Find Out When Your House Was Built
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Content Written By: Chris Dean - Last Updated: 18/09/2025
It’s one of the most common details to come up during house sales—a property’s age can influence a buyer and empower a seller, so it’s important to know what it is from the outset.
Even if you just want to know out of curiosity or you’re trying to get a valuation before selling at a later date, it’s interesting to know how long a house has been around and what its backstory might be.
While you’ll probably have to ask around about tales of the past, there are ways to find out just how old a property is, so let’s get to it.
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How do I find out how old my house is?
The first place to start is to check the title deeds for the property to help you trace back who the owners and occupiers have been over the years. If you don’t already have the title deeds yourself, you have a few options to track them down.
1. Check HM Land Registry
Head to HM Land Registry to order a copy via the deeds request form—you will first need to check that the property is registered in the database. If it’s found, you can pay £7 to download a copy of the title register or, if it’s made up of numerous documents, £11 for a full, official copy.
You can’t use the copy of the deeds to prove ownership, so you should obtain official copies of the title register instead if you need to do that to sell your house.
The land ownership data from the HM Land Registry might be accurate if the property was built after the 1940s. If the property was built before 1940, there is a chance the deeds won't show when the property was built because of The Law of Property Act, 1925, which states that there is no legal obligation to hold evidence of title for more than 30 years.
2. Ask your solicitor or mortgage provider
If HM Land Registry doesn’t have a scanned copy of your deeds, you can try asking your solicitor or mortgage company instead. They might hold official records of the history of the property—the survey carried out by the latter will likely have details on how old the building itself is, so it’s worth the question.
3. Search the National Archives
Your next port of call can be the local records held by the National Archives. It does say on their website that there are better options to find the information you want:
“The National Archives is not usually the best place to start unless you are only interested in who the occupants were in the very specific years for which we happen to have records (most significantly the census years, every ten years from 1841 to 1921; the Valuation Office Survey years from 1910 to 1915; and the year of the 1939 Register).”
- National Archives
However, searching over 3,500 archives, including those of local councils, might yield some results, so it’s worth a try. The online records they hold might tell you who lived in your house “on a specific date in a census year” or at the time of the 1939 Register, but you won’t find much more information about the actual history of the house itself.
Telltale signs of a house’s age
If you want to get a bit more of an idea yourself, either before or after diving into the research, there are a few things to look out for inside and outside the house.
Architectural details and materials: While you won’t get a super accurate idea of the age from the architecture, you can typically tell that more ornate brickwork and bay windows come from Victorian times and cheaper concrete blocks and straighter edges around windows and walls might be more mid-century.
Interior design and build: Houses had higher ceilings, iron pipes and wide floorboards before the Second World War and were more likely to have lower ceilings, copper pipes and plastic around wiring if they were post-war builds.
Placement and number of rooms: If your house has a dedicated dining room and more than one bathroom, it might be no older than the 1950s, but this is a rough estimation.
If you live in a period property, it may be helpful to understand which era your property was built in for details about historical context, preservation, restoration, maintenance, repairs, value and marketability.
Examining the architectural style, materials used and distinctive property features allows you to differentiate between popular features during specific periods, giving you an educated guess on the property's age. Here’s a rough guide to the eras to help you find out when your house was built:
| Era | Built | Features and details |
|---|---|---|
| Tudor | 1480s - 1603 | Thatched and recognised by their wooden outer frame, known as being half-timbered. Built around and during the rise of the Church of England. |
| Jacobean/ Stuart | 1603 - 1714 | The favoured housebuilding material switched from timber to brick, taking influence from the rest of Europe. |
| Georgian | 1714 - 1830 | A fusion between Stuart-era housing and Italian influences. |
| Victorian | 1830 - 1901 | Heavily inspired by the Gothic style and classical revival of the 1800s, Victorian houses tended to lose the symmetry seen throughout previous centuries. |
| Queen Anne | 1880 - 1900 | Most Queen Anne houses have ornate brickwork and lighter colours. They are less Gothic and heavily reliant on Dutch architectural influences. |
| Edwardian | 1901 - 1914 | Typically a larger plot of land that no longer boasted a cellar or spanned over three storeys. The first signs of modern family-oriented living, leading the way to the modern family house. |
| Thirties semis | 1920 - 1939 | Many semi-detached houses were built between 1920 and 1939 when the housebuilding industry took off. It's arguably one of the most popular housing styles in Britain. |
| Art Deco | 1920 - 1940 | Taking inspiration from Modernism, the industrial age, ancient and exotic cultures, Hollywood, cubism and decorative crafts. |
| Airey | 1940s | Characterised by the lack of materials due to the growing war effort and named after Sir Edwin Airey’s famous design. The houses were built in factories and then assembled on-site. |
| Seventies terraced | 1970s | Usually characterised by their flat front, hanging tiles and weatherboarding. |
It might be worth getting an estate agent over to put a quick value on your house and asking them for their opinion of its age while they are there. Your neighbours could also be a good source of information, particularly if they have lived on the street for a while.
Does the age of my house matter?
Generally speaking, the housing market is full of people with all different sorts of tastes and desires for the houses they want to live in, so the answer to this question is that it’s all relative. That said, the age of a house can affect its saleability because of its historical significance, architectural style, condition, building regulations and market demands.
These first-time buyers, for instance, posted on Mumsnet about their concerns during a house hunt after they received the results of a survey on a century-old house:
“We are first time buyers. We have just had a building survey done for a house built in the 1920s. There are some problems which have been identified - some are minor which doesn't need immediate attention, but some are major like immediate work needed on the roof.
“What are your thoughts on buying a house which is 100 years old? Would you avoid it? Lots of potential problems? Or would you be open to buying it and why?”
- Mumsnet
Of course, the age of a house can affect its condition and maintenance requirements. Older properties may require more frequent repairs or renovations, especially if they suffer from damp problems, but documenting everything can massively help here when it comes to selling up.
The UK government is introducing stricter EPC rules for landlords and offering eco-initiatives to anyone developing new-build properties, so there is a genuine possibility that period homes will become harder to sell.
Can I still sell my house if it’s old?
Yes, you can still sell your house in the UK, no matter how old it is (and no matter how many new builds are popping up around it).
You have a few options here:
Try your luck on the open market: This is perhaps the riskiest route when it comes to finding the right buyer, as you could wind up in endless negotiations about getting the roof done or the damp proofing sorted or whatever else.
Sell it at an auction: You could put your house up for auction in a local or online setting—you’re not guaranteed a sale and you’ll still need to pay hefty fees in some cases, but it can be a quick way to offload your property if you’re looking to move fast.
Sell it quickly to a cash buyer: A cash buyer like The Property Buying Company can buy your house in a matter of days, no matter its age or condition—you’ll get an efficient and stress-free house sale in no time and you won’t even need to organise viewings.
To get your free cash offer today, simply enter your postcode below and we’ll be in touch to chat through just how quick and easy it is to sell your house to a cash buyer.
Frequently asked questions
Are EPCs reliable for determining the age of a house?
No, energy performance certificates (EPCs) are not an accurate way to measure how old a house is—they are simply designed to show the current efficiency of a building. Age is certainly a factor in the energy efficiency of a property, since relatively modern inventions like insulation didn’t exist in houses that were built pre-1900, for instance, but it doesn’t necessarily correlate over time.
What if no record exists to find the age of my house?
If there are no records that tell you the age of your house and you have checked with your neighbours, too, you might try contacting local historical societies, digging into council records and scouring old newspaper archives. Bear in mind that it doesn’t mean you can’t sell your house if you don’t know how old it is—not all buyers demand to know such information.
Should you buy an old house?
Whether or not you should buy a house comes down to your preparedness to pay for maintenance costs over time, since older properties are more likely to need renovation to modernise them and make them more efficient. For house buyers, the costs of repairing old houses are often weighed up alongside the character and charm that come with the history of the property, so it is broadly a matter of personal taste.
Edit Log
18/09/2025 - Content rewritten by Chris Dean, assisted and proofread by Raphael Kaye
18/09/2025 - Content updated in line with Editorial Guidelines (Reviewed by Mathew McCorry)
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