The year of construction of a house can be found at the building office of the municipality to which the house belongs. A file has been opened at the building department for the house at the time of its construction, which can be inspected.
Inspection at the building office
However, information on this may be subject to limitations. If, for example, the house is a single-family house that has been occupied and the occupant himself is the owner, he can ask the building authority of the municipality for the year of construction and find it out.
Only with the owner's consent
However, if it is not the owner, but a tenant of the house or a potential buyer, the latter is required to obtain the prior consent of the owner. This consent must be in writing. Only then can information about the correct year of construction of the house be obtained from the building department of the relevant municipality.
What does it look like in an apartment?
Different rules apply to an apartment. If it is an apartment, it is possible to find out the year of construction of the apartment building at the housing office. For an apartment, it does not matter if it is owner-occupied or not.
Viewing the file is done in person. The file on the house usually remains at the building office and is not simply handed over or sent by mail. This is also the case when it is the new owner of a house.
Obvious clues that roughly determine the year of construction of buildings
Not every property shows its age from the start. Some buildings look weathered because they have been poorly maintained over the years. Cracks in the foundation, holes in the roof, missing support beams or broken glass panes make the house look old and neglected. Often, however, the first impression is not decisive for the actual age of such a property. On the other hand, a little fresh paint applied to the facade can turn a century-old landmark building into a modern eye-catcher that is initially almost indistinguishable from some newer buildings. Indications of age are built-in structures that are no longer in use today. In particular, the use of transverse or sloping beams that are even visible on the facade is no longer carried out. They are a relic of the last centuries and stand for the well-known half-timbered houses that can still be found in some small german towns. Baroque ornamentation and stucco elements or ornamentation on moldings and ceilings also indicate that the building is most likely not a new construction. Especially in the case of modernized buildings that have been embellished with stainless steel and glass elements, it is sometimes difficult to determine which year of construction the house could bear. If you have doubts or you want to find out the exact year of construction, you can have a look at the so-called land register entry.
In the land register entry, interested parties will find the year of construction precisely listed via the building authority
Well-managed city halls also house the land register entry of older buildings. Even if time sometimes makes it difficult to find out the year of construction of particularly old buildings, at least in germany many things are perfectly documented. In order to view the land register entry, it is necessary to go to the relevant town hall. In some cases, however, the responsibility of the town hall has changed over the past decades. This can happen, for example, if parts of the town were later incorporated into other municipalities or roads were relocated and now belong to another part of the town. This is more common than you might think and can make researching the year of construction a bit more tedious at first.
The project is easier in the case of newer buildings. However, in order to determine the actual value of the property, it is important to find out the exact year of construction. For further assistance in this process the so-called building authority serves in the town hall. She logs exact construction dates with start and end of construction and can, on request and under certain circumstances, agree to find out the year of construction of the house. However, it depends on whether the building data has been digitized or is still stored in traditional files. The latter entails more research and thus a longer work process. The building authority needs precise information about the building in order to find the year of construction. A central role is played by the full name of the builder and, even better, an assignment number that was given when the building permit was issued. The more information you have about the property, the easier it will be for the building authorities to find out the exact year of construction.
If the building authority can no longer help, the notary's office can provide information
Before a notary's office can be contacted, it is necessary to find out which one was responsible for the building at the time of construction. Changes in the structure of streets and neighborhoods over the past years can make the search a bit difficult. Sometimes city hall and building authorities point out which notary's office in the immediate vicinity could possibly fall within the area of responsibility at the time of the construction date and refer interested parties there. Another address for researching the year of construction of buildings can be the so-called mortgage office. The further back the year of construction, the more all parties involved have to research the past. Where the city hall comes to its limits, mediate in such a case county or city archives. You can sometimes look back hundreds of years to find out when the house was built. For potential owners, this also clarifies whether the entire property or parts of it fall under the protection of historical monuments. The cadastral office comes into play as a last resort. The office sitting in the tax office is part of the land office. The cadastral office can also provide useful information if the data of former builders were only incompletely recorded and thus help to determine the year of construction.
My name is anatoli bauer and i live at the north sea in husum. I have lived in a total of 5 different apartments and 5 different locations. I wanted to share my experiences with the paperwork around rent, utilities and insurance here on wohnen-tipps24.Share com with you. As the managing director of a software company in the architectural field, i am also well acquainted with house construction and house planning.