I'm wondering if any of you have been contacted by your mortgage company with a Flood Insurance Notification letter. Our mortgage company is telling us that our home has been classified within a flood zone. We were quite surprised by this news considering we just closed on this house in December and there was no mention at that time of possibly being in a flood zone.

I am in the process of obtaining more detailed information from our mortgage company, but in the meantime thought I'd ask around to see if anyone else is facing this issue. I would appreciate hearing from you if you have any information.

Thanks!

Brad Burrows

Flood Zone

I live at 1653 and my new neighbors on Glenlivet were scheduled to close on their home about two weeks ago and when they went to, they were told they were in a flood zone. This is according to the sellers agent who asked me if I was ever told this was a flood zone....my answer was no. This seems to be a new issue as no one has ever asked before and your comment was the second in a week. I do know that the sale finally went through.

Floodzone

Hi, my wife Lindsey and I moved in a few months ago. We received a notice from our lender that we are in a flood zone and I checked the survey of our house and it also indicates that we are in a flood zone, but I resolved it with our lender.

It turns out that at least part of the neighborhood was in a flood zone at one time, but no longer is (probably due to the developer grading the neighborhood). FEMA (the federal agency that keeps up with flood zones) however, is very slow about amedning their flood maps, so the current map still shows the neighborhood in a flood zone. In order to prove to our lender that we are not in a flood zone (so that we did not have to pay for flood insurance) we had to get a Letter of Map Amendment from FEMA (or a LOMA). To get a LOMA we had to get an Elevation Certificate from a surveyor (we just called the same person who did our survey when we bought the house, it cost about $200), and we sent the certificate along with some forms to FEMA. Then we just sent the LOMA to the lender.

You might be able to call FEMA and get them to send a LOMA without the Elevation Certificate because FEMA is already aware that the neighborhood is not in a flood zone, but we didn't try that, so I don't know.

I hope this helps. I'm an attorney and I practice real estate law, so if anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to help. Just let me know - (214) 327-4297.