:censor: letter from lawyers about new house

We just got a letter telling our property, and the one next door is subject to flooding!!!


We have 5 weeks till we move, and we purchased the house 2 months ago!!!!


We've spent 2 months thinking we've got a great house and already stressing about the public transport being harder to get to.

How can they do this to us?!?!!?!?!?!?


Now we have to talk to someone at the council about this.

Oh no! I'd be so upset too!!!!

Isn't that something they should have disclosed to you BEFORE you made the purchase!?

Can't they do anything about that? Maybe make some deeper and better irrigation trenches? I don't know if that'll help at all though.

After being on hold forever, and having to get them call us back hours later, they've said there have been no reports of serious flooding from that property, that that it's most likely a warning they hand out to everyone on a slanted block of land. The same family have been living there 30 years, so i'm assuming they've been through some sort of bad weather in that time and dealt with it.

All along the back below the retaining wall is a channel for the water, along one side it keeps going down and flows off past a shallow garden bed and probably down to the carport which is just gravel, not like a garage. At the other corner of the back of the house there is a pond that the channeling leads to, and then there is a man made rocky river bed that is usually dry, but was made down the side of the house also for the overflow.

You can see the pond and that the house is on a concrete blocks, not stumps, all of those plants are in the retaining wall

Here you can see how steep the backyard is, and if you look on the left hand corner that is our roof. There are two sets of steps into the yard, when you stand at the top of the steps the yard is level with the roof, so you can see why they probably told us about this flooding thing.

They are probably just trying to cover their bases so that nobody sues them in case a major flooding incedent happens. Did you guys have a thorough home inspection before purchasing the new property? I'm not sure how things work over there, but here in NA- it's usually a good idea to do that - most of the time the inspectors will point out any major flaws/potential issues (like the slant of the foundation- potential flooding damage.)

In reality, anyones home can flood given the weather....but more areas are more likely to be impacted by it- especially if the foundation/land is at an angel and not flat. The key to really trying to protect yourselves in the future though is to make sure ya'll have some really good home owners insurance with a fire/flood policy that will cover the damages/etc should a flooding of that area occur.

(we're currently house shopping....hoping to close on the home we adore this comming week if all goes well, and rent out our current home to my sister and her family or sell it to another family just depending! i definitely understand all of the stress!!!)

i would definatly try to get flood insurance if its available to you, just in case. it would be better to be safe then sorry later.

Ack. It's just annoying that it's taken the, two months, and i've been freaking out. We talked to someone at the council and they say there's been no reports from that property, the creek is on the other side of the road etc.

Grrr

You can try going to the FEMA Flood Maps website below and see what the flood zone is. You can do it by address specific or narrowing down by state, county, and so on.

Address Specific Search:

http://msc.fema.gov/webapp/wcs/store...0001&langId=-1

State / County Search:

http://msc.fema.gov/webapp/wcs/store...rType=G&type=1

Lovely looking house and property though. Congratulations on the buy. I'm sure if the people who were there for the last 30 years had no problems, then in all likelihood you should be just fine. Well fine as any of us can be at anytime some crazy disaster could happen I suppose.

Originally Posted by Whiskers151

You can try going to the FEMA Flood Maps website below and see what the flood zone is. You can do it by address specific or narrowing down by state, county, and so on.

Address Specific Search:

http://msc.fema.gov/webapp/wcs/store...0001&langId=-1

State / County Search:

http://msc.fema.gov/webapp/wcs/store...rType=G&type=1

Click to expand...

Thanks but it doesn't work for me, i'm not in the U.S

thats hot!

dont worry it will be dealt with soon enough

Originally Posted by Kittee

Isn't that something they should have disclosed to you BEFORE you made the purchase!?

Click to expand...

Exactly and since they didn't legally they should be offering you some kind of reimbursement or compensation for non-disclosure of a possible property damage. If you have a lawyer handling the legalities of the sale I would certainly ask some questions about it.

I'd look on your house insurance policy and see if you do have flood insurance covered.

Originally Posted by fwan

thats hot!

dont worry it will be dealt with soon enough

Click to expand...

What's hot? Are you trying to be Paris Hilton?

don't know if your state mandates a seller's disclosure statement, but they are helpful if you suspect some sort of misrepresentation or silent fraud.

if you relied on the seller's statement that there were no flooding issues (i.e. your inspections gave the ok but you later find evidence of flooding that had been covered up, repaired, etc which a reasonable inspection would not have revealed) and the seller knew about, should have known about or, in some states, even had no reason to know about but still benefited with a contract from the mutual mistake, and did not disclose you may seriously want to consider discussing your options with a real estate attorney in the area. not that you want to necessarily want to rescind the sale, but you may also be entitled to the difference in affected value depending on the seller's actions.

hopefully though, it was just a pre-emptive general warning without specific danger from the council and not something dealing with the seller.


****whoops*** just reread and saw where I missed that you aren't in the US, sorry. scrap the above.***