Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck.
Speaker 1: This is Josh talking, and there's Chuck sitting there waiting
Speaker 1: on standby to launch this short stuff about real estate.
Speaker 1: But wait, wait scary real estate. Yeah, and this is
Speaker 1: one that you were pretty convinced we had done before.
Speaker 1: We may have talked about it, I think I but
Speaker 1: I cannot, for the life of me figure out where
Speaker 1: Like we don't have We've never done an episode on
Speaker 1: selling your house. We've never done one on haunted houses,
Speaker 1: like we've done haunted house attractions, we did ghosts. But
Speaker 1: I don't know where this would have come up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: someone will know. Yeah, they'll be like, you guys really
Speaker 1: screwed up again. This time you did a short stuff
Speaker 1: with something you've done already. I quit. How could you
Speaker 1: be such idiots? I'll never listen to you, and I
Speaker 1: question everything you say from now on and everything you've
Speaker 1: ever said, and stopped being so liberal. I hate you.
Speaker 1: Stop talking about politics. Oh man, election, Your emails have
Speaker 1: been fun. But this is about something else. This is
Speaker 1: uh the scary season, and this is about something that
Speaker 1: I was kind of curious of, uh, not that I've
Speaker 1: ever looked at a haunted house. But I just kind
Speaker 1: of wondered if your house is haunted, or at least
Speaker 1: you think it is, and you believe in that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, if you have to tell a potential home buyer,
Speaker 1: if you have to disclose that, like, you know, the
Speaker 1: basement links some the windows are fairly drafty, and there's
Speaker 1: a spectrum the third floor. What excuse me, I didn't
Speaker 1: catch that? Did you say a specter? The specter says, what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so your house is pretty old. Do you suspect it's haunted? No,
Speaker 1: although it's funny you mentioned that last week. They were
Speaker 1: like there was one night where a few weird things
Speaker 1: happened and they weren't like noises. They were just like
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, something would be in a weird
Speaker 1: part of the house. Or uh, there were just a
Speaker 1: few I can't remember what they were, but three very
Speaker 1: not intuitive placements of things where I was like, did
Speaker 1: you put this there? And it's like, uh what? And
Speaker 1: then suddenly you guys look like little or Fananny with
Speaker 1: cartoon sweat jumping off your foreheads and your pupils were gone. Maybe,
Speaker 1: but and you know what kind of laugh We're like,
Speaker 1: is this house haunted, but I think after, you know,
Speaker 1: thirteen or fourteen years, we would have seen something by now.
Speaker 1: So so I agreed, And sorry to get off truck
Speaker 1: because I know this is short. So, but have you
Speaker 1: watched The Haunting of bly Manner yet? Oh? My god,
Speaker 1: is it really scary? Maybe the best of the best
Speaker 1: anyone's ever put to film. It's so well done. It's
Speaker 1: so great. And I wasn't a fan of the Haunting
Speaker 1: of hill House. This is everything you wanted the Haunting
Speaker 1: of hill House and basically every ghost movie or TV
Speaker 1: show to be. It's so good man, you're going to
Speaker 1: love it. I put it on par with like the
Speaker 1: others and the Orphanage. Um, it's just beautifully done. Okay, awesome,
Speaker 1: I'll check it out. Okay, I didn't see the other one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I watched a little of it and then just kind
Speaker 1: of stopped. But but check this one out. Okay, all right. So,
Speaker 1: so the question you posed was if you think your
Speaker 1: house is haunted, do you have to disclose it? And
Speaker 1: the short answer is no, you don't have to disclose it.
Speaker 1: But the longer answer is, if you don't disclose it,
Speaker 1: and you actually do think your house is haunted and
Speaker 1: everybody else thinks your house is haunted, then you could
Speaker 1: actually get sued if the person you sold your house
Speaker 1: to finds out that the house is haunted and decides
Speaker 1: they don't want to own a haunted house, and you
Speaker 1: might have to give their money back. And now you
Speaker 1: own two houses, the one you bought after you sold
Speaker 1: that house and the one you sold originally. And that's
Speaker 1: actually based on case law from the ninety eighties in
Speaker 1: New York, isn't it. Yeah, there was a woman named
Speaker 1: Helen Actley, and she and her family lived in an
Speaker 1: old Victorian an upstate New York. And she claimed that
Speaker 1: they had ghosts there and she didn't keep it quiet.
Speaker 1: She was in the newspaper, she was in reader's digest.
Speaker 1: She kind of talked to anyone who would listen about
Speaker 1: they were on the ghost tour of the town. And uh,
Speaker 1: everybody knew this, I guess except for the guy that
Speaker 1: bought it one, Jeffrey Stambowski. And in nine he came
Speaker 1: from New York City bought the place for a tidy
Speaker 1: sum of six and fifty grand. Back in the eighties,
Speaker 1: there was a lot. Yeah, totally, I mean, this must
Speaker 1: be quite a house, and then the neighbors were like, oh,
Speaker 1: so you bought the old haunted actually place and he
Speaker 1: was like what and he got mad and uh sued
Speaker 1: and originally the judge said no, sorry, it's kind of
Speaker 1: buy or beware, and then that was overturned in an appeal.
Speaker 1: And I think you should read the part of the
Speaker 1: decision there. It's pretty good. Okay, this is me doing
Speaker 1: an appeals court judge from New York reversing the decision
Speaker 1: in Stambovski versus Actley. Okay, yes, whether the source of
Speaker 1: the spectral apparitions seen by defendant Sela a parapsychic or psychogenic.
Speaker 1: Having reported the presence in both a national publication Rioto's
Speaker 1: Darn Dressed and the local press in nine and two, respectively,
Speaker 1: wrote the court defendant is stopped prevented from going back
Speaker 1: on our word to deny their existence, and as a
Speaker 1: matter of law, the house is haunted. So for those
Speaker 1: of you listening, this is just a little preview of
Speaker 1: what's to come for our annual Halloween episode. I'm down
Speaker 1: to one accent. Basically, I got one accent. He's doing
Speaker 1: accents now, everybody twelve years in, I'm doing accent. It's
Speaker 1: the best news that I've had in a long time.
Speaker 1: Jash is doing accent. Well, I was doing it for
Speaker 1: the Halloween episode, and I just thought I'd trot it
Speaker 1: out for this. Yeah, because in real time we just
Speaker 1: read that. But this will serve as a little teaser.
Speaker 1: So just hold onto your hats for that one, everyone,
Speaker 1: And in fact, maybe we should take a little break
Speaker 1: and then I can get myself together and then come
Speaker 1: back right after this. Okay, So chok. That judge reversed
Speaker 1: the decision and staid, nope, I think you mean magistrate,
Speaker 1: mrs actly, you have to give that six dollars back
Speaker 1: to Mr Strombovski and um Or Stanbovsky. I'm sorry. And
Speaker 1: she she did, she had she was stuck with two houses. Now.
Speaker 1: The reason why, you know, traditionally with law, it's buyer
Speaker 1: beware cavy emptor, which is basically saying like, if you
Speaker 1: didn't take the time to examine a house, um you
Speaker 1: you are it's your own fault, basically, But this this circuit,
Speaker 1: the or the appeals court judge said, well, this is
Speaker 1: a material defect. Everyone knows it's haunted. So if you
Speaker 1: tried to sell it, whoever you sell it too, is
Speaker 1: gonna find out it's haunted. So it's a problem unless
Speaker 1: somebody wants to buy a haunted house, so it's affected,
Speaker 1: the real estate is affected. But then secondly, you couldn't
Speaker 1: possibly find this out just by examining the house, right, um,
Speaker 1: And so that was that it's an old Victorian and
Speaker 1: of state New York. You right, right, But he was
Speaker 1: saying like so by or but ware doesn't doesn't um
Speaker 1: doesn't apply in this situation, and actually overturned it. So
Speaker 1: when he did that, there's no state laws on the book.
Speaker 1: There's no state. I think Zillo did a survey. There's
Speaker 1: no state that says you have to disclose whether people
Speaker 1: think a house is haunted or not. But because that
Speaker 1: decision was made, there's now um precedence for it, and
Speaker 1: we can point to it when they try to see
Speaker 1: other people and say, look, see other people have said
Speaker 1: this is correct, so fine in our favor. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think Minnesota has UH in its disclosure law, something that
Speaker 1: says you, um, it free sellers up from having to
Speaker 1: disclose non material facts, including if the home has any
Speaker 1: perceived paranormal activity. So it is actually listed, but it's
Speaker 1: listed in reverse right, like saying if your house is
Speaker 1: on it, you don't have to say so. Um. And
Speaker 1: I think it depends on what state you're in, as
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess this is precedent in New York,
Speaker 1: But would that be true for everywhere? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that that would apply in the country and possibly even
Speaker 1: in other Western countries to um, because it's such a rare,
Speaker 1: unique ruling, I think you could cite it else right.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it would hold up, um, depending
Speaker 1: on where you were, but it is legal precedents in
Speaker 1: the United States. Yes. Well, there's a woman named Cindy Hagley, Uh,
Speaker 1: Cindy with an eye and she is a real estate
Speaker 1: broker in California who I think she was forced to
Speaker 1: change the Y two and I when she became a
Speaker 1: real estate broker. Yes, so she get died at with
Speaker 1: balloon hanging above the sign that's right, that says open house.
Speaker 1: She's with the Hagley Group and also president of something
Speaker 1: called Past Life Homes, which is a business uh where
Speaker 1: she consults to sell houses that may be haunted. And
Speaker 1: her deal is She's like, listen, um, you've got to
Speaker 1: disclose it. In a couple of cases, if it will
Speaker 1: affect the value of a home, kind of like what
Speaker 1: the court case said, like, Hey, like this thing, you
Speaker 1: can't sell it for as much in the future, so
Speaker 1: you have to say something. Uh. That's one reason. And
Speaker 1: the other reason, she says, is if it's um open
Speaker 1: and notorious, like if everybody in the town knows about this,
Speaker 1: Like if just the person that lived there said, hey,
Speaker 1: there's a ghost, trust me, all this weird stuff happened.
Speaker 1: It's been a reader's digest. Yeah, if it's been a
Speaker 1: reader's digest and it's on a ghost tour, she thinks
Speaker 1: she feels like she has to disclose it. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the other sort of sticking point here is if someone
Speaker 1: asked directly, hey, is this old spooky farmhouse haunted, then
Speaker 1: you have to answer if you know something, yeah, which
Speaker 1: I think is pretty cool. But that's really really um,
Speaker 1: that's a useful thing for everybody to know when you're
Speaker 1: buying a house. Just always ask. I think it's I mean,
Speaker 1: what the worst they could do is be like you're
Speaker 1: a cuckoo, but yeah, I know. Then just just send them,
Speaker 1: send them our way and tell him to listen to
Speaker 1: this episode and they'll be like, oh, Okay, now that
Speaker 1: makes sense. But what about if it's not necessarily haunted.
Speaker 1: What about if there was you know, if father killed
Speaker 1: all of his family in their sleep one night twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. Creepy chuck. So that would be something that's
Speaker 1: called psychologically affected real estate UM or stigmatized real estate,
Speaker 1: something that was like the side of a murder, a
Speaker 1: meth lab um, the something that's openly and notoriously haunted,
Speaker 1: as are called stigmatized properties. And when it comes to
Speaker 1: an actual physical death, not a haunting or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but somebody has died in the house, especially if they've
Speaker 1: died violently, whether by suicide or by homicide. There are
Speaker 1: actually some states that say you have to disclose this.
Speaker 1: Almost all states don't say you have to disclose it again,
Speaker 1: though you would be probably better off in the long
Speaker 1: run just to cover your your bass legally afterward, to
Speaker 1: disclose it after you're basically signing papers. You're like, by
Speaker 1: the way, you know, my grandmother died in this in
Speaker 1: your bedroom, um, and then just run out the door
Speaker 1: with their check. But in Alaska, California, and South Dakota,
Speaker 1: you actually are required to disclose it ahead of time,
Speaker 1: right and so if someone said is blind man or haunted,
Speaker 1: you would have to say, oh, yes, this is pretty
Speaker 1: cool stuff it is. I love stuff like this. Um
Speaker 1: so yeah, I guess The thing here is to be truthful,
Speaker 1: is to be honest and open about everything from homicides
Speaker 1: to hauntings too. If you've been making math, you know,
Speaker 1: let the people know. I've been making math here, No
Speaker 1: big deal. This house is probably just infected forever. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's it about distressed real estate. And if
Speaker 1: you want to know more about it, go home shopping
Speaker 1: and see what you find and let us know what
Speaker 1: you find too. And in the meantime, Short Stuff is apt.
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