‘No alterations to the property since construction’

[sugarbyebye]

I’m selling an old Victorian terraced property. I’ve been asked to confirmed it’s not been altered, extended, etc since construction.

I’ve done nothing to it. How do I find out what previous owners have done to it? The configurations of all the houses on the row of terrace are different, and they’ve all been modified in some way, as they were constructed without bathrooms. I think my house has had a doorway put into a room and the room divided by a plasterboard wall to divide it into a smaller room and a bathroom. I presume this counts as an alteration? This wasn’t flagged up when I bought it a decade ago so I don’t know when the room was divided and if anything else was done. It’s a two up two down with no modifications of any load bearing walls so there are no structural risks but I presume I’ll need some sort of indemnity cover if I can’t provide information on the mods?

thanks for the help!

Just confirm to the best of your knowledge.

Just confirm nothing has been done while you owned it.

”unknown” is the reply my colleague used in the construction industry.

You just tell them what you know, you can’t possibly find out what has been done since it was built, I doubt there were building regulations back then. A reputable Surveyor will know what changes have been made since original build.

I hate these kinds of queries that none would ever know the answer, so I would stick to something along the lines of:

"I am not aware of any significant modifications made myself or previous owners."

Yes, put 'unknown' or 'not to our knowledge'.

But that wouldn’t be true.
OP needs to tell the truth, that she has not made any alterations, but she infers from the current layout that the alteration she described may have been made by previous owners. She can explain that she does not have any documentation and nothing was disclosed to her when she bought.
An indemnity policy may be required but that’s not really a big deal.

"No alterations made by current owners." If you had similar when you bought the place you can say "No alterations made by current owners and their vendors."

You don't have to investigate the house's history. That's the buyers' job. You don't have to infer anything. Your buyers have access to the floorplan and will have viewed the property. They can infer whatever they like from that. If it really bothers them, they may require an indemnity policy, which IIRC is a matter of less than £200.

Solicitors copy and paste documents are tiresome. Our solicitor advised us to put not known. We had to indemnify our windows because the previous owner had no idea, the lady before them had passed away.

Thanks everyone!