Give up the ghost, say spooked agents

By ALAN PERROTT

Real estate agent Ina Angove prayed silently whenever she entered one Papakura house - not for help in securing a sale, but just in case the owners really were right about the home being haunted.

The family who had just moved out had told the agent of some eerie goings-on in one room.

"They said the room would get very, very cold and sometimes, in the middle of the night, they would be woken by sounds coming from it, sounds of people screaming or children playing, crying or laughing.

"They said they could clean it up at night and then in the morning they would find the toys had been scattered around the floor."

Ms Angove claimed not to believe in ghosts - "but I said some prayers when I went inside, just in case".

She worried whether she should pass the tale on to potential buyers.

It was a relief when the house went to a buyer who wanted to rent it out, so the issue never came up.

"It was later sold again by another agent. I've spoken to the lady there now and she is very happy."

The question of how much agents should reveal hit the headlines in Sydney last week when a Taiwanese family demanded their money back after finding their $800,000 home was the scene of a gruesome multiple murder three years ago.

A family spokesman told the Sydney Morning Herald: "There is no way we are moving in there. My parents are devout Buddhists and they believe that if there has been a murder in the house ... there will probably be a really bad ghost living there and that really affects the fortunes for the next family that move in."

The LJ Hooker agents who sold the home were adamant they were not asked about the home's history, so had no obligation to tell the family of the bloodbath in which Sef Gonzales murdered his father Teddy, mother Mary Loiva and sister Clodine on July 10, 2001.

Parnell agent Cyril Dominikovich disagrees strongly, and will be watching what happens when a Parnell property, the scene of a well-publicised double murder about 20 years ago, comes onto the market soon.

"If I was involved in the sale, I would disclose that [murder]. It would probably make it harder to sell, but people would have to know."

Mr Dominikovich has also had a brush with an alleged haunting. A couple who bought a home from him claimed they found a ghost among their new chattels. They moved out and a developer bought the property, removed the house and promptly went into liquidation.

"Spooky," said Mr Dominikovich.

David Russell, from the Consumer's Institute, got a nasty surprise of his own while renovating a former home. After ripping up the lounge carpet he found a brown stain surrounded by white chalk. The agent who sold him the house somehow forgot to mention the murder in the front room, but a helpful policeman later forwarded him pictures of the scene for his interest.

Under the Fair Trading Act agents must not mislead or deceive clients, but Mr Russell said the decision whether to volunteer information fell into a legal grey area.

Auckland barrister John Waymouth, who deals almost exclusively with real estate agents, said his advice was to disclose anything an agent would want to know about a property themselves.

Volunteering information on a murder or suicide should be obvious, he said, but the issue of hauntings was rather tricky.

"How do you tell someone the lampshade is going move around even if the windows are shut? You would have to have concrete evidence, and that never exists."

But he said spiritual issues were culturally important, and any taint of death could rule out a house purchase for Asian or Maori families.

Damaged goods

A bloody history hurts property values. An American academic study found "psychologically impacted" houses took 45 per cent longer to sell than normal homes and went for less money.

A well-publicised murder can knock as much as 35 per cent off a property's value.