Flood risk for a property
property_flood_riskThe Environment Agency's surface-water flood risk for a single property, by UPRN, free.
Same call over REST
Property flood risk/v1/property/{uprn}/flood-riskNot connected yet? Connect your assistant. Sign in with your MarketCode account; no API key needed.
Reference
What property_flood_risk answers
Surface-water flooding is the flooding most urban properties actually face: rainfall that cannot drain away, pooling in the street and the basement. It is separate from the river-and-sea flood zones, and it is the layer a lender's exclusion criterion and a buyer's survey both ask about. This call returns the Environment Agency's Risk of Flooding from Surface Water band for one property, keyed on its UPRN.
The fluvial and tidal flood zones (zone 1 low, zone 2 medium, zone 3 high, ignoring defences) are returned inside planning_designations, so the two calls together give the full flood position: the property's own surface-water band and the zone the location sits in.
Reference
When to use it, and when not to
Use it whenever a property is being valued, lent against, insured or bought. It is free, so an assistant running the valuation or due diligence skill calls it as a matter of course and reports the band beside the value. The site dossier (site_appraisal) includes the flood check among its live designations for land and sites.
Inputs
Before you call it
A UPRN. Resolve the address with address_autocomplete (free) and address_resolve (8 credits) first, or take the UPRN from a property summary or a sourcing result.
- uprn
- A UPRN is the Unique Property Reference Number every UK address carries. Narrow the address with address_autocomplete, which is free, then address_resolve returns the UPRN for 8 credits. property_summary and address_by_postcode return UPRNs too.
Example
An example call to property_flood_risk
Use the MarketCode tool property_flood_risk with {"uprn":"200003443835"} and show me the result.{
"uprn": "200003443835",
"country": "UK",
"data": {
"data": {
"status": "error",
"uprn": "200003443835",
"data": null,
"reason": "Coordinates required for surface water lookup."
}
},
"credits_charged": 0
}A real response, captured from production and trimmed: arrays to three items, long strings shortened, volatile keys dropped.
Inputs
Arguments property_flood_risk takes
| Name | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| uprn | string | Yes |
Response
What comes back
| Field | Type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| uprn | string | 200003443835 |
| country | string | UK |
| data | object | |
| data.data | object | |
| data.data.status | string | error |
| data.data.uprn | string | 200003443835 |
| data.data.data | null | |
| data.data.reason | string | Coordinates required for surface water lookup. |
| credits_charged | integer | 0 |
Fields observed in the example response above; a field the example did not exercise is not listed.
Reference
Things that catch people out
- Surface water is not the flood zone. A property can be in flood zone 1 with high surface-water risk, or in zone 3 with low surface-water risk. Report both, named.
- England only. The Environment Agency's layers cover England; Natural Resources Wales and SEPA publish their own, which are not in this tool.
- Risk, not history. The band is a modelled probability from the Agency's layers, not a record of past flooding at the address. A survey and the seller's disclosures are where history comes from.
Usage
How to run property_flood_risk in your assistant
Ask your assistant in plain English, for example:
"Use the MarketCode tool property_flood_risk for <address or area>.
Show the result and the credits charged."
The arguments the assistant will send, for the example on this page:
{"uprn":"200003443835"}The connect steps for Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor and Claude Code are on the MCP page.
Skills
Skills that use property_flood_risk
- Property research: A sourced answer to any UK property question: the right tool for the job, the credit cost stated first, the wording rules that keep an estimate an estimate.
- Valuation report: An indicative valuation for one address: the range, the comparables and adjustments, the index position, the EPC, flood and planning context, and the reasoning, with every figure cited to the tool it came from.
- Due diligence report: A property due diligence report: title and ownership, history, EPC and council tax, flood and designations, nearby activity, cross-source disagreements and the cross-reference findings that join them, with a traffic light.
- Deal analysis: A first-pass appraisal of a site or asset: plot utilisation, planning position, market evidence, value and a residual against the cost assumptions you supply.
- Planning check: Every designation and constraint at an address, recent applications nearby and the flood position, laid out the way a planner reads them.
Price and licence
What it costs, and where the data comes from
property_flood_risk is free over MCP and over REST, and the two surfaces share one credit balance. Free calls need a signed-in account or an API key and appear in your usage, but they never touch your balance.
Credits are granted on sign-up and bought in packs; the pricing page lists every call.
Sources
- Environment Agency
Risk of Flooding from Surface Water and Flood Zones
Open Government Licence v3 · England
Related
Tools used with property_flood_risk
- Planning designations at a locationFree
planning_designationsEvery planning designation affecting a location, in one call: conservationPairs with this - Site appraisal dossier5 credits
site_appraisalEverything known about ONE site, assembled and judged — the site dossier.Pairs with this - Property summary4 credits
property_summaryOne-call summary of a property: what it is, what building it belongs to,Pairs with this - Full property record5 credits
property_lookupFull property record for a UPRN, grouped into tiers: identity, property,Pairs with this - Commercial property report: RV, indexes, yield, owner2 credits
commercial_propertyThe commercial property report, by UPRN or by VOA UARN: the hereditament as the 2026 rating list describes it (rateable value, sector, description), the sector's rent index across the 2010/2017/2023/2026 lists and its capital index (national, plus the local authority where one exists), an income-basis value that capitalises the RV at the district's commercial auction net yield — with the yield's receipt, and `not_available` where the district published none — the auction history at the address, the district's commercial auction market by quarter, the registered owner and the lease. Blocks that cannot be derived today say `not_available` with the reason (the RV history per hereditament; the VOA measured area). RV is a rating measure at the antecedent valuation date, not passing rent — say so when you quote the income-basis figure. UK only.Same category - Council tax bandFree
council_tax_bandVOA council tax band for a property, from the official list.Same category
FAQ
Questions about property_flood_risk
How much does `property_flood_risk` cost?
+
property_flood_risk is free over MCP and over REST, and the two surfaces share one credit balance. Free calls need a signed-in account or an API key and appear in your usage, but they never touch your balance.
Do I need to resolve the address first?
+
Yes. property_flood_risk takes a UPRN, not an address. Start with address_autocomplete (free) to narrow the address, then address_resolve (8 credits) to get the UPRN. An assistant with the MarketCode skills installed does both steps on its own.
Which assistants can run `property_flood_risk`?
+
Any MCP client: Claude (claude.ai, Claude Desktop, Claude Code), ChatGPT in developer mode, Codex and Cursor, each documented on the MCP page. You sign in with your MarketCode account over OAuth; there is no key to paste, and the connection is read-only.
Where does the data come from?
+
Read from Environment Agency flood data. Coverage is England (Environment Agency).
Does `property_flood_risk` change anything?
+
No. The tool is annotated read-only on the server, so it never writes to your data or ours and an assistant can call it without a confirmation step.
What do the bands mean?
+
The Environment Agency bands surface-water risk as very low, low, medium and high, by the annual chance of flooding from surface water. The response carries the band as the Agency publishes it.
Does MarketCode have insurance or Flood Re data?
+
No. The response is the Agency's risk band. Whether a property is insurable and at what premium is a matter for the insurer and the Flood Re scheme.
How does this relate to the valuation?
+
The band is reported beside the value so that the person reading the number can weigh it; the range and the trust score describe the evidence behind the value, not the flood position.
Try property_flood_risk in your assistant.
30-minute call. We'll connect your assistant live on a real address.