Flood warning

A recent survey has revealed that 55% of property owners in the UK expect solicitors to automatically investigate a property’s flood risk as part of the conveyancing process. Furthermore, the survey, commissioned by Landmark Information Group, has highlighted that only 42% of people actually investigated the flood risk before buying their home, despite 80% of UK homeowners stating that they would not buy a house that was at risk of flooding (OnePoll survey, August 2012).

Presently, five million homes across the UK are at risk of flood, with at least 200,000 homes at significant risk. With the average insurance claim totalling £30,000, potentially £6bn could be required to be paid out to flood victims. As revealed in the government’s Climate Change Risk Assessment, however, these figures are set to rise as our climate changes. Government climate change advisers have warned that protecting against floods of the kind seen this summer across the UK will cost at least £860m by