, as long as there
are plans to reduce the risk within the next 5 years. That agreement comes to
an end in June 2013 and at present it is unclear what the position will be
after that. It may well be that home-owners will struggle to find insurance for
their properties after that time or that policies will become very expensive.
Property transactions can be stressful and usually
all parties want to make progress as quickly as possible. Skipping searches or
not undertaking sufficiently detailed searches as to flood risk could have
major implications for any property purchase – a small amount of effort at the
outset, as with so many things, can avoid problems down the line.
