Selling our house : a few questions...

[Frostygills]

Hi, Were thinking of selling and moving up the property ladder, but unsure what to do about a few things:

We have a front porch on our house. The house was built with only a front canopy and the previous owners built up walls to create a porch. On our survey it showed this structure had subsidence but this risk was acceptable to our mortgage company. If we move our house insurance do we have to declare that our house has subsidence, even though the part that does, isn't actually part of the house and also do we have to declare this to any potential buyers.

Next, we have quite an old boiler (13 yrs), and when it first starts up from cold it sends a very loud noise all around the radiators. It's like a poping, rattling and banging noise. We had a plumber out last year about it ( we had a noise like a helicopter taking off then) and he said that we should have a powerflush, which may sort it out. We agreed, after having it done the helicopter noise went, but was replaced with this noise. The plumber stated that it was the boilers fault and it was 'kettling', caused by limescale or something built up in the bottom of the boiler and this was causing it to boil up and make the said banging noise. There isn't much noise from the boiler or radiators once it's been going for about an hour but for that first hour it is noisy. Anyway, it works fine other than that, do we have to declare this to any potential buyer, as it works fine but just not in a nice way.

One last question... We are just about to pay off our mortgage and the mortgage company has offered to hold onto the deeds if we keep the account open with 1 pound. Is there any benefit from them holding onto the deeds other than us?

Thanks to anyone who reply's in advance.

[parkesquay]

I think that I am correct in saying that until recently the benefit of paying a nominal sum to your mortgage lender meant that they kept your deeds/title to the house in a safe place. So if you had a fire/burglary etc at home your legal entitlement/proof of ownership documents were not at risk.

However, your house registration documents are now kept on computer at land registary offices in your area so theoretically at least your ownership should never be in doubt.

Why not just ask your mortgage company what the benefits are and then make a judgement. After all a pound is not a lot to pay for continued security and peace of mind.

[parkesquay]

The obvious answer to the porch bit is why not just remove it - problem solved. Any future owne who wants a porch can easily get any style fitted at a vert reasonable cost. Had one fitted myself on my last house and it cost me less than �800.

However you are obviously thinking of selling your house and it would probably be best to put all these matters right before you put your house on the market. After all a prospective buyers survey will highlight all these problems and you may find that any house sale will fall through because of it.

Yes you could considerably reduce the price of your house to cover the cost of potential works needed but in my experience the vast majority of purchasers want a house ready to move into not something to have to work on.

[Frostygills]

Thanks for your replies, I think we will keep the deeds with the current mortgage lender as you say it's only a quid!

The porch is tricky, as it's not just a porch but our front door too, with the old front door being an internal door now. Were going to try an get an offical word from the insurance company, but are reluctant to pull it down. If we can't get insurance, I'd guess were gonna have to rebuild it again.