Reagan Seidler, Law Society of Upper Canada, Smart & Biggar, has published The Law of Haunted Houses: A Comment on Stigmatized Properties following Wang v Shao 54 (2) UBC Law Rev. 455 (2021). Here is the abstract.
Deaths, hauntings, and other scandalous business can impact the value of a home. What must sellers of such “stigmatized” properties disclose to buyers? With the Supreme Court of Canada recently declining to answer the question, this piece aims to help sellers and professionals decide what to say when haggling over Hill House. A comparative look at real estate law and practice in English Canada, Québec, England, and the United States reveals wide differences in approach, revealing deeper differences in how the jurisdictions treat latent defects. The most doctrinally consistent answer is that subjective flaws like ghosts and murders are not defects, but if they are, online coverage of the issue renders them latent. Sellers may therefore pass quiet title while themselves remaining quiet about any skeletons in the closet.
Download the article from SSRN at the link.
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