So, You Want to Sell Your Haunted House?

You’ve owned and lived in your old house for many years, and now you want to sell it. You know from our previous post on Arizona SPDS requirements that Arizona law requires you to disclose material information about the property. But what if your house is haunted?

Do You Have to Disclose a Haunting?

Probably not.

Many people don’t believe in ghosts and wouldn’t care. Others believe and might consider it a positive (cool) feature. Our judicial system was set up to decide “facts” and apply the law to those facts. At this point, the law would likely consider a haunting to be a matter of personal belief or opinion rather than an objectively provable fact.

We’re not here to dispute the existence of ghosts. We’re just saying the law isn’t there yet. Courts don’t want to be in the business of deciding things that cannot be proven as objective facts. But who knows what will happen as science and our understanding of such phenomena evolves.

The Death Disclosure Exception

As we discussed in our SPDS post, under A.R.S. § 32-2156, a seller is not required to disclose that a death occurred on the property. A haunting — even if you believe it’s related to a death — falls into the same category of stigma-type information that sellers generally don’t have to disclose.

What If the Buyer Specifically Asks?

Now it gets interesting. Two principles come into play:

First: don’t lie. Arizona law supports the proposition that a seller may have a duty to disclose a fact if the buyer directly asks about it — even if the fact isn’t otherwise material.

Second: The courts would likely not consider a “haunting” to be a provable fact. A buyer claiming they were misled about a haunting would have a very tough time convincing a court that they were misled about a material “fact.”

You’re always free to say you’d rather not answer. Or you can say “Yep, I think the place is haunted.” The choice is yours.

Enjoy Spooky Season

So if you’re ever faced with selling your haunted house, hope this helps. Of course, the Law Badgers are here to help with any real estate disclosure questions — haunted or otherwise. Happy Halloween!