3 Bedrooms, 2 Baths, and 1 Ghost

Selling a home is not an easy thing to do. Especially in this day and age. Factor in climbing gas prices, food prices, and the continueing downward spiral of our economy and you see that the already difficult task of selling a home becomes a near impossible one. Now add a gruesome death or a story of a ghost and I would care to say that is one property ou will be hanging on to for some time. To some extent everyone is familiar with stories of hmes that were hard to sell because of such a factor. The O.J. Simpson home is a great examle of how a horrific event can decrease a property value by a more then significant amount of money. Amittyville, and Black Hope are two other prime examples. I am sure this list could continue for a very long time. How does one sel a home on the market at a fair value if this is the case? You could lie about the event or even better, just withhold the information all together, but as you will see in this article that may not be a smart thing to do.

The most famous and notorious haunted home to ever hit the market place is without a shadow of doubt the Amittyville Horror house. I call it that just as referance to the case. The home was the scene for a very deranged event that saw Ronnie James Defeo gun down the sleeping members of his family. Defeo claimed the voices from the house made him do it and he did nt want to. Of course Ronnie is in no way the first crazy man to make such a claim bt how true was his remarks? Despite any truth r fiction in his story the home became a burden to the real estate company who were trying to part with the beautiful structre. Even after being informed of the very tragic situaton that had stained the walls of the home George and Kathy Lutz were enthralled to find their dream home and paid $80,000, an amount that was well below market value for such an upscale home in such an upscale community. One thing learned in this case is once the seller informs the buyer of a potential problem resulting from events of the past that seller is no longer liable for anything to do with said problem. We will revisit this case and the effects it had very shorty.

We now are posed with a thought. What information should, if any, be revealed to the buyer in the event the home they are browsing des play host to a possible ghosly tenent?That is in fact a multimillion dollar question. Some agencies are very good about this area of the field and encourage their selling staf to never hold back any information about a location. This could be for fear f lawsuit or just a moral act of kndness but either way it is good practise. Holding back on this type of information could sereiously limit the amount of respect a particular agency gets from it's potental buyers.

Many may recall back when . the location of the "Heaven's Gate" suicides became availlable on the real eastate market. Despite the massive appeal and usefullness of the structure, the tainted past made it ery difficlt to sell. If I am not mistaken and I apolagise if I am, I think the structure and land were sold for just the land value alone. The building itself was basically thrown in freely. I am also almost certain the new owner had the complex destroyed and becan building a new one. Once again if that is wrong I am sorry, it has been some time. Sometimes the emtional scar that defaces the body of a structure can be more than enough to limit it's resell value. No evidence existed to state that the comples was in fact haunted. The shear possibility hat a mass suicide would result in a haunting was enough to make the value decrease.

In 1991 New York State Supreme court would play a pvotal role in this delimna. It would be them who initially decided that information pertaining to a location's past had to be made nown to potential buyers. It was Justice Rubin who in a sense changed how real estate agencies would handle locations with a not so squeaky clean past. His statement was that if a house is known to be aunted, and that claim had been made by the residents than the home was to be declared haunted. That info would have to be made clear to any possible buyers. He ruled "caveat emptor" or buyer beware could not apply to haunted buildings. This ruling was made because noone could know the history of a location simply by viewing it, that information would have to be told to them. This statement and ruling changed the way most agencies dealt with locations whose past featured tales of gore and tragedy.

The ruling was the result of a case in which the Stambousky family took interest in the victorian mansion owned by Mrs. Ackley. The building was being sold for $650,000, and the family were so excited about the building thay paid a down payment of $32,500. The couple quickly moved in to what was meant to be the dream home they had searched for. All was well until a local architect made a very disturbing comment to the family. He laughed and played around abut how they had bought the hanted house. This was mostly fueled by the 9 years that Mrs. Ackley had spent pitching that her home was indeed haunted. Even the local ghost walk made it a point to stop by the home so onlookers could snap away at their cameras hoping to capture the image of a ghostly dweller within. To make it even worse an article appeared in Reader's Digest written by Mrs. Ackley proclaiming the home she lived in was haunted in 1977.

Upon discovery of their dream home's haunted past the family opted to back out of the deal. Mrs. Ackley refused to refund the deposit and break the lease. The first hearing went the way of Mrs. Ackley but the second would e a huge step forward for paranrmal elievers. Justice Rubin would be in charge of the second hearing and in the end the deposit was returned and te lease broken.

Now we return to Amittyville. After the untmely departure of the Lutz family (28 days) from the home the bank decided to resell the property. The Cromartys aquired the home for $50,000. No haunted past was disclosed to them. Ghost hunters and the such would plague he family in hopes of spotting the famous Amityville horror ghosts. In the end the family would be paid an undisclosed amount of money to end the situation. The moral of ths stry is simple. Now you know the price you pay fr reealing and not revealing a home's troubled past. Happy hunting.