Posted on 01/28/2013 6:14:25 PM PST by lowbridge
A Pennsylvania woman has appealed to the state Supreme Court in her suit against a home seller and real estate agent who failed to disclose that a murder-suicide had taken place in the home she purchased.
When Janet Milliken, 59, moved from California after her husband died, she had hoped to start a new life with her two teenage children in Pennsylvania near her family.
She bought a home in Thornton, Pa., for $610,000 in June 2007. She learned a few weeks after she moved in from a next-door neighbor that a murder-suicide had occurred the year before in her home.
She sued the seller and the real estate agent for fraud and misrepresentation, saying they made a "deliberate choice not to disclose the home's recent past," according to a court document.
The trial judge granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, saying state law does not require agents to disclose such events.
Then in December 2012, a panel of the state appeals court affirmed that decision, though with a nearly split decision.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
This house isn’t far from me. I think it involved a gay man who murdered a youngish guy from out West.
I would think it is a material fact about the property that needs to be disclosed since it affects subsequent resale value.
I am surprised it has been so close and gone so far.
BTW, I sleep just fine on a bed where two people died in their sleep. I'm hoping for the same luck.
/johnny
They shouldn’t dwell on it.
I bought a car from a friend one time and for some reason it creeped me out when I drove it at night, like someone nefarious was riding in the back seat. I was casually talking to the friend I bought it from and he told me that he had gotten the car from a buddy who had just refurbished it. “Why?” I asked. “Oh, some guy committed suicide in it and they had to replace the headliner and all of the upholstery.” Yeah, I got rid of it soon after that conversation.
I think I would want to know this information before buying a house.
Depending on the state, real estate agents are forbidden by law from disclosing this. These also applies to homes where HIV Aids people died. Can’t discuss race of owners either.
can’t see where it has any bearing on the value of the property unless the bodies were hidden in the waklls or ceiling.
Too many “new age” idiots watching the Amityville Horror.
A house in the 600K range? Gotta be a hellova house!
Get a Priest to drench the place in holy water, then make peace with the ghosts.
Who knows, maybe you’ll find Beetlejuice running around!
Sheesh.
Me either. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Who cares?
Obviously some people do but they probably care about a bunch of other unimportant stuff, too.
Depending on the state, real estate agents are required by law to disclose this.
well played
***I sleep just fine on a bed where two people died in their sleep.***
Things like that don’t bother me. I knew a family who bought an old mortuary and turned it into a house. The oldest son loved to sleep above the spot where the cadavers were embalmed.
“I sleep just fine on a bed where two people died in their sleep. I’m hoping for the same luck.”
I wanna die in my sleep just like ol’ granddad. Not screaming and crying like the passengers in his car.
;)
they aren’t telling people around here that there’s going to be a bunch of 450 foot windmills within 1250 feet of the home, that are going up in the coming months.
Check your state..........
did you tell the new buyer about the suicide? btw--my sister was doing business with a small graphics firm... she went to their "new" building... the two young owners excitedly gave her a tour... as she went from office to office, she felt a creepy oppressiveness, and could not understand why... later that day she found out that the building used to house Planned Parenthood--where they performed abortions... the weird thing to me is, my sister is very much pro-abortion... and she felt the ugliness that lingered there...
Good luck with that.
the farmhouses around here were built in the late 1800s.
hard to find one that somebody didn’t die in at some time.
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