As Halloween approaches, thoughts naturally turn to ghosts and haunted houses. For housing lawyers, our concerns are usually confined to more earthly matters such as possession claims, homelessness applications and disrepair. Whilst the law is not typically associated with tales of the supernatural, there have been some published decisions over the year which contain more than a few unexpected encounters with ghosts, spirits and other unexplained phenomena.

R v Nottingham CC ex parte Costello (1989) 21 HLR 301, QBD

One of the UK’s most unusual housing disputes arose when John and Helen Costello claimed they had been driven from their Nottingham City Council home by a series of alleged poltergeist activities. The family reported a range of unexplained occurrences, including bedding being ripped off the bed whilst they slept, musical instruments playing without intervention and curious typewriter sounds.

After leaving their property, the Costellos applied to the Council to be rehoused. This request was refused, on the basis that the Council considered it was unreasonable for them to leave their previous property and therefore treating them as intentionally homeless.

The family challenged this decision, arguing that the Council had failed to properly investigate their extraordinary claims.

The case reached the High Court, where Mr Justice Nolan described the circumstances as “highly unusual” and granted permission for judicial review. While the court did not determine whether a ghost was genuinely responsible for the alleged disturbances, the case attracted significant media attention and remains one of the most famous examples of the law grappling with claims of paranormal activity.

The “Ghostbusters” Case

The USA appears not to have avoided paranormal activity either. Unlike damp and mould however, ghosts are not yet recognised as a category of disrepair.

However, in Stambovsky v Ackley 169 A.D.2d 254 (1991), a New York Court famously held that a house could be ‘haunted as a matter of law’, leading to what has since been known as the “Ghostbusters” ruling.

Mr Stambovsky agreed to purchase a house in the village of Nyack, a village which he apparently was not too well acquainted. To his horror, after paying the deposit, Mr Stambovsky discovered that the house had a well-publicised reputation for being haunted, not least due to the fact that the seller had advertised the spectral presence in the local press, a national feature in Reader’s Digest and included the house as a stop in the local ghost tour.

On hearing of the ghostly attachment by word of mouth, Mr Stambovsky commenced legal proceedings seeking rescission of the contract and damages for fraudulent misrepresentation.

Although the claim was initially dismissed by the New York State Supreme Court, the appellate court held that as the seller herself had publicly promoted the property’s haunted reputation, she was estopped from denying any ghostly presence and the house was “haunted as a matter of law“.

Whilst Mr Stambovsky was permitted to rescind the contract and recover his deposit, the court refused his claim for further damages based on fraudulent misrepresentation, applying the longstanding doctrine of caveat emptor (buyer beware).

As if not already exciting enough, the Ghostbusters ruling also produced one of the more memorable judicial observations. In his dissenting judgment, Justice Albert M. Rosenblatt remarked:

“Finally, if the doctrine of caveat emptor is to be discarded, it should be for a reason more substantive than a poltergeist. The existence of a poltergeist is no more binding upon the defendants than it is upon this court.”

 Hackney London Borough Council ex P McGee (1969)

 Another unusual case is the case of McGee v Hackney London Borough Council, a case concerning a council property in Stoke Newington that became notorious for alleged paranormal activity.

 Not dissimilar to the experiences reported by the Costello family, the occupants complained of a range of disturbing incidents, including unexplained knocking sounds, moving furniture and sightings of a mysterious “woman in white“.

 Where the case takes an even stranger turn is that Mr McGee alleged the unauthorised ghostly occupant was responsible for damaging furnishings and even setting fire to parts of the property. The alleged hauntings attracted sufficient attention to prompt an investigation by members of the Ghost Club, one of the world’s oldest paranormal research organisations.

The happenings caused Mr McGee to lobby the Council for a rent reduction. They obliged and his rent dropped from £6 a week to just 5 shillings. The landlord, unsurprisingly, took issue with the reduction and took the issue to Court, eventually winning the case and reinstating his £6 rent.

 That wasn’t the end of the issue, however, as Mr McGee escalated the issue to the High Court. There, Lord Chief Justice Lord Parker reinstated the reduction with another remarkable observation:-

“There is no doubt that the tenant and his family – and indeed a number of interested people who went to observe the phenomena – were fully convinced that this was a haunted house and there were ghosts that manifested themselves from time to time.”

Sadly no further verification of the facts can be carried out as the property has since been demolished (or has it merely disappeared!).

For Halloween purposes, these cases are a timely reminder that while landlords may be familiar with complaints regarding disrepair, housing litigation has occasionally ventured into rather stranger territory. Thankfully, housing providers can take comfort that, for now at least, their repairing obligations do not extend to exorcisms.

Happy Halloween from all at Nearly Legal!