Warning over hidden flood risk as buyers dash to beat stamp duty deadline

• 530,000 properties in England face a more extreme risk of flooding than official maps suggest, according to Zurich UK
• A home with a 3% chance of flooding in any year has a 63% likelihood of being inundated over a typical 30-year mortgage
• Calls for Environment Agency to update the way it communicates flood risk to help households better understand their flood exposure
• Homebuyers urged not to cut corners on flood risk checks amid dash to beat stamp duty holiday deadline

Homebuyers are being left in the dark over their true exposure to flooding as official maps* understate the flood risks properties face, it has been claimed.

In the rush to beat the stamp duty deadline, homebuyers are being urged not to cut corners on flood checks amid concerns almost 530,000 properties face a hidden flood threat.

Insurer Zurich, which carried out the analysis, claims households could be more exposed to flooding than they may think due to the official language used to communicate flood risk.

The Environment Agency currently reports flood risk based on the chances of an area flooding in any one year. It rates homes with a so-called 1 in 100-year to a 1 in 30-year chance of flooding as being at “medium” risk. This means there is a 1% to 3.3% chance of a flood occurring in any single year.

But Zurich has warned that when viewed over a typical 30-year mortgage, this equates to a 26% and a 63% likelihood of being flooded once in that period – a far greater risk than the current terminology suggests.

Zurich said this could leave homebuyers with a misleading impression of their flood risk and lull them into a false sense of security. There are 446,800 homes and 82,100 non-residential properties in England deemed to be at “medium” risk of flooding.

Kumu Kumar, Head of Zurich Resilience Solutions, the insurer’s risk engineering arm, said:

“Predicting flood risk isn’t a perfect science. While Environment Agency maps are a useful guide to flood risk, they can downplay the dangers some properties face. Amid the rush to complete sales ahead of the stamp duty deadline, it is important buyers don’t skip crucial checks to assess whether a home is in danger of flooding. As surveys aren’t required to show the risks, the onus falls on buyers to find out whether a home lies in an area at risk of flooding. Buyers need to scrutinise the detail – or they could be hit by unexpected flooding.”

Mary Dhonau, a flood resilience campaigner and expert, who has herself been flooded, said:

“I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to investigate the flood risk before a property is bought. I know of so many people who have been caught out. My recent research has shown me that the 1:100 term is not understood. People have said to me that they flooded twice, once in 2009 and again in 2015. They didn’t expect to flood in 2015, as they’d been told that the 2009 flood was a 1:100-year event.”

Further insights show that flood definitions on Environment Agency maps also differ from those used in government planning maps – creating additional confusion for buyers.

Environment Agency maps define properties with 1% to 3.3% chance of flooding as being at “medium” risk. Yet this is at odds with the government’s own flood maps used for planning policy which rate properties in the same 1% to 3.3% band as being a “high” flood risk. The government maps comply with the Flood Risk Regulations, but the Environment Agency’s do not.

In addition, Zurich warned river and sea flood maps published by the Environment Agency provide an incomplete picture of flooding, as they only reflect flood frequency, not depth. A flood to an expected depth of a few centimetres requires vastly different protection to a flood of one metre. Without information on flood depth, homebuyers are unable to tell how severely a property might be flooded or what flood resilience measures to put in place.

Kumar added: “As climate change intensifies the frequency and severity of extreme weather, it is vital that people can assess the true flood threat they face. The term a 1 in 100-year flood can give the misleading impression that a flood occurs once every 100 years – when in fact the risk is much higher. With a more accurate understanding of their flood risk, people can better prepare for extreme weather and make changes to their property to withstand flooding. The current approach for expressing flood risk is unclear and could lead people to conclude a property is safer than in fact it is. The Environment Agency should consider what more it can do to help people understand their flood threat. This could include expressing flood risk as a percentage over the typical lifetime of a mortgage.”

Zurich also wants to see the Environment Agency update their maps to align with the flood definitions used by the government for planning

The UK has been hit by a series of severe floods in recent years. Five million people in the UK live in flood prone areas and one in six homes are at risk. Earlier this year, Zurich announced it is offering free counselling to customers hit by flooding as it warned of the devastating impact of extreme weather on mental health.

Buying a new home? Eight ways to check your flood risk

• If the Environment Agency’s flood maps indicate a flood risk make sure you check other local sources such as the flood planning maps. It’s important you check the risks from all sources of flooding including from rivers and sea, as well as the risk from surface water flooding.
• Gather information from the estate agent and seller. Find out if they are aware of any history of flooding at the property or immediate area. Sellers have a duty to disclose if they are aware of any previous floods that have affected the property.
• Speak to local residents and neighbours to find out if they have been hit by any flooding in the past. It is often not obvious that areas can be at risk of flooding on an initial inspection so care needs to be taken when looking at the flood risk.
• If you go ahead with a purchase, check your conveyancing solicitor is doing a search on whether the property is at risk of flooding as part of the Environmental Data Search. They should ensure that they are using a search that pinpoints the risk at the specific property and not just the postcode or general area.
• If the searches highlight a risk of flooding then additional steps should be taken to understand the potential flood depth and whether there are adequate precautions installed to prevent damage to the property. In some cases, a survey by a competent flood consultant will be needed.
• Your mortgage lender will likely require you to have buildings insurance from exchange, so it’s a good idea to obtain an insurance quote at the beginning of the buying process as this may flag up any risk.
• If you discover the property has experienced flooding in the past, it’s can be worth checking if it is now protected by a local or public Flood Defence Scheme which may have reduced the risk.
• Just because a property is in a flood-prone area, doesn’t mean you can’t live in it. There are a number of steps you can take to make your property more flood resilient. These include tiled floors, non-return sewage valves, resilient plasterboard and raised electric sockets.

More independent information on flood protection measures can be found here: https://www.floodguidance.co.uk/

* Environment Agency Long-Term Flood Map - https://flood-warning-information.service.gov.uk/long-term-flood-risk

** Environment Agency – Risk of Flooding from Rivers and Sea (RoFRS) 2019

Medium Risk (England)
Residential - 446,832
Non-residential - 82,128
Unclassified - 128,485

Government Flood Map for Planning https://flood-map-for-planning.service.gov.uk/