If you're buying a home in New York, a measure pending in Albany would require the seller to notify you if the property is in a flood zone as per FEMA's 100 and 500-year flood zone maps.
"Property owners would have to disclose whether the property is located in a floodplain according to FEMA's flood insurance rate maps, whether the property is subject to requirements under federal law to obtain and maintain flood insurance, and the property's flood insurance history," reads versions of the bill, which were passed in both the state Assembly and Senate in June.
"States need to stop keeping homebuyers and renters in the dark about flooding," said Joel Scata, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "They can do that by revising disclosure laws to make sure that sellers and landlords are required to provide information about a property's flood history and risk." He noted that disclosing flood history is critical since once a house floods once, it will probably flood again. Homes impacted by one-time historic floods would fall under the purview of the law, such as those flooded during Hurricane Sandy.
"Often it's not clear if a home's flooded before because the damage has been repaired, or it doesn't seem like it's close to a creek or the shore," Scata explained. "You don't think you'd be at risk of flooding. But, where it rains, it can flood."
The Defense Council gave the state a failing grade in 2020 for not requiring the disclosure for home sales. The legislation would improve the failing grade, Scata said, if the legislation is signed into law. The council released a report in 2020 that showed New Yorkers bought more than 7,600 homes with flood damage they were not told about. The damage totaled around $23.5 million.
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