Environmental searches are one of the conveyancing searches you’ll need to get when buying a house, and are likely to be a requirement of your mortgage lender. This search looks at the historical records for your house and the surrounding area, to check the past use for the land on which the house is built.
Environmental searches focus on whether the property you are purchasing is built on or near contaminated land or water. It should also pick up any issues such as the risk of potential landslips or flooding from nearby rivers, seas or lakes
Why are environmental searches important?
All conveyancing searches are important for their own reasons. They are there to make you aware of different potential issues with your purchase before legal ownership is transferred. Find out more about why environmental searches are important below:
1. Health risk
As environmental searches look at the past use of the land, they can highlight certain factors which could potentially become a serious health risk to you and those living in the house. If the house is built on former industrial land, for example, there could be toxic substances still remaining in the ground.
2. Insurance risk
The environmental search also indicates whether the property has had any historical issues with flooding. If there are any flooding issues, you may struggle to get buildings insurance, or you may have to pay a premium.
3. Financial risk
Buying a property is one of the biggest financial commitments you can make. If there is anything which could cause you to lose money on this investment, spend money to rectify issues or leave you unable to sell in the future, it’s important to understand this upfront. It’s also important to note that if the original party responsible for any contamination cannot be found the cost for all clean-up activities will sit with the landowner.
What do environmental searches cover?
An environmental search report will cover:
- Contamination to the land
- Flood risk
- Ground stability (i.e. subsidence risk)
- Historical coal mining
- Radon gas
- Energy and infrastructure (e.g. power stations, wind or solar farms)
- Development constraints
What other conveyancing searches will I need?
There are other conveyancing searches you will need to get when buying a house such as a local authority search and a land registry search. All of which a conveyancer will take you through.
For more information on how long conveyancing searches take, who pays for them and the process of dealing with the enquiries, read our conveyancing searches guide.
Who pays for the searches when selling a house?
The cost of conveyancing searches, including the environmental search, is something that the buyer must pay for and then owns. Most searches now are insurance backed in case the search provider has made an error (which is incredibly rare), so the buyer will have the benefit of this as well.
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