I've been helping a home buyer purchase a home in Somerville. They signed the TAR form "Information About Special Flood Zone Areas" the day our offer was accepted.

Now they are claiming they never knew it was in a flood zone and were told by their insurance company yesterday that they would have to pay $4,500 annually which is a "deal breaker" for them.

I contacted another insurance company and was given the exact same figure. The next door neighbor evidently only pays $850 annually.

I was told I need an elevation certificate so I contacted the surveyor of the existing one we are using and was informed they do not do elevation certificates anymore and they would likely need to refer me out to a local engineering company in College Station but have yet to do so.

Has anybody experienced this and if so, has providing an elevation certificate resulted in a significant decrease in the flood insurance premium? I'm willing to foot the bill on the elevation certificate but don't want to if it's not even going to make much of a difference.

Closing is scheduled ten days from now and this has turned into an absolute nightmare. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

The seller's disclosure they (presumably) signed would be where the floodplain info is disclosed.

The information about flood zones is more of an FYI than anything.

To answer your question, it just depends. If the elevation of the structure is considerably higher than the base elevation for that particular flood zone, then it should be quite a bit lower.

I think some folks are still grandfathered with old flood policies so the neighbors amount might not be relevant.

Flood maps are always changing so it is possible the sellers did not know they were in a flood zone now. (they were notified but tossed the mail.)

The elevation cert will only help IF the actual structure is out of the flood plain. The property will be flagged if any portion of the property is in the flood zone but it might just a be a few feet at the back or front of the property not getting any where near the structure. if this is the case, the elevation cert will show where the flood line is and if not touching the structure then that should at the very least reduce or even eliminate the need for insurance. (although lots of places where not in a flood zone during Harvey as well, so if that close I would be buying some sort of insurance even if not required.)

If the neighbor is paying $850 for insurance, they were already in the 100 year.

See if a company like EZ Flood will insure it. I own a property in Somerville (Snook actually) and I was able to obtain flood insurance through EZ Flood. Premium was in the $800 range. However, the property flooded during Harvey and EZ Flood paid out a sizable claim so they dropped my flood insurance. I had to get an elevation certificate done and am now going through Assurant and the premium is $2500 with a $1250 deductible or goes down to $1800 with a $10k deductible (and there's options in between as well). This lady coordinated the elevation certificate:

Katherine Swoboda

Senior Account Representative-Flood Dept.

CDS Commercial Due Diligence Services / Flood Elevation Services

3550 W Robinson Street, Third Floor, Norman, OK 73072

(405) 253-2417 Direct |(877) 237-8950 Flood Line|(800) 954-0759 fax

kswoboda@firstam.com | www.elevationcert.com

As others have said it's just going to depend on the individual house. The $4500 is the max and that's what it cost without the elevation cert. I had one just like yours but you could see the house was built up high so I knew it was worth paying for. After the flood cert, they only thing found to be below flood elevation was the central air. Was only a couple hundred a year to cover it or it could have been elevated. If you have a survey that shows where the flood zone is on the property, you might be able to get a better guess.

I work for a civil engineering & surveying company with offices across Texas, including one in College Station.

If the survey required for the EC concludes that your home's slab is above the 100-year water surface elevation, it will effectively tell FEMA that your structure is above the 100-year, and result in significant savings in your flood insurance costs. The higher above the 100-year water surface you are, the more savings there will likely be.

However, if the survey shows that your slab is not higher than the water surface elevation, then there wont be any cost savings. It all depends on the elevation of your slab compared to the water elevation from the stream/creek.

Let me know, and I can get you in touch with someone in our College Station office who should be able to help you with an EC.

tford12 said:

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I work for a civil engineering & surveying company with offices across Texas, including one in College Station.

If the survey required for the EC concludes that your home's slab is above the 100-year water surface elevation, it will effectively tell FEMA that your structure is above the 100-year, and result in significant savings in your flood insurance costs. The higher above the 100-year water surface you are, the more savings there will likely be.

However, if the survey shows that your slab is not higher than the water surface elevation, then there wont be any cost savings. It all depends on the elevation of your slab compared to the water elevation from the stream/creek.

Let me know, and I can get you in touch with someone in our College Station office who should be able to help you with an EC.

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Thanks everybody for the input and for the offer for the referral here. The SD did indicate that the home is located in the 100 year flood plain. The buyers also signed this.

Closing was supposed to take place tomorrow but they foolishly elected to terminate last week and not even take me up on my offer to pay for an elevation certificate ($700) to see if it would help. They forfeited their entire earnest money plus the cost of inspections.

Of course they blamed me for not telling them it could be in a flood zone when I provided them every bit of information for them to sign. They said "I don't remember signing anything". By then I'd had enough and said "Really? It was only three weeks ago. Not to mention the home is by LAKE Somerville so common sense might tell you it could be located in a flood zone".

Oh well. You can't fix stupid no matter how much education you provide someone. The most frustrating part is that I've never gone so far above and beyond to help a buyer yet somehow I ended up the ahole.