What is a flood risk report?
A flood risk report assesses the likelihood of a location to be affected by uncontrolled water known as flooding. This can include flooding from rivers, the sea, flash-flooding from heavy rainfall, groundwater or sewer overflows.
Flood Risk Reports are undertaken when someone is:
- Looking to buy a house
- Looking to build and get planning permission
- Looking to reduce flood risk at a property or business
Flooding has a devastating impact on people’s lives and with the increase of these events it is vital to understand how a flood risk report can help you to protect your future home and business. Property purchasers must undertake the necessary due diligence to understand these risks and undertake a flood risk report. It may not always be obvious that a property is at risk of flooding. A phase 1 environmental assessment can help in this.
Flooding from rivers and coastlines, flooding from surface water (which occurs when the volume of rainwater falling is unable to drain away through existing drainage systems or by filtering into the ground), groundwater (on the ground surface) and overflowing sewers are becoming increasingly common sources of risk.
A Flood Risk Report is an assessment of how likely it is that the property or land you’re intending to purchase will suffer from flooding at some point in the future. In addition, understanding the likelihood of flooding over the intended period of occupation means that property and landowners can consider if they need to invest in any flood resilience measures at their property. Here our Flood Mitigation Survey and accompanying reports are also useful and undertaken in line with the latest CIRIA Code of practice for property resilience (C790).
We consider flood resistance and resilience approaches where it is deemed feasible. Having the knowledge clearly and unambiguously presented can make a real difference and does not always spell disaster for your purchase.
Working with Future Climate Info (FCI) we provide the FCI Flood Appraisal service which is a flood risk report offering a property specific in-depth analysis of known flood risks. Using property specific data from local sources, our team can identify what types of flooding have potentially occurred in the area and how this can impact the insurability and implications of mortgage applications. We understand speed is of the essence during the home buying process, and that is why every report can be turned around within three working days. In comparison, a traditional flood report may take up to four weeks to complete.
Find out more about flood risk reports here.