LEN AND WINNIE SEMMENS did not know that their home in Redruth, Cornwall, was built on top of a mine until the garden disappeared one morning. Torrential rain had softened the earth and caused a six-metre hole to open in the lawn, revealing a mineshaft 60 metres deep. Later surveys also disclosed that a railway line had once cut across the property and a quarry, tin mine and slagheap were within 250 metres. Their retirement house seemed surrounded by acts of God waiting to happen.
We all know that estate agents can be supremely descriptive at times. If Keats had not turned his hand to odes there is a good chance he would have made a career out of transforming dingy hovels into “amply proportioned living spaces”. But while the very words “period features” might have many of us cooing, it is not much fun if the period is the Industrial Revolution and the feature is a copper mine beneath the gazebo.
“We have a great industrial heritage but it can be costly if you find that your ground is full of arsenic,” says James Sherwood-Rogers, of the environmental search company Landmark Information Group. His firm is campaigning to ensure that an environmental survey is included on the list of requirements for the forthcoming home information packs that sellers will have to compile. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is due to make a decision on the issue soon.
“With the pressure on housing and the need to implement regeneration strategies there will be an increasing number of properties built on brownfield land,” Sherwood-Rogers says. “This will mean that environmental issues in property transactions become increasingly important.”
At present a homeowner is liable for the costs of dealing with any contamination or other environmental calamity if the original culprit cannot be found. In the case of many Industrial Age companies, they may no longer exist, leaving a homeowner with the responsibility to clean up the mess.
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“It’s not just the issues of liability that should worry prospective buyers,” Sherwood-Rogers says. “The value and enjoyment of the house can seriously be affected by such issues as subsidence, radon, mobile phone masts, overhead power cables and flooding.”
In April 2000 Jonathan James Little sued his solicitor for negligence over the purchase of his property four years earlier. He had not been told that there had once been gravel extraction from within the boundaries of his land and that there had been landfill tipping after extraction. He later discovered that the property had suffered moderate to heavy contamination by metallic elements within the ground. The cost of decontaminating the land was put at between £850,000 and £1 million.
About half of all residential transactions include an environmental search. To make such a search obligatory in all sellers’ packs would add about £30 to the cost of the pack but put an end to any “last-minute surprises” for buyers, Sherwood-Rogers says.
He would be in favour, of course, given that his company must be eyeing up the 50 per cent of transactions that do not involve such surveys. Landmark, and its private-sector competitors, must also be keen that the task of compiling the reports is not given to a government quango such as the Environment Agency. But is it always essential to go hunting for potential environmental catastrophes?
Ben Stansfield, an environmental lawyer with Clifford Chance, says: “Solicitors have to comply with Law Society guidance on contaminated land liabilities. They have to consider whether contamination is an issue, make inquiries about the site and its history and advise the client of potential risk. But if they believe there is no risk of contamination then they do not have to undertake the search. Making it mandatory for sellers’ packs could increase the cost and time unnecessarily.”
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He adds that it is vital that the report is in a format that allows buyers properly to assess the risks — a £30 search that reveals something as bland as “potential for contamination” is not ideal. He suggests that perhaps a percentage risk score, which enables purchasers to decide whether to get more detailed analysis, costing a further £200 or so, would be more suitable.
Without wishing to predict John Prescott’s intentions, it seems unlikely that sellers’ packs will contain a universal requirement for such a survey. But if you are planning to buy in an area that is known to have been popular with miners and quarrymen then it might be wise to get the garden checked for pits before you buy.
www.landmarkinfo.co.uk