Haunted addresses on record in New York
What New York requires
New York law says a home's history — a death on the premises, a felony crime, or even a reputation for being haunted — is not something a seller or agent has to volunteer; it's treated as legally immaterial. But if you ask directly, they're expected to answer honestly, and New York is also the origin of the famous 'Ghostbusters' ruling, where a seller who had publicly promoted her house as haunted wasn't allowed to deny it later.
New York Real Property Law § 443-a spells this out directly: it is not a material defect or fact about a property that it is, or is suspected to have been, the site of a homicide, suicide, or other death (accidental or natural), or of a felony. No lawsuit can be brought against a seller, occupant, or their agent for staying silent about any of that, and staying silent isn't grounds for discipline against a real estate agent either.
New York has no death-disclosure window like California's — there's no set number of years after which a death must be revealed. New York's statute runs the other direction: it affirmatively protects non-disclosure, full stop, regardless of how recent or how the death occurred.
The 'ask rule' isn't written into § 443-a itself, but legal commentary on the statute consistently describes it as understood practice: the exemption covers silence, not lying. If a buyer or their agent asks directly about a death or a haunted reputation, the seller/agent is expected to answer truthfully — that expectation rests on general misrepresentation principles rather than a specific clause of the statute, so treat it as a strong norm rather than a guaranteed statutory right.
The named quirk here is real and it's a New York case: Stambovsky v. Ackley (1991), the 'Ghostbusters ruling.' A Nyack, NY seller had spent years publicly telling Reader's Digest and the local paper her house was haunted by poltergeists, then sold it without a word about that to the buyer. A New York appellate court held she couldn't now deny what she'd loudly claimed for her own benefit, and let the buyer out of the contract on equitable grounds — effectively declaring the house 'haunted as a matter of law.' It's a narrow, fact-specific ruling (it turned on the seller's own public promotion, not on hauntings generally), but it's the case every stigmatized-property discussion of New York cites.
General information, not legal advice. Laws change and turn on details — for a real decision, talk to a licensed professional in New York.
The New York record is waiting
No entries filed from New York yet. If something happened at an address you know, write it down — you may be the reason the next resident feels less alone at 3 AM.