There are some things that you discover in life, that just don’t mix or shouldn’t be put together – oil and water; politicians and your money…they either don’t mix or mix a bit too well!
Unfortunately the same is often true of Japanese knotweed and mortgages. Some banks and Building Societies hear the words Japanese knotweed and refuse to lend money on that property. Essentially they won’t take the risk. We have seen this scenario with a number of properties in the last 12 months; even where the knotweed is 30m or more from the buildings (possibly on a neighbour’s land) and poses no significant risk whatsoever to the property’s structural integrity. Sales fall through on this point. Yet normally there is no/little risk for the mortgage company, the main issues that they are concerned about are obviously damage to the asset and implications on the subsequent re-sale of the property (if the house is repossessed). However it is often an overreaction by the mortgage company, as a simple herbicide programme will manage the knotweed and for little relative expense eradicate it completely over a number of years. For more money, we could excavate the knotweed and remove it from site completely; however this is not always necessary and is costly and is not the best solution when considering the environment.
However not all properties have the option of excavation. We have experience of speaking to people with knotweed growing out of the ground at the base of their buildings. Total excavation in these circumstances is not an option – if we excavated 2m vertically down, the building would probably collapse! Even if we excavated in stages and underpinned as we went, the knotweed rhizome probably extends under the building, so how could we excavate it fully without major structural works? In these cases a long term herbicide programme is the only realistic option.
It is often easier for the potential purchaser of a property that has a knotweed problem, either to find another property to buy or to find another mortgage company; than to persuade the first mortgage company to change their minds. If selling a property with Japanese knotweed, than my advice is to call in a professional company to start treating the knotweed. This should be done sooner, rather than later. If you need a quicker alternative, we can survey the site and assess. Sometimes, we can combine methods i.e. excavate the main areas next to a building, and use a herbicide programme to mop up the remaining growth, so it’s worthwhile talking to us sooner rather than later.
The main thing to be aware of is, that there are no instant solutions. All methods will take some time, from a few weeks to a few years. The shorter the timescale that we have to deal with the knotweed, the more expensive it will be. All our solutions are tried and tested and adhere to the Environment Agency’s Code of Practice ‘Managing Japanese knotweed on development sites’.
Please email me with any specific questions that you want me to address through the blog or otherwise and I’ll try to answer them. Email Brian Taylor here
thinking of buying a property with an invasive knot weed problem. What would you estimate the cost of removal to be if managed over a 12 month period?
Thank you
Samantha,
Thank you for your question. To eradicate Japanese knotweed completely in a 12 month period will require excavation and removal. How expensive this is and how feasible will depend on a number of factors. As a ball park figure I would say for a small infestation between £5-10,000.00. However a 3-year herbicide programme would only be around £1600.00 (incl VAT). Please contact us if you need a more specific quotation, it would be useful if you had some photographs of the property, showing the location of the Japanese knotweed and an idea of the area covered.