There are a number of different possible answers to this question:
- The previous owner could have purchased the land without having a lender involved. Only lenders are required to enforce participation in the National Flood Insurance Program; there is no public law requiring such participation. Therefore, people who purchase flood insurance do so either for their own protection or due to the requirement of their mortgage holder.
- The property may have been purchased before the flood maps and requirements concerning flood insurance were either in place or being enforced.
- The flood maps in a given area may have been recently revised. This works both ways in that area which were previously not located in a special hazard area may now be, or better yet, areas that had been categorized in a hazard zone may now be clear.