It's a classic Halloween plot: a family's looking for a new house and they find what seems to be the perfect place. They're in a hurry to move and they don't ask questions. Once they've settled in, however, strange things start to occur. Ghostly figures roam the halls and the furniture floats and dances. The place is haunted. Maybe it takes a turn for the terrifying, as in Poltergeist, or becomes a comedy about living with the ghosts. Perhaps it's the other way around and, like Beetlejuice, the ghosts are the ones trying to get rid of the people. But haunted houses aren't just a horror-movie staple. Even if we don't believe in ghosts, there are real properties that have been famous for being haunted, from Borley Rectory, the "most haunted house in England," to the Winchester Mystery House in California. Sometimes allegedly haunted properties go up for sale, and then it's up to the real estate agents to try and make the most of the ghosts. Do hauntings have to be disclosed to potential buyers? Do ghosts affect the property value? It sounds like something out of a comedy film, but these can be real financial concerns. Let's take a closer look… Disclosing a Ghost The first question, and perhaps the most legally pertinent, is whether hauntings count as required disclosures. The answer can depend on the state and is connected to laws regarding both stigma statutes and statutes regarding a "psychologically impacted property," a legal term for properties that have been intangibly affected by death, violence, or some other unsavory reputation. Florida statute 689.25, for example, says that "the fact that a property was, or was at any time suspected to have been, the site of a homicide, suicide, or death is not a material fact that must be disclosed in a real estate transaction." Louisiana has a law specifying that it's hauntings rather than deaths that must be disclosed to buyers, as does New York after its 1991 Stambovsky v. Ackley case, nicknamed the "Ghostbuster ruling," helped lay the ground rules for mixing ghosts and real estate. The details of Stambovsky v. Ackley offer some surprising insights into the legal quirks of selling a haunted house. Helen Ackley and her family had lived in Nyack, New York for many years, and they'd become local celebrities for the hauntings they reported. Their house was a tourist attraction. It was sold around 1990 to Jeffrey Stambovsky, and the parties disagree on whether the house's reputation, and its ghostly tenants, were disclosed at the time. Regardless, Stambovsky tried to forfeit the contract and sue for damages once he learned about about the ghosts, and the New York Supreme Court ruled that, since hauntings can't be verified by a visual inspection, they must be disclosed prior to the sale. The law can be different depending on where you live, and, when in doubt, you should always consult an attorney to determine which disclosure rules might apply to a specific property and circumstance. But, generally speaking, honesty is usually the best policy. Are Hauntings a Perk? One interesting postscript to the Stambovsky v. Ackley is that, when the property was sold again after the ruling, it drew dozens of prospective buyers, including the famous mentalist The Amazing Kreskin. Even as recently as 2016, it sold for almost a third above local market value based on its uncanny reputation. Not every buyer's scared off by the prospect of spooky skeletons in their closets: some might consider it a bonus. Can disclosure be a sound marketing strategy when it comes to selling a house with a ghostly reputation? The answer, as is often the case, is "sometimes" and "it depends." Approximately one in four homeowners would move out if they learned their house was haunted while another one in four would specifically move into a haunted house, leaving most of us in the middle when it comes to living with ghosts. This difference comes down in part to an age gap: baby boomers are almost a quarter more likely to leave an allegedly haunted house than millennials in the same poll. So it can depend on the clientele that a realtor hopes to attract. However, whether or not we believe in ghosts, a house with a reputation for being haunted can be a burden in more mundane ways, attracting local attention, curious visitors, and even graffiti and litter. It can be a welcome business opportunity for some buyers: the Ackley family ran ghost tours for years and the Winchester Mystery House has become a thriving tourist attraction. But not everyone wants that sort of attention, and disclosing a haunted house's reputation can help them decide if such a "spirited" property is a good fit. Although the principle of caveat emptor has been invoked in the past to defend a lack of supernatural disclosure during a sale, case precedents have evolved over the years to create a more nuanced, and contradictory, patchwork of state and local laws. While some states forbid the required disclosure of deaths, suicides, or HIV cases under their stigma statutes, others do require such disclosures, and still others outright specify ghosts and hauntings as the material fact that needs to be addressed, particularly if the property has an established supernatural reputation that the buyer might not know about. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. For younger buyers, and those who are enthusiastic about the occult, a stray ghost or two might just be the perfect compliment to an old Victorian mansion. And for more spiritually minded potential buyers who are worried about the spirits themselves, rather than just the public attention that a reputation for them might attract, there's a thriving market of religious and paranormal experts who are in the business of offering spiritual cleansings for houses. As Stambovsky reportedly said when he learned about his new home's reputation, "we'll have to call in the ghostbusters." Looking for a confidential content writer, ghostwriter, or copy editor for your writing needs? Email me at Jefferey.D.Moore@gmail.com or click here to visit the Services page for more information!
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AuthorContent writer, ghostwriter, editor. Production assistant and writer for Audio Branding: The Hidden Gem of Marketing. Professional geek. Archives
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