(August 9, 2017 at 2:35 am)Nymphadora Wrote:(August 8, 2017 at 5:20 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: This is not necessarily true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmatized_property
Stambovsky v. Ackley - the property did not in fact have to *be* haunted, the seller just had to believe it was.
The OP is probably full of shit, however.
That wasn't actually a law. The only thing that Stambovsky got was his down payment back and he was allowed to back out of the contract. The judge made it clear that it wasn't any sort of buyer beware or anything like that. So technically - no, there are no laws requiring anyone wishing to sell their house to disclose any sort of non-physical issues. California might come close with something on the books about having to report a murder if it has occurred within the last three years the current owner wishes to sell the house. But outside of that - I checked. I read up on the Stambovsky v Ackley lawsuit just to see if there was some violation of any laws and there were none.
It's a tort, not a criminal law. Torts are frequently based on common law, not statue law. You aren't going to find a statute that says "you must disclose that you think your house is haunted'. That the owner believes the house is haunted is a material fact. If it wasn't there would be no basis for finding for the plaintiff.
