# Not buying a house since its previous owners divorced. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 1, 2017, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383 "2017-11-01T14:35:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/21 "2017-11-01T18:38:23Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > If the house is sold and both erstwhile partners get their share and no longer have any connection, why would they care about it? And why should you care why the previous owners sell it unless it’s for problematic things, like poor foundations, built on problematic soil, high levels of contamination in groundwater, being on a flood plain etc. How does it affect you even if they divorced cause she screwed all the neighbours or he was a heroin addict since that should not hopefully apply to you? (I have no idea what caused the end of the marriage in the OP, I just gave two wild examples). You asked. I answered. And now you want to argue? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/22 "2017-11-01T19:01:31Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > If the house is sold and both erstwhile partners get their share and no longer have any connection, why would they care about it? And why should you care why the previous owners sell it unless it’s for problematic things, like poor foundations, built on problematic soil, high levels of contamination in groundwater, being on a flood plain etc. How does it affect you even if they divorced cause she screwed all the neighbours or he was a heroin addict since that should not hopefully apply to you? (I have no idea what caused the end of the marriage in the OP, I just gave two wild examples). It _shouldn’t_, but then, for years after my parents moved into their current house, they had visits from large, surly people looking for one of the previous owners, who were, as it happens, a couple who had just divorced. Apparently the former lady of the house owed quite large sums of money to quite a few people, and she’d apparently done a rather good disappearing act, leaving that as her last known address. We had a few angry locals showing up as well in the first couple of weeks, looking for ‘that bitch’. I guess some people don’t want to spend their first few months or even years in a new place having neighbours go “Oh, so you’re the guys that moved into the old junkie hangout/murder house,” or telling suspicious and belligerent people that no, you really don’t have anything to do with the nutcase that used to live there. Stupidest reaction like that I’ve come across though was two girls I met in (well, just outside) a backpackers in Adelaide who were having a full on meltdown and tried to get a refund, a room elsewhere paid for and transport to another backpackers because they found out that the building the hostel was in used to be a brothel. The girls were threatening to phone the police and report them, for… I dunno… reusing a dirty building, or something. Hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/23 "2017-11-01T22:25:41Z")
I bought my first house from a divorcing couple. I was renting it, and in the split they offered to sell it to me. I don’t think it brought me bad luck. In fact, I got married while I was living there in 1979, and we’re still married. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/24 "2017-11-01T23:14:45Z")
Bought my house from a divorced couple. The husband was in the house and did need to sell it and split profits with his ex. Was not going well for him trying to sell it, so I got a pretty good deal (clock was ticking for him). I did let him (the husband) become my room mate for a few months after I purchased it. That was part of the deal because it was at the time of year when rentals where very hard to come by. It was a little weird, and I did have to light a fire under him to move out when the time for him to move on came and left, but all in all it worked out great for all concerned. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/25 "2017-11-02T00:44:32Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > We recently moved into a place that was on the market being a full remodel flip. Everything inside is new! > > A neighbor shared with me that the previous resident owner had been hauled away by the FBI. And the one before that - the husband had pushed the wife down the stairs and broke her neck (she survived). SO, it has some interesting history at least! Two separate incidents…or did the fall cross state lines 😃 ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/26 "2017-11-02T01:48:40Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > Don’t forget the headstone in the garden. 😉 Family heirlooms don’t count. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/27 "2017-11-02T02:23:41Z")
Did someone say “ghosts”? We bought our house 15 years ago from the widow of a man who had committed suicide (not on the property). She wanted to get rid of the place because it had always been his thing - she never liked it in the first place (they lived in Alaska and only used the Hawaii house as a vacation home). The deceased husband had apparently loved it, and had done several nice improvements to the place. In particular, he was a geologist, and had anchored the house with cables and pilings to make it safer in event of an earthquake - a good thing, as we get a number of those. So fast forward to this past summer. The light and the ceiling fan in one of the rooms we rarely use start turning themselves on at random. That was a little unsettling, as it suggested a possibly hazardous wiring problem. A ghost was a nice alternative. I was fond of the idea that we were being haunted by the man who committed suicide. So I solemnly went into the “ghost room” and told the ghost he was welcome, that we loved the property much as he clearly had, and told him thank you for the good work he had done. (Yes, I was kidding around. But it was fun!) We had an electrician come out and do a few repairs. These apparently satisfied the ghost as he has not been back. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/28 "2017-11-02T02:42:05Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > I actually bought a house under some unfortunate circumstances. The sellers seemed highly motivated, we closed the deal at a good price and blindingly fast, and about two days later the husband turned the proceeds into cash and disappeared with the woman he’d been having an affair with. It turns out he’d surmised that it was a lot easier to abscond with the cash than split the house with his wife in the divorce proceedings. > > It made it a little awkward bumping into his wife in the supermarket afterwards. And how was any of this your fault or responsibility? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/29 "2017-11-02T04:37:48Z")
Friends just bought a house that was on the market due to a divorce. I don’t believe it was bad luck, but it sure was a PITA. The ex-husband and ex-wife weren’t talking to each other, so negotiations got stalled over and over. Once the offer was accepted, but before the closing, a huge hailstorm hit, damaging the siding and roofing on every house in the area. The old (still current at that time) owners were responsible for repairs, since they still owned it. Again, all communications took forever. The ex-wife wanted one thing, the ex-husband another. The ex-husband was being pissy and wouldn’t respond. It all sounded like a mini-version of dealing with a bank on a foreclosed house. If you are in a hurry to close, or don’t want to spend time making lots of followup calls, a divorce house might not be ideal. Mostly unrelated, but kinda funny: My SO and I were house shopping. We were standing in the kitchen of a house after touring it, talking to our real estate agent, when I noticed these weird upside down triangular holes in the door frame, just above my head height. We figured out that someone had been standing there, probably talking on the nearby phone, jabbing a knife into the wood repeatedly. We didn’t buy the house, but the divorce and the puncture marks had nothing to do with that. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/30 "2017-11-02T05:15:09Z")
**Realtor:** So, what do you think? **Prospective home buyer:** We absolutely love it! And the price couldn’t be better. But tell me… are the current owners selling it because they got divorced? Because that would be bad luck and we would not want to buy it. Otherwise, were sold on it. **Realtor:** No. Not at all. It’s owned buy a loving married couple with three beautiful children. The mother got a great job in another state so they are moving. Full disclosure though… there was a couple that lived here in 1916 and they got divorced and moved out. **Prospective home buyer:** Ick!! Sorry then… no way. It’s like it’s haunted. Worse than that, actually! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/31 "2017-11-02T16:42:35Z")
I visited New Orleans recently, and I laughed that some of the real estate signs in the French Quarter list “haunted” as one of the selling points. It’s apparently routine enough to be one of the little hanging signs (“Condominium” “Retail” etc.) below the main “for sale” sign. I ended up with the condo I live in now because people died. First, the owner(s) of the unit died, and their son inherited it. He was renting it to an older lady when the condo board forbade future rentals, so his rental was grandfathered in. When the tenant died in mid-2005, the distant owner didn’t want to live there and couldn’t rent it out again, so I bought it for what was a good price at the time. (Damn the market crash of '08, now that was a curse on property!) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/32 "2017-11-02T21:52:18Z")
If a house has been “stigmatized”, this must be revealed by the sellers, if they know about it. Example: My old Realtor said that an example was “A while back, there was a dentist around here who killed his wife and cut her body up with a chainsaw, and threw the pieces in the river.” I didn’t remember a story like this about a dentist, but I definitely remembered one about a chiropractor. She said that may have been it. > **[DEAD WATER: The Klindt Affair: Gipple, Pat, Clemens, Matthew: 9780972824132:...](https://www.amazon.com/DEAD-WATER-Klindt-Pat-Gipple/dp/0972824138)** > > DEAD WATER: The Klindt Affair \[Gipple, Pat, Clemens, Matthew\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. DEAD WATER: The Klindt Affair I know some people who used to live in their neighborhood; they didn’t know them but they did know some people who did. It was common knowledge that it was not a happy home; an incident that the neighbors found hilarious at the time but not so much later on was when he ran out the front door down the sidewalk, and she was chasing after him with a rolling pin in her hand. :eek: Investigators had to remove all the plumbing from the house and sawed it into 6-inch sections to examine it for possible evidence, and instead of replacing it with new piping, soldered it all back together, and the new owners said the place leaked like a sieve. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/33 "2017-11-02T22:13:16Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > No ghosts. What about the ghost of the love they once shared? ☹ ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/34 "2017-11-02T22:25:35Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > If you can understand “for a murder or something,” how is this significantly different? I looked at a house once that was surprisingly cheap, and had been on the market a long time. I was really set to buy it, when serendipitously, my landlords put the house where I was living on the market, and offered it to me first, for a song, so I bought that instead. The other house was so cheap, because the previous owners had been an elderly couple, and the woman had died in the house, in her sleep. About 8 months later, the husband couldn’t go on without her, and hanged himself in the backyard. If you can get a house for 66% of its value just because you aren’t superstitious, what a great bargain. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/35 "2017-11-02T22:25:53Z")
If you think getting the house is a good idea, you could: 1. suggest having the house blessed or whatever 2. look into former owners. If it’s old, it’s had more owners than just one divorcing couple. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/36 "2017-11-03T12:51:29Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I looked at a house once that was surprisingly cheap, and had been on the market a long time. I was really set to buy it, when serendipitously, my landlords put the house where I was living on the market, and offered it to me first, for a song, so I bought that instead. > > The other house was so cheap, because the previous owners had been an elderly couple, and the woman had died in the house, in her sleep. About 8 months later, the husband couldn’t go on without her, and hanged himself in the backyard. If you can get a house for 66% of its value just because you aren’t superstitious, what a great bargain. I’d grab that deal anytime. 🙂 Now if he’d hanged himself _inside_, and it had been several days before he was found, I might be kinda worried that some of the smells of decaying flesh had gotten absorbed by the drywall in the room where he did himself in. But even then, how much does it cost to have the drywall knocked out and replaced? Not much, relative to saving 1/3 of the cost of a house. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/37 "2017-11-03T14:45:16Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > If the house is sold and both erstwhile partners get their share and no longer have any connection, why would they care about it? And why should you care why the previous owners sell it unless it’s for problematic things, like poor foundations, built on problematic soil, high levels of contamination in groundwater, being on a flood plain etc. How does it affect you even if they divorced cause she screwed all the neighbours or he was a heroin addict since that should not hopefully apply to you? (I have no idea what caused the end of the marriage in the OP, I just gave two wild examples). My sister and her husband bought their house from a divorcing couple. He was a raging alcoholic. He showed up on their doorstep a few times thinking he lived there and the cops once tried to dump him off when he gave them that address. > [@AskNott](#): > > I don’t think it brought me bad luck. In fact, I got married while I was living there in 1979, and we’re still married. You call that good luck? ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/38 "2017-11-03T15:03:49Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > If a house has been “stigmatized”, this must be revealed by the sellers, if they know about it. This is extremely dependent on the laws of the jurisdiction the house is being sold in. These vary wildly in the USA alone, no idea what they are in other countries. For example, in Massachusetts the only legally required disclosures are if lead paint is present in the house, and if the house has a septic system. Anything else the seller doesn’t have to disclose up front. They have to answer _specific_ questions truthfully, but don’t have to volunteer info unasked. ---
**Author:** ![Jennshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/39 "2017-11-03T15:19:58Z")
The “cursed house” thing is one of the (many) reasons I love paranormal TV show nonsense so much. It’s nigh-impossible to find a home of any age that hasn’t seen a divorce, death, a burned pot roast, other normal life stuff. My house is a hundred-years-old, I’d be suspicious if someone\* hadn’t\* died in it! In fact, my beloved next-door neighbor, sister of the woman whom I bought my house from, died suddenly in her kitchen last year and her husband died in the home a few years before (both youngish people, pretty awful stuff but that’s life). Her son offered to sell some friends the gorgeous home at a very generous friend-discount and they didn’t want it due to the “tragedies.” Idiots. My home is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a young girl, and the owner made sure we knew – in fact, she loved (thinking) there’s a ghost. I think in California it’s a law that a seller must disclose if a house is “haunted.” [https://llwproductions.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/jake-palmer-house-for-sale-not-haunted-sign-only.jpg](https://llwproductions.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/jake-palmer-house-for-sale-not-haunted-sign-only.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Jennshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383/40 "2017-11-03T15:29:11Z")
Now, if the house were built on an Ancient Indian Burial Ground, that’s a whole other issue 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-buying-a-house-since-its-previous-owners-divorced/800383.md?page=3)