# What should I check on my list when moving house in the UK? Build your moving list around evidence you can actually verify: flood risk for the area, local services, transport and environmental factors. The official flood-risk service for England covers rivers, the sea, surface water, reservoirs and some groundwater, but it cannot tell you whether one specific property will flood. A moving-house checklist only earns its keep if every line points to something you can actually check. Vague items like "nice area" or "good vibes" tend to get skipped, because there is nothing to look up. A better list names the check, the source and what result would change your decision. This note sets out how to structure that list, with one item — flood risk — worked through in full, because it is the clearest example of an official check with defined limits. ## Start with the checks that have official answers Some neighbourhood questions have proper, dated answers from public services, and those belong at the top of the list. Flood risk is the best-documented example. The UK government's long-term flood-risk service for England tells you the long-term risk for an area, how climate change might increase the chance of flooding there, the possible causes of flooding, and how to manage the risk. It covers risk from rivers and the sea, surface water, reservoirs, and groundwater where data is available. The service links to separate checks for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so the right check depends on where in the UK you are moving. References: [https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk](https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk). ## Know what the flood check does not tell you This is where a lot of checklists go wrong: they treat a single official lookup as a full answer. The government service is explicit about its limits. It does not tell you how likely it is that an individual property will flood, and it does not cover flooding from blocked drains or burst pipes. So even a low-risk result for the area is not a guarantee about the specific house. If the property matters as much as the postcode — and it usually does — the area-level check is a first filter, not the final word. Anyone who cannot use the online service can phone Floodline on 0345 988 1188 instead. References: [https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk](https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk). ## A worked example: two shortlisted houses Suppose, hypothetically, you have two houses on your shortlist. For each one, you run the area flood-risk check and note the risk from each source it reports — rivers and the sea, surface water, reservoirs, groundwater. Imagine House A comes back with low long-term risk across the board, while House B sits in an area flagged for surface-water risk that climate change may increase. Neither result tells you the individual property will or will not flood. But it gives you a concrete difference to act on: for House B, you would ask the seller or their agent directly about drainage, any past flooding at the address, and what management measures exist, and you would weigh that against House A. That is the whole point of a checklist — it converts a vague worry into a question you can put to a named person. References: [https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk](https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk). ## The rest of the list: what this note can and cannot cover Beyond flood risk, a sensible UK moving list typically covers schools, transport links, emergency services and environmental factors such as pollution. Those are exactly the kinds of place evidence a decision brief of the kind Place Checker publishes is designed to pull together — dated school inspection records, transport data and care-service evidence, kept separate rather than merged into a single score. What this note cannot do is quote specific school ratings, pollution figures or emergency-service response times, because no such figures are established here — any numbers would be invented. Treat those items on your list as "check current official data" rather than assuming a result. References: [https://placechecker.co.uk/](https://placechecker.co.uk/). - Flood risk for the area, from the relevant UK nation's official service, noting each source of flooding it reports. - Whether climate change is expected to increase flood chance in that area. - Property-specific flood questions for the seller: past flooding at the address, drainage, and any management measures. - Schools, transport, emergency services and pollution — as items to verify against current official sources, not assumptions. - The date you ran each check, so you know how fresh the evidence is when you finally decide. References: [https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk](https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk), [https://placechecker.co.uk/](https://placechecker.co.uk/). One habit worth building: date every entry. Evidence about a place changes, and a checklist with dates tells you which lines need re-running before you exchange contracts. Your practical next step is to run the long-term flood-risk check for each area on your shortlist today, record what it says for each flooding source, and write down the property-specific questions the results raise for the seller. ## Sources - [https://placechecker.co.uk/](https://placechecker.co.uk/) — accessed 2026-10-18 - [https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk](https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk) — accessed 2026-10-18 - [https://placechecker.co.uk/](https://placechecker.co.uk/) — accessed 2026-10-17 Published 2026-10-18. PlaceChecker editorial; AI-assisted preparation. ## Next step - [Open placechecker.co.uk](https://placechecker.co.uk/)