10/28/2021
If you are looking to sell your haunted house remember, failure to disclose the presence of your boo-mates could lead to a ghostbusted deal! 👻
In the case of Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254 (NY App. Div. 1991) the New York Court of Appeals once ruled on the question of whether a house was “haunted as a matter of law”. The seller, Helen Ackley, owned a home in Nyack, NY that she and her family claimed was haunted by poltergeists. Over the years the Ackley family had promoted these spooky occurrences in the local newspaper and Reader’s Digest. The property had also been included on a local walking tour of the town and was known locally as a haunted house. When the buyer, Jeffrey Stambovsky, discovered “to his horror” the property’s reputation for supernatural activities, he commenced an action seeking rescission of the contract of sale and return of his deposit. The Court stated, that because of the promotion of the hauntings by Ackley, the defendant seller was legally precluded from denying the existence of the poltergeists and that the house was “haunted as a matter of law”. The court held that the facts of the case warranted a grant of equitable relief to the buyer who, since he was not a “local”, could not have been expected to know about the house’s reputation. The Court further concluded that the property’s reputation went “to the very essence of the bargain” and significantly impaired the value of the property and potential for resale. This case gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “buyer beware!”
