Buying a house with a bad history

Emily_Joy

We have had a suicide at workplace a few years ago ... history now. The only suicide I remember vividly was when some poor soul jumped in front of the train, I missed connection and ended up spending the night in a 24 hours McDonalds.

user1977

goater78 said:

user1977 said:

goater78 said:

user1977 said:

SavingPennies_2 said:

turnitround said:

I once went to view a property and I didnt know who the seller was till they opened the door.  Turned out it was It was a lady I knew from a few years before. I used to clean at her previous property.
The house had a long hallway and a beautiful staircase with a stained glass window at the top. I loved the house, all of it. However I knew that the ladies husband had hung himself from the top of the stairs a few years before. As I looked round the house I came out of one of the bedrooms and saw where she must have found him and I just knew that I couldnt cope with the image of seeing him every time I got up to go to the loo in the night.

I have to admit I'd be the same. Yes I know people die in houses all the time as has been pointed out, but suicide is something I think I would struggle to get past and I'm not superstitious or funny about death. I wouldn't be able to "unsee" it once I knew.

What about an unintentional but sudden death?

What about a long and painful death by natural causes?

You probably wouldn’t know about those as although sad it’s not newsworthy. So you could live in the house in blissful ignorance. 

Suicide and murders are reported more widely so you’ll very likely be aware if one had happened in your house. 

Murders are, obviously, but how often are suicides newsworthy? You really don't get the circumstances reported in that sort of detail, especially if they happen at home.

People in the local road would know and I imagine gossip about it. Would be surprised if nobody mentioned to you that someone had killed themselves in the house. Also people google their own addresses and imagine something would come up for it. 

Where would a domestic suicide come up via Google? Assuming the deceased wasn't somebody notable.

stevoh

eddddy said:

FWIW, in this article from 2013, both the Property Ombudsman and the Managing Director of the NAEA (National Association of Estate Agents) seem to say that an Estate Agent must disclose murders and suicides at a property.

Link: https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Lawyers-could-have-field-day-over-agents-duties-to-disclose-property-information

The article also mentions that some lawyers disagree.

But it's the Property Ombudsman who can order Estate Agents to pay compensation for omitting material information - so I guess the Property Ombudsman's opinion is pretty important to Estate Agents.


(Since 2013, there is a new Property Ombudsman and a new MD of the NAEA - so I guess it's possible that the new post-holders have different opinions.)

Thanks. I also asked an estate agent (from a different agency yesterday) about the topic in general, and she relayed they are legally bound to tell you 

stevoh

Sistergold said:

If my children got to know about a death in a house we live in especially suicide or murder they will have nightmares and start talking of seeing ghosts and I will have them knocking on my door most nights. I would not buy overlooking a graveyard for the same reason. Some children have very active imagination. 

All the kids I knew when I was a kid were like that. In fact this particular suicide happened when I was a kid and the house was the creepy house in our neighbourhood that we all talked about. We didn’t want to have to get our football out the garden etc. I also remember getting a shudder when I rode past it on my bike. Of course it’s different now I’m an adult.

It’s a rare community in the fact that a lot of families stay there long term, so everyone does still know about it and there’s no doubt the kids would also, 

stevoh

Thanks for all the feedback.

It’s certainly a topic which has got people talking!

I’ll go and view the place and see how I feel. I’ll also consider the price. 

My preference would be to live in a house where this hadn’t happened, but of course there’s other things to weigh up. 

goater78

user1977 said:

goater78 said:

user1977 said:

goater78 said:

user1977 said:

SavingPennies_2 said:

turnitround said:

I once went to view a property and I didnt know who the seller was till they opened the door.  Turned out it was It was a lady I knew from a few years before. I used to clean at her previous property.
The house had a long hallway and a beautiful staircase with a stained glass window at the top. I loved the house, all of it. However I knew that the ladies husband had hung himself from the top of the stairs a few years before. As I looked round the house I came out of one of the bedrooms and saw where she must have found him and I just knew that I couldnt cope with the image of seeing him every time I got up to go to the loo in the night.

I have to admit I'd be the same. Yes I know people die in houses all the time as has been pointed out, but suicide is something I think I would struggle to get past and I'm not superstitious or funny about death. I wouldn't be able to "unsee" it once I knew.

What about an unintentional but sudden death?

What about a long and painful death by natural causes?

You probably wouldn’t know about those as although sad it’s not newsworthy. So you could live in the house in blissful ignorance. 

Suicide and murders are reported more widely so you’ll very likely be aware if one had happened in your house. 

Murders are, obviously, but how often are suicides newsworthy? You really don't get the circumstances reported in that sort of detail, especially if they happen at home.

People in the local road would know and I imagine gossip about it. Would be surprised if nobody mentioned to you that someone had killed themselves in the house. Also people google their own addresses and imagine something would come up for it. 

Where would a domestic suicide come up via Google? Assuming the deceased wasn't somebody notable.

The coroner rules on a suicide and think these are published online. 

Section62

user1977 said:

goater78 said:

user1977 said:

Murders are, obviously, but how often are suicides newsworthy? You really don't get the circumstances reported in that sort of detail, especially if they happen at home.

People in the local road would know and I imagine gossip about it. Would be surprised if nobody mentioned to you that someone had killed themselves in the house. Also people google their own addresses and imagine something would come up for it. 

Where would a domestic suicide come up via Google? Assuming the deceased wasn't somebody notable.

These days suicide at home is unlikely to be reported (in any detail), but it wasn't that long ago (1960's?) that some local papers would report deaths of this type in some graphic detail.

A Google search would currently be hit-and-miss, but sites like newspapers.com have extensive collections of newspapers which have been OCR'd so can be searched once logged in. If that information ultimately crosses the paywall then no doubt Google etc will show all the detail.

One of the issues will be whether the news report can be linked to a specific property - which may be relatively easy in rural areas, but could require some detective work in urban areas.  With growing interest in family history and more people wanting to write and publish 'their story', facts like a person killing themselves in a specific house will become easier to find.

As an example, in searching one of my family lines I came across a news report where a couple had lost their only child (son) in WW1 and never got over it.  Some time later the wife threw herself down the well, and on coming home the husband found the body (it was assumed) and then hung himself from the bannister. The local paper reported this in quite horrible detail, and syndicated the report so it appeared in other local papers in the region (up to 100 miles away from the location). This happened (just) within living memory, so it is plausible that people local to this house would also still be aware of what happened there, and talk about it when it goes on the market.

On the other hand we as children knew that someone had killed themselves in one of the outbuildings at the family home.  As children it seemed like ancient history and didn't bother us.  Now as adults the time gap between this happening and my parents buying the property looks rather short.  The difference (perhaps) - and this could well apply in the OP's case too - is that being in an outbuilding it was slightly detached in significance compared to what it may have been if it happened inside the main house, and particularly in a bedroom.

This is a sensitive topic and different people are going to react differently to learning about the sad history of a house. In some respects it is the same as the "should I buy a house near a rail line/motorway" threads.- for some people it will be of no consequence, for others a dealbreaker. Ultimately it is only a choice the OP can make.

https://www.samaritans.org/

chrisw

I wouldn't buy it, surely you've seen Amityville Horror?

There are loads of houses for sale, no doubt many with similar histories, but the point is you don't know about those. If you can't decide whether or not to tell people, especially the children, it's like having a big secret hanging over your head in the fear that they might find out somehow.

Find another house with an 'unknown' past.

Slinky

There's a house near us in a very desirable street up for sale where there was sadly a murder & suicide and now it's up for sale with all the occupants' belongings still in the property. To me it looks priced to sell below what it would have done had this not happened. It has no outside space so I guess that limits some buyers who would not buy for that reason, but other than that, it is a desirable property that in normal circumstances would have gone in a couple of weeks. It's been up for sale for several months and is just not shifting. I can't help thinking the fact it's still fully furnished isn't helping either.

Somebody will buy it eventually of course, but there's no way they won't find out what happened there, even if not told by the agent,  as it was extensively reported at the time

Silvertabby

Some people are overly sensitive.  An old work colleague was in process of buying a new build - because that was the only way she could be sure that no-one had died in the property - when, sadly, one of the construction workers died of a heart attack on site.

He didn't die in 'her' actual house, but she still pulled out of the sale.