JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Looking to buy a house in Florida?
A new bill could require sellers to disclose flood risk information at or before the time of the sale.
Renter Kevin Smith moved to Florida from New Hampshire six weeks ago and quickly learned about flooding near Alamo Street and South Hampton Road.
“I mean, it’s pretty much every day, this corner, the intersection, these two streets will get completely flooded to the point where it’s impassable,” Smith said.
Lucky for Smith, since he’s been there, the flood waters haven’t reached his house.
He also said when moving in he didn’t know if the house had any flood damage.
There is a bill now headed to the governor’s desk that would require sellers to disclose flooding information about a home. They must give a form titled “flood disclosure” and it has to include flood insurance disclaimers specifically how the homeowner’s insurance doesn’t include flood damage, if the seller has filed claims for flood damage to the property either through insurance or the National Flood Insurance Program or if the seller received federal assistance for flood damage including assistance from FEMA.
“Many homeowners today don’t realize that they don’t have flood insurance,” said Mark Freidlander with the Insurance Information Institute who said having this disclosure will help homeowners understand the risk of flooding. “We’ve heard of many real estate transactions from Florida, where the buyer was not aware and then learned after the fact that the home had to stain significant flood damage on one or maybe even more than one occasion. So clearly, this has been a problem in the past.”
Here’s why lawmakers say it’s needed.
The Natural Resources Defense Council said homeowners who unknowingly purchase a home with undisclosed flood damage are likely to be inundated with bills up to tens of thousands of dollars to repair the damage.
According to FloridaFloodInsurance.org, Florida is more likely to flood than any other state because of its flat terrain. The state averages 59.21 inches of rain every year and one-third of the properties in the state are at risk of severe flooding in the next 30 years.
Smith’s neighbor Christopher Copeland said he knew about the flooding but the owner of his house said they didn’t think it flooded often.
“Whenever we have king tide with a nor’easter. It comes right in,” he said. “Whenever we first moved in, we noticed that there had been water, you know, that had gotten underneath the subfloor. You know, knowledge is power. If you don’t know that your house can flood, you can’t, you know, factor that in.”
32 states require some form of flood disclosures in real property transactions.
But 18 states, including Florida, don’t require the seller to include that information.