Well, instead of a two car garage... we have ghosts!

Real Stigmatized Property?

Caveat emptor is Latin for "Let the buyer beware".

Generally Caveat Emptor was the property law doctrine that controlled the sale of real property after the date of 'closing'

Story by Guy Driskall

Stigmatized property is a term used in the real estate business which describes possible detrimental features of a property or home, all the result of unfortunate occurrences. These can include murder, suicide or even AIDS, in addition to a belief that a house may be haunted by real ghosts.

Individuals from some cultures won't consider the purchase of a home where a actual death has occurred, believing negative energy lives within its walls, real estate professionals say. Other buyers are intrigued by a property's dark past. Often now a days people go to realtors asking directly if they have a haunted house for sale. And often amature ghost hunters will contact an agent to basically have a haunted walk through of such properties.

Famous homes, such as those used in television or movies, can also be stigmatized due to increased traffic from fans wanting to see the house in person. One such home is the house that was made famous in the film "The Amityville Horror". The house which was located at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York was the site where Ronald DeFeo, Jr. murdered his family, and a little over a year later the Lutz family claimed that evil spirits drove them from their home. Since the films release, the house has been renovated and the address changed in an attempt to prevent sightseers from disturbing the neighborhood.

Even though a particular buyer may not care about any stigma attached to the property, the stigma may make it very difficult to resell in the future. Therefore, while a buyer may or may not believe in supernatural phenomena, he/she may want to know about a property's bloody past. However, depending on the jurisdiction of the house, the seller may not be required to disclose the full facts.

Stambovsky vs. Ackley

During the course of her ownership of the property at issue, which was located in Nyack, New York, Helen Ackley and members of her family had reported the existence of numerous poltergeists (sic) in the house. Ackley had reported the existence of ghosts in the house to both Reader's Digest and a local newspaper on three occasions between 1977 and 1989, when the house was included on a five-home walking tour of the city. Neither Ackley nor her realtor, Ellis Realty, revealed the haunting to Jeffrey Stambovsky before he entered a contract to purchase the house in 1989 or 1990. Stambovsky was from New York City and was not aware of the folklore of Nyack, including the widely known haunting story.

When Stambovsky learned of the haunting story, he filed an action requesting rescission of the contract of sale and for damages for fraudulent misrepresentation by Ackley and Ellis Realty. A New York Supreme Court (trial court) dismissed the action, and Stambovsky appealed.

Helen Herdman Ackley (May 1977). "Our Haunted House on the Hudson". Reader's Digest: p. 217.

The Ghost of Nyack

Helen Ackley did find a buyer for the house and moved to Florida in 1991.

Around 1993 Ackley was contacted by a paranormal researcher from Portland, Oregon, Bill Merrill. She also met the channeler, Glenn Johnson.

They were able to contact two ghosts from the Nyack residence from a location in Southern Oregon. One ghost called himself Sir George, the other called herself Margaret. The ghosts stated that it wasn't as much fun in the house since the Ackley's moved out. It is true that the eventual buyers played down the haunting, and did not want the ghosts.

The ghosts went on to explain various parts of history of the area along the Hudson between Nyack and Upper Nyack and Hook Mountain. Later Historians in Rockland County checked out the recounting and most of it held up, or could easily be true. The facts presented were highly obscure, and not readily available. In one meeting with the ghosts, they stated that they were to board and it was time to move on. So just maybe the Ghost of Nyack is no more...

In 1995, Bill and Glenn published a book about these events. It is entitled: Sir George, The Ghost of Nyack by Bill Merrill & Glenn Johnson (Deer Publishing, Beaverton, OR). In 2003, Helen Ackley passed away.

MY HAUNTED HOUSE OR WAS IT JUST A DREAM NIGHTMARE!

I bought a real haunted house, and it was sold to me as such. I was fully aware that the house was haunted and really wanted to own it and interact with the ghost that lived there. I gues I wanted "Ordinary Ghosts " the kind that like the living and interact as if still alive, if their is such a thing.

The house in question had tales of ghostly encounters associated with it long before I was ever born. The actual standing structure to property was built somewhere around 1878.

I guess I dreamed of having ghostly friends like the Kirby's fron the old Topper movie and TV series. Or a friendly little ghost like Casper to be my friend and share a few adventures with. But you know of course I was wrong. Often I have heard that a lot of people believe in ghosts and light a candle at night to guide their loved ones home.

Do You See Dead People? Disclose It!

by Broderick Perkins

As silly as it sounds, if your home has a reputation for ectoplasmic activity, you should disclose it.

Disclosing things that go bump in the night, as well as more tangible stigmas could certainly cause your home's value to drop, but failing to disclose them could cost you a much scarier liability suit.

Most states's disclosure laws don't deal with the forms the deceased take in the afterlife, but they do address death as a stigma.

In California, for example, the law says you don't have to disclose a death that occurred more than three years before the sale.

Real estate attorneys interpret that to mean agents should disclose any deaths that occur within three years of the sale, and the California Association of Realtors advises agents to do so. The association also advises agents to disclose any death, no matter how long ago it occurred, if the seller asks.

The one exception is death caused by AIDS.

Federal law define's AIDS as a disability and such a disclosure could be deemed discriminatory.

Randall Bell, founder of Laguna Beach, CA-based Bell Consulting, which analyzes the impact of detrimental conditions on property values, says secrecy about specters and other conditions only adds to the fear.

Public disclosure has a cathartic effect that helps remove any shroud of secrecy, says Bell, who was called in for consultations after the 1997 Heaven's Gate murders in San Diego -- the largest mass suicide on U.S. soil.

Rancho Santa Fe Groves Inc., led by developer William L. Strong Jr., purchased the property two years after the event for $668,000, less than half the $1.6 million list price before the cultists' deaths. At the time of the purchase, the 9,000 square foot home on 3.1 acres was slated for demolition, but the assessor valued the land at $1.5 million.

Bell says he would open any such heavily stigmatized home to the media to keep a forbidden property from becoming "haunted".

There is case law that sets legal precedent, but it doesn't totally support Bell's assertions.

In 1989, naive out-of-towners Jeffrey and Patrice Stambovsky, purchased an 18-room rambling riverfront Victorian mansion on the Hudson River in scenic Nyack, N.Y.

Unbeknown to them at the time, the $650,000 home was haunted.

Owner Helen Ackley, however, had actively promoted her home as a haunt for apparitions in the attic, poltergeists in the pantry and ghosts in the garage.

Both the local and national media reported the story. The most notable version was a 1997 Reader's Digest story, "Our Haunted House on the Hudson."

According to Ackley's Digest account, there were at least three ghosts thought to date back to the Revolutionary War, a red-cloaked woman often seen demurely descending the staircase, a wandering sailor with a powdered wig and an elderly gentleman sitting in the living room suspended four feet above the floor.

"Our ghosts have continued to delight us," Ackley told Reader's Digest.

The spooks were always "gracious, thoughtful -- only occasionally frightening -- and thoroughly entertaining," she said.

At their worst, the spirits almost knocked her daughter out of bed and shook her four-poster bed in the mornings just before the alarm clock went off.

Jeffrey Stambovsky insisted he didn't believe in ghosts, but the possibility of living with them spooked his wife.

The Stambovskys demanded that Ackley return their $32,500 binder and ax the deal. Ackley refused to return the money, claiming that the Stambovskys had agreed to purchase the home "as is."

Instead of taking metaphysical law into their own hands, the Stambovskys took it to court.

"We were the victims of ectoplasmic fraud," Stambovsky moaned.

A lower court ruled in favor of Ackley, but later Justice Israel Rubin of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court reversed the decision with a devilish tounge-in-cheek ruling.

"(A) very practical problem arises with respect to the discovery of a paranormal phenomenon: 'Who you gonna call?' as a title song to the movie Ghostbusters asks. Applying the strict rule of caveat emptor to a contract involving a house possessed by poltergeists conjures up visions of a psychic or medium routinely accompanying the structural engineers and Terminix man on an inspection of every home subject to a contract of sale," Rubin said.

"Whether the source of the spectral apparitions seen by defendant seller are parapsychic or psychogenic, having reported their presence in both a national publication and the local press, defendant is estopped to deny their existence, and, as a matter of law, the house is haunted," he finished with a flourish.

Published: October 23, 2003 Reprinted with Kind Permission of Copyright © 2003 Realty Times®. All Rights Reserved http://realtytimes.com/rtnews/rtcpages/20031023_deadpeople.htm

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws -- http://www.loc.gov/copyright.

Broderick Perkins is executive editor of San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews.com, an editorial content and editorial consulting firm. Perkins, also contributing editor of "Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home" (Nolo, Berkeley, CA), has been a consumer and real estate journalist for 29 years.