Lets say you live in a house with all kinds of paranormal activity. I mean real spooky things that scare your family, pets, and even visitors.
Well lets say it bothers you so bad you want to sell the house and just move.
Would you be required to disclose ghost or paranormal activity to new potential buyers?
No, because legal contracts do not require that you list delusions that you have.
A man in New York state sued in 1991 because the woman who sold him the house did not disclose that it was haunted. He won on appeal: Wacky Wednesday: Haunted House Real Estate Lawsuit
Interesting case.
A big difference was the house had a well publicized history of being haunted (being in several publications) so you cant say it was just one persons odd delusions (as Darren Garrison says above). It could be the new owner just doesnt want a house with such a reputation which could lead to strangers and ghost hunters stopping by for pictures and such.
You know, there’s a psychology that plays into this.
Laws will vary state by state in terms of what disclosures a seller is required to make, but the idea that a house is somehow ‘stigmatized’ isn’t uncommon. [Link.](“There are no states in which there is an obligation to disclose the death of a person who has deceased under natural conditions,” says attorney Matthew Reischer, CEO of LegalAdvice.com. “However, some states impose a duty on a stigmatized home or apartment in which there has been a suicide or murder. Some states even go so far as to impose an affirmative duty on a seller if they have knowledge that their real estate is being haunted by the dead.”)
“There are no states in which there is an obligation to disclose the death of a person who has deceased under natural conditions,” says attorney Matthew Reischer, CEO of LegalAdvice.com. “However, some states impose a duty on a stigmatized home or apartment in which there has been a suicide or murder. Some states even go so far as to impose an affirmative duty on a seller if they have knowledge that their real estate is being haunted by the dead.”
Bolding mine. It doesn’t specify which states and I didn’t look further.
I have heard of plausible explanations of “haunted” houses besides just delusions on the part of people living there (e.g. the presence of toxic gases that cause hallucinations).
I have no idea of the legal ramifications, but if I were thinking of buying a house and the owner said it was haunted, I wonder if that would drive the price up, or down. I would ask them to knock, say, five thousand off the price and see what they say. If the owner actually believes there are ghosts on the premises, well, that’s asymmetric information and that drives a lot of economic decision making.
The owner of our first house died in the master bedroom, which they disclosed. I am not sure why, since they did not claim a haunting, and it didn’t affect the price. But who cares? I suspect people have died in most older houses (our first house was built in 1927) whether the current owner knows about it or not.
The first three rules of real estate -
[ol]
[li]location[/li][li]location[/li][li]visitations from restless spirits of the underworld returning to the scenes of their earthly life[/li][/ol]
Regards,
Shodan
I’d be skeptical if someone told me they died in the master bedroom.
Okay. I’m a home owner, selling my place because I accept your thesis.
Technically NO, because there is no scientific evidence even suggesting paranormal/supernatural things are real. I would feel no obligation to disclose my unsupportable fears.
But since I’m selling because I do have unsupportable fears I would disclose them.
Modify the purchase price? Probably not because I would have already done so in an effort to get out.
How about if they told you in the library, with a candlestick?
Regards,
Shodan
I question this.
When we listed our house for sale in SCal in 2005, we were SPECIFICALLY asked by the Realtor during the signing of the listing contract if anyone had died in the house.
~VOW
In the summer you can keep AC costs down in a haunted house by installing window shades.
Ghosts aren’t real.
Now you have hurt Casper’s feelings, and he has always been friendly.
Any structure used as a residence prior to WW2 [as a general date to divide the century into portions] is pretty much a positive on someone dying there - people in general didn’t go to hospitals unless something was highly serious - you tended to dwindle and die of old age, die of diseases like influenza or pneumonia. Realistically, without antibiotics there wasn’t much a hospital could do that couldn’t be done at home other than IV feeding and 24 hour nurses to change diapers and trot bedpans and dispense what meds were available that you didn’t tend to get and keep at home. I can think of offhand at least 4 people that passed in the house my parents had when I was born [we didn’t move there til I was 5, he was duty stationed in Germany my first 5 years] My grandfather passed in hospital in 1974 and my grandmother in hospital in 79 - my grandfather had had a heart attack, and grandmother had fallen and broken her hip, and passed on the table having a pin put in. Conversation in family was that pretty much everybody previous passed either in combat or in bed.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Go to your room, and think about what you’ve done!
My house wasn’t built until 1964, and two people have died in it. (My grandfather and great-grandfather.)
I didn’t find out about the haunting in a house I bought until the neighbor lady told me. She was certainly convinced. If what she said was accurate it was quite interesting. There was one incident that occurred when I lived there that was certainly odd. But it was a very comfortable house to live in.
Dennis
There’s a Wikipedia article regarding this case.
This was probably a stronger reason that affected the appellate court’s decision: