Would you want to know if someone was previously murdered in a house you were thinking about buying? Would it matter to you? Kind of a gruesome question, yes, I know. But sometimes a worthwhile one to ask, particularly if it would matter to you.
Did you know that Connecticut does not require real estate agents or sellers to disclose if a property is “psychologically impacted” unless the buyer puts forward a request in writing? The law defines a psychological impact as the effects of certain circumstances- such as the fact that the property was the site of a homicide, other felony, suicide or ghost haunting. The law does not see these issues as “material facts” and therefore they do not affect the physical property itself. So, by law, such information is not considered relevant to a purchaser’s decision to buy a property according to the state.
I would guess that some buyers wish this wasn’t the case. I know that some people would not consider buying, or sometimes even seeing, a property if they knew a violent crime occurred there. It just skeeves people out. They are afraid of bad energy or karma or ghosts. So if I am representing a buyer and I know that someone was murdered in the house, do you think I’m going to tell them? Heck yes! Would I ever want a neighbor running over to a new buyer moving in saying “So, you bought the house where the family was murdered!” and have my buyer calling me saying “What the heck!” Heck no!
Now, this isn’t a widely common problem, but it has been on my mind recently. There is a home for sale in my neighborhood where a multiple murder-suicide took place a little over 20 years ago. Many people in the neighborhood know about it and most could tell you which home it is. Because I often help buyers in the neighborhood, I’ve had several people ask me about the home which is at a low price now because it’s bank owned. I always tell them specifics about the property which is a lovely place but does need quite a bit of cosmetic work. I then also bring up that there was a tragedy that occurred there awhile back. Several buyers have passed on seeing it just because of that, while others have gone to see it because it doesn’t matter to them.
While it’s my goal to sell houses, my role as a buyer’s agent is to be an honest advisor. The state doesn’t feel that psychological impacts affect a purchaser’s decision, but I tend to disagree based on my experience.
Readers, what are your thoughts on this? Would you prefer to know if something “bad” happened in a property? Or does it not matter to you? A house is a house is a house?
Murders and suicides do not concern me… but I would want to be alerted to any “Ghost Hauntings,” in advance… that could be a problem.
Funny…because the very same thing happened to my mother. All this information was found out after she sold the home….She purchased a house in providence that was previously the morgue for the funeral home across the street. In between those owners and her, were 2 other owners. All transactions were between the same selling/buying agent. So when my mother finally sold the house, the agent asked her if she thought it was haunted. She immediately said we did based on some pretty strange occurrences while we lived there. The agent proceeded to tell her that all the previous owners had informed him after they sold that the house was haunted.
His ethics did not quite match Amy and kyle’s. He said he never wanted to ask the seller so he could avoid telling the new buyers if the subject came up.
And yes, it was a very friendly ghost.
This is an interesting issue. On the one hand, as you note, it seems pretty clear that many people would not care to live in a house that was the site of a recent murder, suicide or other such traumatic event. I doubt I would either, although if the price was low enough maybe I would at least consider it further. And that brings me to “the other hand” – the poor seller, or seller’s estate or heirs likely has to take a financial bath – adding financial tragedy to the likely family tragedy. But that’s probably unavoidable, sadly. We simply can’t easily dissociate a place from what occurred there even though our rational mind may come up with all sorts of reasons that we should not link the two.
Overall, I agree with you that IF you know, you should disclose the information if you represent the potentially impacted party – regardless of what the state requires by statute. It wouldn’t be fair to ask someone who might be more sensitive to these matters to end up in a house that then becomes toxic to them. As to whether this should be codified in some form into state law – not sure. I wonder if there are any common law remedies in tort if the information were known but not disclosed. Probably not – but I’d still disclose it if I was an agent to do the right thing, and avoid being sued for it on some common law theory.
I would totally want to know. Not sure that it would impact my decision either way, but I like knowing. Of course, in this age, it’s easy enough to do some online research and find out details ourselves without having to ask.
Ghosts? bad energy? really? Even if I bought that stuff (and I don’t), why just violence? What about the bad energy from a home where there was a divorce, or an unhappy childhood, or a descent into addiction? Why not ask about people’s political views so that you don’t get stuck with a home full of Ralph Nader vibes? Seriously, people. There are a million kinds of human suffering, and they’re all over the place. People should focus on creating good “energy” for the future, not worrying that the past is dragging them down.
As long as we’re going there, why not tell buyers the place is infested with angels? “There’s no mold in the walls, but there is a layer of pixie dust!” No less true than ghost stories…..
Good comments, all.
Tom, you offer a really good point, and had me cracking up.
Tom makes good points – as I was considering why some things bother buyers and some likely don’t (there are always exceptions) I do think there are some distinctions that allow us to make sense of this phenomenon. I think that illness, family problems, divorce, bad politics and even addiction are fundamentally different in how they impact us (and our reactions to a house) from violent crimes — for this reason – the former are more common: most have or will experience some or all of these in their families at some point. So, they dont’ carry the same kind of psychological impact as these other things that are not common in that sense – but still quite scary — for instance – rape, murder, suicide. We’ll all die of something – but personally, I’d rather have a heart attack than be murdered. Hence, sleeping in a house where someone was just murdered carries more “bad energy” for me than where someone had a normal old heart attack.
OOOOH… The XXXX house. My dad wanted to buy that one when it was on the market after the murder… Spooky! Not just because it was just some murder, but that the guy killed his son, daughter, wife. It was almost as though he wanted to protect them. But so cruel. I would DEFINITELY want to know if that happened in a home I was thinking of buying.