Conveyancers at risk of fury from home buyers

Conveyancers at risk of fury from home buyers

According to Searchflow conveyancers are said to be risking ‘buyer fury’ if they do not fully appreciate the impact that High Speed 2 (HS2) will have on property values along its route, commenting:
“Local authorities are only identifying properties within 200 metres of the route, placing conveyancers at risk of fury from home buyers unwittingly purchasing blighted homes”.
HS2 is the proposed high speed railway between London, the Midlands and the North of England, being developed by HS2 Ltd.  If HS2 is approved construction could begin in 2017 with the first trains using the line in 2025.
Currently the CON29, the existing Local Authority Search, is only required to notify whether a property is within 200 metres of HS2 and this could potentially cause a future headache for conveyancers.
With the government admitting that construction and operation of HS2 will be noisy, dusty, fume filled and sporting artificial lighting buyers will want to avoid a nasty shock when work starts, even if their property is not within the 200 metre radius.
Shockingly only one Local Authority, out of the twenty two that the route runs through, have said that it will provide any information ‘above and beyond’ the 200 metres mark stated in the CON29.
It is said that the noise alone will affect 4,700 homes with £97 million being wiped off property values and £90 million worth of property being demolished.
David Kempster, Director of Searchflow, said:
“Homebuyers face uncertainty for the next decade and a half.  Only small sections of the route will utilise existing railway lines.  This is clearly a huge project that will lead to disruption on a corresponding scale.  The majority of the route will require new lines and associated works such as tunnels, viaducts, and bridges.  HS2’s ‘rail corridor’ could be 200 feet wide in places.  It will cost £32 billion to construct.  Hundreds of properties will need to be demolished and thousands will be blighted by their proximity to it during the construction process and from disturbance when the line is built — it’s certainly enough to devalue your home significantly.
“Of the 22 Local Authorities that look as if they might be affected, only 1 told us they will offer more than the minimum information they are required to provide.  Potential homebuyers could easily get trapped into buying a property that they don’t know will suffer at the hands of HS2.”
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