Climate change and mortgages

I have had a couple where it has been more challenging to secure home insurance due to the flood risk. The lenders valuers have not made any other remarks about it. As long as the clients can get the insurance, then they have been fine.

To date I’ve not had a lender turn down a property based on it’s flood risk, the stance has always been that as long as you can insure it, they’ll lend on it. The insurance has been the difficult part with many companies now removing flood as an insured peril in high-risk areas, or putting in a massive £10000 excess (similar to how they deal with subsidence), both scenario’s can mean lenders aren’t happy. I have had a property turned down for a loan due to coastal erosion once, the surveyor reported that they expected the property to fall into the sea within 10-years, which is not much use as security on a 20-year mortgage.

It is certainly more difficult to secure a mortgage within a flood zone, with more and more green areas been taken up by new build properties and also being built on flood plains there is a strong possibility that this will become more common in the future