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Buyer Beware
When you purchase a property, you are always taking a risk. In order to minimise the risks involved your solicitor will carry out certain searches on your behalf, these searches will reveal a great deal of information about the property you are purchasing, such as whether you will have to pay any hidden charges of ownership such as the upkeep of the road and sewer, any financial charges on the property etc. These searches will also reveal whether your property is close to any new road schemes or railway schemes, whether any alterations to the property were carried out legally within the conditions of the planning permission, or whether planning permission was obtained at all.
It is now government policy to build wherever possible on ‘brown field’ sites. With Britain having led the industrial revolution, it is inevitable that some properties built in the last 100 years will have been built on potentially contaminated land, up to 400,000 sites have been identified. If the property you have bought is later found to be contaminated, you could be liable for the cleanup costs of the land, which can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. A purchaser could end up owning a property which has cost them, for example, £120,000. They could then become responsible for clean up costs exceeding the purchase price and end up with a property they can’t sell! Talk about negative equity!
It is also very important to most purchasers to know whether any of the following environmental risks are situated near to or even under the property.
Flood risk areas
Subsidence risks
Landslip risks
Mining & Mineral Extraction
Radon & Radon Protection Measures
Air Quality
Radio Masts
Landfill and Waste sites
Storage of Dangerous, Hazardous & Radioactive Substances
Past & Current Industrial Land use
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