Is checking ‘unknown’ a legitimate disclosure answer for Iowa’s residential disclosure form?

No it is not a legitimate descriptive category of the owners' knowledge. After all, if the owners don't know what they know then who would? The who fills out the form is an owner with knowledge of the home. If they've never lived there then and have absolutely no knowledge of defects or repairs then the appropriate answer would appear to be "no". You are the owner and as an owner you are responsible to know the condition of your property. "I don't know" is not a legitimate answer because what you are disclosing is your knowledge of defects and repair. 

How can an owner not know what knowledge they have? It's absurd for an owner to say they have no knowledge of their knowledge.

Under Iowa law you have a duty to disclose what knowledge you have about defects. You either have knowledge of defects of you don’t. If you mark “unknown” you are failing to say if you do or do not have knowledge of a defect. So marking ‘unknown’ is a huge red flag to a lawyer and it is a failure to disclose your knowledge and that is a violation of the law. If the buyers came to me as a lawyer I would most likely advise them to sue the sellers for failing to disclose. And that is how I see "unknown" as an option - it's simply a failure to disclose.

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