• With 1 in 4 British homes* and approximately 185,000 commercial properties** at risk from flooding, Landmark launches service that will assist solicitors in enhancing their due diligence requirements • Landmark's ordering website (www.landmarklegalreports.co.uk) can now screen all residential and commercial properties for potential flooding hazards

With flooding set to become a more frequent occurrence as the issue of global warming worsens and more properties likely to be affected, Landmark Information Group, the UK's leading provider of flood data, has enhanced its range of flood risk assessment services and developed a pioneering new flood screening tool.

The value-added service which is built into Landmark's ordering website (www.landmarklegalreports.co.uk) is available for solicitors to screen both residential and commercial properties for potential flood risk at the time they are ordering an environmental report. The screening tool contains information from Landmark's core flooding data sets including exclusive data from Risk Management Solutions (RMS), and covers all sources of flood risk including surface water and minor river flooding, which is believed to have caused around 50 per cent of the damage from the 2007 summer floods.

The service will alert a solicitor if their client's property is in the vicinity of a potential flooding hazard. If a hazard is present, the web page will display a recommended flag next to the Homecheck Flood Report for residential properties, and a recommended flag next to the Sitecheck Flood Report for a commercial property. By recommending these reports upfront, at the same time as an environmental report, solicitors have access to the most comprehensive flood reports on the market. The Homecheck and Sitecheck flood reports include additional, essential data that isn't contained in a standard environmental report, providing solicitors with a much better capability of protecting their client's property.

Landmark aims to make the screener more widely available to search providers to enable them to also screen for flood risk. To raise awareness of the issue of flooding in the UK, Landmark has also recently launched the 'Know Your Flood Risk' campaign in association with the National Flood Forum.

James Sherwood-Rogers, Managing Director of Landmark Legal & Financial, comments: “It is important for solicitors to check if their client's are at risk so that they can ensure they take the appropriate steps to protect their assets. Our flood screening service will cut unnecessary expenditure on flood information and enable solicitors to make more informed decisions about due diligence when their clients are thinking of buying a specific property.”

The Homecheck Professional Flood Report is the most comprehensive residential flood report on the market and provides additional, essential data that isn't contained in a standard environmental report; giving a clear understanding of the level of flood risk in order to protect an investment. Obtaining this comprehensive flood risk information at an early stage ensures a homebuyer is fully informed of potential risk to a prospective property and is available for just £16.15 +VAT.

The Sitecheck Flood Report provides solicitors and property professionals involved in a commercial transaction with an accurate and comprehensive flood risk assessment. Unique to the report, Sitecheck Flood includes an independent professional opinion of risk from a dedicated team of expert consultants at RPS, one of the largest providers of bespoke Flood Risk Assessments in the UK. Sitecheck Flood is available from just £95.00 + VAT.

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For further information, please visit www.homecheckflood.co.uk or contact Kathryn Morgan on 0207 025 7545 or kathryn.morgan@trimediauk.com.

For further information on Landmark Information Group visit www.landmark.co.uk or call 0844 844 9966.

The calculation of 1 in 4 British homes at flood risk is based on the number of residential homes within the 2008 RMS 1,000-year Inland Flood risk zones compared to the total number of homes in Britain. The flood risk map identifies areas at risk from all sources of precipitation-driven flooding including flooding from major and minor rivers and surface water flow. The 1,000-year flood risk map identifies areas that would be at risk under very extreme rainfall and flooding.

Environment Agency.

Notes to editors:

About Landmark Landmark Information Group, part of the Daily Mail General Trust, is the UK's leading supplier of digital mapping services, property, and environmental risk information.

Its Homecheck Professional Flood Report is the UK's most comprehensive residential flood report of its kind featuring not only data from the Environment Agency, and Norwich Union (the UK's biggest flood insurers), but also includes records of actual flood claims in the local area. For more information and practical guidance on the increasing risk of flood visit www.homecheckflood.co.uk.

Landmark has recently launched the Know Your Flood Risk Campaign in association with the National Flood Forum. The campaign is to help raise awareness of the issue of flood and encourage practical guidance and support to help protect homeowners, businesses and property professionals against the risks. For more information and to join today visit www.knowyourfloodrisk.co.uk.

About RMS Risk Management Solutions is the world's leading provider of products and services for catastrophe risk management. More than 400 leading insurers, reinsurers, trading companies, and other financial institutions rely on RMS models to quantify, manage, and transfer risk. Founded at Stanford University in 1988, RMS serves clients today from offices in the U.S., Bermuda, the U.K., France, Switzerland, India, China, and Japan. For more information, visit our website at www.rms.com.