From the Hollywood Reporter: Tim Rozon and Sarah Levy, both of Schitt's Creek fame, will star in a new Syfy series, The Surrealtor, about a real estate firm that assists people interested in buying and selling haunted houses--what the law sometimes refers to as stigmatized property or psychologically impacted property. While we're sure that the emphasis will be on the drama of bringing willing buyers and sellers together, there's some drama in the law of buying and selling haunted houses.
A big question: does the seller have to disclose that the property has a tenant who might not leave? Check out the case of Stambovsky v. Ackley for one answer. In this particular case, the seller had actually promoted the house's reputation as haunted but hadn't revealed that to the buyer. Said the court:
In the case at bar, defendant seller deliberately fostered the public belief that her home was possessed. Having undertaken to inform the public- at-large, to whom she has no legal relationship, about the supernatural occurrences on her property, she may be said to owe no less a duty to her contract vendee. It has been remarked that the occasional modern cases which permit a seller to take unfair advantage of a buyer's ignorance so long as he is not actively misled are "singularly unappetizing" (Prosser, Torts ยง 106, at 696 [4th ed 1971]). Where, as here, the seller not only takes unfair advantage of the buyer's ignorance but has created and perpetuated a condition about which he is unlikely to even inquire, enforcement of the contract (in whole or in part) is offensive to the court's sense of equity. Application of the remedy of rescission, within the bounds of the narrow exception to the doctrine of caveat emptor set forth herein, is entirely appropriate to relieve the unwitting purchaser from the consequences of a most unnatural bargain.
Further, ruled the court,
Whether the source of the spectral apparitions seen by defendant seller are parapsychic or psychogenic, having reported their presence in both a national publication (Readers' Digest) and the local press (in 1977 and 1982, respectively), defendant is estopped to deny their existence and, as a matter of law, the house is haunted.
The house in that case was on the market again as recently as June 2020, by the way--for $1.9 million. We don't know if that's with or without the ghost.
Check out this selected bibliography.
Eric Gouvin, On Death and Magic: Law, Necromancy and the Great Beyond, in Law and Magic: A Collection of Essays 229 (Christine A. Corcos, ed., Carolina Academic Press, 2010).
Christina Ro, Do We Have To Tell Them the House Is Haunted? JSTOR Daily, October 27, 2018.
Gaby Schneider, Betelgeuse Said "Ghost Rights!": The Property Law of Haunted Houses at The Legal Geeks, October 30, 2019.
Should You Feel POSSESSED To Buy a House, Look At Your State's Disclosure Laws First, Deeds.com, October 27, 2018.
Daniel M. Warner, Caveat Spiritus: A Jurisprudential Reflection Upon the Law of Haunted Houses and Ghosts, 28 ValPo Scholar 207 (1993).
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