USA: What happens when you buy a house in a disaster zone – and no one told you?
By Molly Peterson
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Every US state has seen high water in the last five years; flooding is the largest and most frequent disaster in the country. But in 21 states, homeowners are guaranteed little information about flood risk, according to an analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
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In the Carolinas, where Hurricane Florence recently dumped nearly 3ft of rain, both states require only that sellers tell buyers of their “actual knowledge” of flood hazards. South Carolina property owners must disclose whether they have flood insurance at the time of sale. In North Carolina, even where past federal aid requires flood insurance, buyers aren’t guaranteed to find out about a property’s risk. If you were supposed to have flood insurance but didn’t, says Scata, “your chances of getting federal aid are pretty slim”. Many homes in both states outside the federally designated 100-year floodplain are still drying out; for them, disclosure requirements and their consequences are murky at best.
Notification efforts for property owners vulnerable to disaster remain uneven across the US, with wide gaps. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration says 2017 saw a record $300bn in disaster loss, much of it from fires.
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Market forces offer homeowners like MacKay a glimpse of risk. Housing prices are a weak signal for disasters; despite the fires in Santa Rosa, California, for example, the median home price there has continued to climb. But the cost of insurance does tell property owners about fire and flood, if imperfectly.
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