House Build Date? Decrypting old title and deed documents?

T7GE90

How does one go about finding out when their property is built? I'm currently going through a purchase and getting insurance. It seems like finding a true / accurate build date is rather difficult or if not impossible on some properties?

As I understand the Land Registry do not keep records of build dates but in some circumstances you can figure out when it was built.

I asked the agent and she said it will most likely be 1950's. I asked the owner and she said it may be 1930's but is not sure. I asked the mortgage company and they don't know or care. I asked my solicitor and he said from his checks he is not able to determine the date and I should try asking the mortgage provider or look online. I asked the insurance company and they say I should try to make it as accurate as possible but they also have no idea how to get it.

I've been looking through some of the old property documentation (both the abstract of title and the deeds), they are very old documents and kinda cryptic so it's hard to gather what they are all about. But the really old ones date back with information as far back as before the 1900's (this is the abstract of the title), however those documents seem to talk about the will of the first ever owner (and I believe also the builder of the property as the road was named after him). The older documentation refers to a "plot" of land, it does not really make clear whether a building exists on that plot at that point in time, at least I can't decrypt anyway. But I noticed a document which is much more recent, around the 1980's and it states that it is the "Deed of Release" which as I understand is effectively removing a "Rentcharge" from the property that was conveyanced in 1935. Now I am thinking this will be very close if not the build date. But I'm not sure.

So what does everyone else do when they buy a house and try to figure out the build date? It's all a bit confusing and nobody seems to really know or understand?

AdrianC

There is no simple foolproof way. You need to work back through the paperwork that's available, and make some guesses.

Look at the property. Look at what's around - that'll give you lots of clues to a decade. Google for old maps, go to the county archive if you can be bothered. Nobody much cares if it was actually 1933 or 1937, if it's probably 1930s. There's a lot of wartime documentation around, not least because a lot of properties were "unbuilt" within a few years... If documents refer to a "plot", then there was probably no house there then.

In your case, you've got conveyancing suggesting a 1935 date? That's good enough. Go with that.

davidmcn

The exact date really doesn't matter - the insurers just want a general idea of the era. And if you can't work out what it is, they're hardly likely to do any better.

Stick a photo up here and I expect some of us will have an educated idea of how old it looks. Or look at old maps to see when the street was first developed.

PasturesNew

In short, nobody expects you to know the actual year. There are clues.

1/ What age does it look?
2/ Are others in the street the same?
3/ Are any others in the street advertised for sale as "owners since the house was built in ...."
4/ You could door knock for the oldest resident in the street
5/ You can check old census documents, old newspaper archives, old tithe maps, was it in the 1939 Register?

RelievedSheff

When is a house a house?

Ours was started in June 2018. It wasn't finished and signed off until February 2019 and we didn't move in and register it with the land registry until April 2019.

So how old is the house?

shortcrust

Lots of planning applications in my area now seem to come with massive pdfs with scores of maps going back 150 years or so. You can see my house wasn’t there in the late 20s but was in the early 30s. Perhaps worth checking your local planning website? Probably not much help in you’re not in a built up area.

T7GE90

Well my current house is in the same town, around 5 years ago I e-mailed the council to ask them about the same question and they were able to estimate it was built in the 1930's based on their records. Not having any luck with the council with the new house.

@RelievedSheff, when I was talking to AXA Insurance, they said they class a build date as the date the first foundations were put in. I guess the definition will vary slightly between insurers but as others have said, the difference between a few years should not matter (in some cases AXA are happy with a 20 year rough estimate, depending on which decades).

I also found this really useful site:
maps.nls.uk/os/6inch-england-and-wales/

You can compare the maps with your house as they are today with as far back as 1888 and can see when the house street appears and the houses start to show up on the maps. From that, I can see it looks like the houses were in place between 1937-61. So were built before 1937.

I have been reading through the deeds after I posted this and I found an interesting segment, there is an agreement made in 1929 between the estate owner and a builders company, it mentions about timelines to build a brick wall on plots of land and then build a habitable structure within 2 years. At the end it mentions the plot names which include my house. This means my house was most likely built between 1929-1931, but that is only providing the agreement was followed on time. But I think that's going to be good enough for me to assume it's the 1930's.

What a long pain of searching , but guess I got there in the end.

-taff

I thought our house was built in the1930's but after talking to a neighbour who remembers it being built in the fifties,on checking the deeds again, the land was originally sold to the builders in the 30's, then the builder sold the house to the first owners in1954. The houses were built along a crescent at different times although they all have the same build and layout..

bouicca21

You could search the 1939 register to see if the address existed at that date.
https://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-records/1939-register

Smodlet

Interesting thread. I have come across this. It might be of use to someone but it does depend on your having a fair idea to start with.

daveyjp

For such queries I use.

Old-maps.co.uk
Maps.nls.uk