• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

In Australia realtors have to tell you if the house is haunted

Same as the US. Realtors have to disclose any known events in the property history that could affect the marketability or value. This also includes any violent crime or death, even death from natural causes. My wife is a realtor and lost a sale after the buyers backed out. She was obligated to tell them a previous elderly owner (age 90+) died in his sleep in one of the bedrooms, and that creeped out the buyers. She was asked once about hauntings, and she honestly said there are no reported hauntings she knows of.
 
It occurs to me, given the age of British houses, that being put off by the death of a previous owner there would pretty much bring the housing market to a halt.

The last owner of the property I'm in dropped dead in the kitchen. My neighbour, who couldn't stand them, took great pleasure in pointing out exactly where they found the body.
 
It occurs to me, given the age of British houses, that being put off by the death of a previous owner there would pretty much bring the housing market to a halt.

The last owner of the property I'm in dropped dead in the kitchen. My neighbour, who couldn't stand them, took great pleasure in pointing out exactly where they found the body.
Avoid that neighbour, I'd say.
 
Avoid that neighbour, I'd say.

Good advice, he's dead too. He was a lovely guy though.

Actually that reminds me of one of the stranger experiences I've had. My next door neighbour (who is also now dead but has not been mentioned previously) used to be very deaf, and had a piercingly loud burglar alarm. One night this alarm went off in the middle of the night, so I got up and went to check what was happening. Long story short, checked the house from the outside, nothing amiss, but the alarm was deafening, so I was concerned about what might be happening inside.

I knew the neighbour opposite (the one who told me about the body) had a key. So, I knocked his door, but got no reply. I was left standing in the street wondering what to do, when the front curtains of the house opposite were suddenly drawn back, and the blinds were pulled aside. I couldn't see my neighbour in the window, but it was obvious someone was looking out to see what was going on. I started pointing to the house with the alarm and making key gestures. After a while, long enough for it to seem a bit strange, the curtains and blinds were then let go, as if he was coming to the door. But he didn't come. I should point out here, that he lived alone.

About ten minutes later though, he wondered out of his backdoor obviously still half asleep. He told me he'd been sleeping in the back of his house, was on medication, and just woken up. I told him I'd knocked about ten minutes earlier, and he apologised for not having heard me. I decided not to mention what I'd seen in his window.

As I say, he lived alone, but did used to have girlfriends, who might (although I never remember meeting or seeing them) have been staying with him. But, if so why didn't they wake him? It'd be the obvious thing to do with a blaring alarm and large bloke doing mime outside your window in the small hours.

I'm not saying was anything paranormal, just odd.
 
If he was heavily medicated, it might have been him after all and he was not in full control of his faculties, causing him to have a hiatus between seeing who was out there and opening the door. Otherwise, blame mice.
 
In a slightly odd coincidence, I went to the mailbox this morning to find a letter addressed to the previous owner. Dead 18 years. Maybe if you mention the name of a dead person with a connection to your home, the council start sending them forms.

If he was heavily medicated, it might have been him after all and he was not in full control of his faculties, causing him to have a hiatus between seeing who was out there and opening the door. Otherwise, blame mice.

No, he wasn't on that sort of medication. But, I agree there is a rational explanation.
 
Hello! New account due to loss of an old email address, but a visitor of the forums for years.

I (reluctantly!) work at an estate agency in the UK and conduct most of the viewings. We have one particular vacant property that I could barely enter when we first got the keys. One bedroom had the most horrible sense of heaviness, to the point of feeling that I could barely breathe, just a huge weight on my chest. There was a hidden staircase which led up to that wing of the house and the moment the door was opened the sense of being unwelcome was almost intolerable, floating out of that room and down the stairs. It was so palpable it hit you like a bad smell, an actual change in the air.

I was surprised to feel so negatively about the place, because in so many ways it would be my dream house! And I'm used to going into empty properties alone, some in a much worse state that this one so I'm not fainthearted! The odd thing is that the atmosphere got so much worse with the more viewings we had. If multiple people were viewing it in one day I absolutely dreaded going there, I just had the very physical urge to run out of the door as soon as I'd switched off the lights. If no one had visited for a week or two then I'd find the atmosphere would calm down.

Pretty much every viewing I did during that period resulted in them asking if someone had died in the house. A question I've never been asked before or since with any other property. I had two people on separate occasions (strangers to me and in the context of a professional meeting) tell me that there was a dark energy in the house. I had three people leave with headaches (I'd leave with one myself after almost every visit) and one person tell me that the house wouldn't sell until it was cleared of the presence there. Interestingly it has been under offer four times and fallen through each time and is still with us over a year later.

One of the ladies I work with is a medium and visited the place with me after hours to see if she got a sense of anything. I deliberately told her nothing about what I'd felt but she picked up the same heaviness and sense of being unwelcome in the exact same room as I did. She said the lady who lived there and had passed on didn't want people in her house, she was very angry and felt it was an intrusion. She said that at home she was a very private person (despite, I'm told by the people who knew her, being a recognisable character in the town). I also found out on the grapevine that the house had to be tidied quite extensively when she passed, so perhaps she didn't want people to see her home as she remembered it.

As I said, the house has been with us over a year now and lately I haven't felt anything untoward in there. I can't say I'd stay and eat my sandwiches, but I'm not heart-racingly running for the door. If she was still there when I first went into the house then I honestly think she's moved on.
 
Back
Top