The top five conveyancing risks…and how to manage them

To take a deeper look into the most frequent conveyancing risks, we produced several articles throughout 2021:

• Ground Stability
• Flood
• Planning
• Coal
• Energy & Infrastructure

Here is a quick run-through of the points of each article and some quick links to their accompanying resources.

Ground Stability

Subsidence is thought to affect up to 20% of residential properties in England and Wales. This is costly to the insurance industry with over 10,000 homeowners making claims worth £64 million.

It can be a fundamental problem, caused by:

• the addition or removal of vegetation
• changes in the water table
• mining activity

To find out if there is a risk of subsidence on a property, it is best to order an environmental report which specifically addresses subsidence issues.

This report should provide information on the risk of all forms of subsidence, infilled land, mining and subsidence claim data. RiskView Residential is one such report and can be ordered easily as part of a standard pack.

If subsidence is identified, it is then best to seek advice from a RICS Charter Surveyor to conduct a building survey.

Flood

This article was written by Mark Taylor, Channel Manager at Landmark Information and environmental auditor with the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment. He advises that “over 5 million properties are at risk” from flooding and considers whether this is an issue taken seriously by the conveyancing industry, the government and the homebuyer.

He asks:

• Are we doing enough to protect ourselves and our assets?
• Are we taking risk seriously enough?
• Are we doing enough to protect ourselves from risk where it exists?
• What is within the conveyancer’s control?

As we move forward, should the conveyancer be exploring flood risk as standard? The Landmark flood reports offer a manual review of data by a consultant where an elevated risk may exist, at no extra cost. This is within both the Landmark Flood report and the market-leading All-in-One environmental report, RiskView Residential.

Planning

As this article says, change is inevitable. The housing market is going through a period of major change. The government is making headway with updates into what it sees as out of date and complex planning laws. In addition, the government has set itself ambitious targets for building new houses.

This push for urbanisation will affect existing properties in currently rural areas. New towns and some of the larger estates planned will also require additional amenities. All these factors will need to be considered by a potential buyer.

The Landmark Planning report, as well as Landmark’s all-in-one environmental due-diligence report, RiskView Residential uses a unique dataset based on polygons as well as point data to provide the most comprehensive insights into planning data and provides the fullest picture of a property to clients.

Coal

Although economic and political influences mean coal mining has now virtually ceased in the UK, old and disused mines and their legacies can still affect a property:

• Subsidence
• Sinkholes
• Opencast mining
• Mine entries (shafts and adits)

This article gives a clear overview of the types of risk that come from coal mining, and looks at several reports that you can obtain through Landmark that all include:

• Easy to digest information on the nature of any risk
• Accurate reporting of risks, even in areas known by The Coal Authority to be problematic
• Technical queries handled by industry professionals and experts
• Thorough industry knowledge of mining information, its complexities and limitations
• Includes a Professional Opinion on the next steps on identified issues

Energy and Infrastructure

The final article in the risk series focuses on large scale infrastructure projects. The UK Government is planning significant expenditure into infrastructure and the creation of a new National Infrastructure Bank.

This article looks at:

• The rebirth of infrastructure
• Infrastructure and Property
• Green Investment
• Our value of space
• What is being reported and is it reasonable?

Both Landmark’s Energy and Infrastructure report and their market-leading All-in-One environmental report, RiskView Residential provide the information to this, searching to a shorter radius in urban centres so as not to identify an unlikely issue.

We hope you have found this series informative. To find out how to include Risk products in your bundle, please call our Service Introduction Team on 01782 433 270 or email intro@onesearchdirect.co.uk.