flood zone
What does it exactly mean if part of the land is in the flood zone, but the building is not?
Thank you
Julia Xie
Keller Williams Realty
It means you're buying flood insurance in most cases...
And it's expensive.
There are things that can be done to reduce costs. I have a whole post about it:
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/61/topics/364937-reducing-flood-insurance-costs?page=1#p2316931
Lenders generally only mandate you to purchase flood insurance on your buildings. Thus, the vast majority of the time the lender only mandates flood insurance on a building if the building is in the flood zone.
To be sure, a lender has the right to mandate flood insurance even if your entire property is on top of a mountain. And if that happens you have the right to find another lender, or contact an engineering firm like us who can resolve a FEMA Flood Map issue and make it more clear for a concerned lender.
#1 Insurance Contributor
- Insurance Agent
- Norwalk, CT
Julia,
I have seen this mulitple times, the intial report from the Mortgagee is that you will need to have Flood Insurance. Once you can show that the Building is not in an A or V zone they will usually back off that requirement. If the property is that close to an A or V zone you may want to find out the pricing on a flood policy. WIth the new "private markets" and the building not being in an A or V zone the cost may not be too great.
@Barrett Bridgewater - this dude is wicked smart!! @Julia Xie as @John Mocker mention sometimes when the lenders pull the report called a flood zone determination (FZD) it is not really all that good and sometimes these venders that provide the FZD to or friendly lenders don't have much more then parcel information most I have seen that lenders get don't even have a map attached. So the FZD they have isn't really saying anything but the parcel is in a high risk flood zone.
AS Barrett mentioned flood insurance can only be written on a structure. And even if just a smaller corner is in the high risk flood zone usually identified with a "AE" then the whole building is considered in a high risk flood zone. And your lender will require coverage this is due to a federal law.
When we are working with a client and we see that the FZD we pulled clearly shows that the structure isn't in a high risk flood zone. I have suggested to a few clients to request a flood zone dispute with their lender - I send over the FZD I have (that has a map) and explain that the structure is what the lender can require coverage on.
Sometimes the lender agree with our FZD sometimes they do not care and will keep their information. The thing is any lender can require flood insurance regardless of flood zone it is their call. Most don't if the structure or property isn't in the high-risk flood zone but they can if they desire.
The FZD we pull is usually more accurate since there are somewhere around 70 venders that provide these FZD service to lenders and their accuracy varies from vender to vender.
here is a map showing The blue represents the high risk flood zone Identified with a AE and the elevation.
the orange/yellow color is a X500 which is not a flood zone that lenders will require flood coverage if you carefully at the map you can see some parcels that are in the blue but the structure isn't or some where the structure is partially in the AE flood zone.
@Barrett Bridgewater
Hi Barrett. Just want to pick your brain. My husband and I are currently looking at a property that is 17.8 acres that borders a river. It is currently zoned agricultural and is in an AE flood zone. We would like to purchase the property with intent to build our forever home in the future, but we do not want to purchase unless we can guarantee we can build in the future. The county will require a flood study completed prior to building and rezoning approximately 1 acre for building. What would be the best way to go about ensuring we could rezone part of the property prior to moving forward with purchasing? What advice do you have? We have contacted a couple surveyors to tour the property with us but waiting to hear back. Is rezoning an AE property from agricultural to residential something difficult to do?
Good question. A lot depends on the local process and getting a solid local engineering firm to walk you through it. They will know the local requirements and process. Sounds like you have already started that, which is good.
An AE flood zone is good... because there is a determined "flood level" in that zone. There are other flood zone types that do not have determined flood levels... for which you have to spend money with an engineering firm doing Hydro analysis to find out. So if this were to be step one, then that information is already known.
Step 2. Our recommendation is for your Surveying firm to complete a Topographic Survey. That will provide land elevations. With that information, our expertise is to next compare it to the flood zone and determine 1. What areas of land can you petition FEMA to have flood zone designation removed (if any) 2.how much fill/dirt might need to be brought in.
Since dirt/fill is expensive the goal is to find land that is already elevated above the flood level... for which the flood maps just did not accurately catch.
Topo surveys can be costly too. If there is a way to split the cost with the current owner... so they can have the information in case you decide not to buy... that might be another recommendation.
@Sara Lightsey The alternative is to bring in dirt or move the dirt to mount elevation if your land doesn't naturally have higher ground. Is to build an elevated home above the Base Flood Elevation (BFE).
If you want, you can send me the flood map that shows the number of the BFE and I can look at it for you.
If you build higher than the BFE, you could reduce your flood insurance cost.
If the land has sections that are in a lower-risk flood zone (usually identified with an X flood zone). If you build here your lender won't require flood coverage.
If the parcel doesn't have any lower-risk flood zone on it (AKA higher elevation). Your lender will likely require an under-construction flood policy. And you will need an under-construction Elevation Certificate (EC) that your builder or surveyor can fill in based on drawings, and then you have a year to build.
You will then need to get a finished construction EC that will be based on the actual structure.
@Barrett Bridgewater is an expert in getting people LOMA that removes the requirement to get flood insurance and gives such solid advice. I want to echo that it is a good thing that there is an AE (established elevation) on the flood zone, meaning that the government has already done studies typographic and maybe hydro study, so... if you can get ahold of these documents, you might not need to pay for your survey to be done.
My recommendation would be to contact your region FEMA representative.
https://www.fema.gov/about/org...
Go to which region (state). And then click on contact. We, Flood Nerds, have always found them quite helpful.
You can also contact your local building code department and ask, "who is the Flood Plain manager" this person should have access to and get you the maps and studies you could use to plan your build. Note: some local government sites have these people listed on them. Good luck. Your flood nerd.
@Robert Murphy @Barrett Bridgewater
Thank y’all so much for the information. That is very helpful. I did actually hear back from the county flood plain manager today. She said that a flood assessment would be required in order to rezone the property. Although, I don’t fully understand if the BFE is known why this still needs to be completed?
@Robert Murphy I would like to send you the flood map just to get your opinion since you seem to understand this much better than I do.
I did search on the FEMA site and found that there was. LOMA completed on the neighboring property in 2018, although that property is not adjacent to the river like the property we are looking at.
@Sara Lightsey Yes, if you are looking to get a LOMA (aka rezone), then you would need to get the land surveyed @Barrett Bridgewater, and his company is experts at accomplishing this. The BFE on your property looks around 478.7, which is how high the flood waters will rise. I used a tool to guess where the land is at https://whatismyelevation.com/ , and putting in the address, I get the number 476. So if that is the number for the land and the BFE is 478.7 - 476, the land is considered a -2.7, meaning if you were to build the structure without any elevation (built on post) and you would need to build at least 2 ft higher then the 478.7. we recommend at least 4 feet, so this could mean that the house would need to be 6 or 7 feet off the land. The goal is if/when it floods, the water would simply go under the building and not damage any of the living areas. Your flood nerd
