{"id":122,"date":"2005-11-03T18:51:41","date_gmt":"2005-11-03T08:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/?p=122"},"modified":"2005-12-04T16:24:38","modified_gmt":"2005-12-04T05:24:38","slug":"house-of-ethical-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2005\/11\/03\/house-of-ethical-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"House Of Ethical Dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Introduction to the “House Of Horror”<\/h2>\n

A few years ago, a local real-estate agent sold to an unsuspecting Buddhist couple a house that, three years earlier, had been the scene of a triple-murder. When the couple found out, they were upset and refused to proceed with the sale, risking their deposit and more.<\/p>\n

I heard about the story back then, and I found it to be an interesting ethical dilemma. Recently, it gained a mention in the paper again, and I realised for the first time that the very same real-estate agent had signed me up for a lease (on a different house!) about 5 years ago!<\/p>\n

A brief linguistic aside: In South Australian English, “real estate” refers exclusively to property. In NSW and Qld, it is also used to refer to the real estate agent<\/em>. I still double-take when someone tells me that they got their broken stove fixed by “talking to the real estate.”<\/div>\n

What Happened?<\/h2>\n

There was a huge outcry by the public at the time. Competing agents seized on the story<\/a>. The unhappy couple were given back their deposit. The courts punished<\/a> the real estate agent for their “misleading” behaviour, and I believe it is still in the courts.<\/p>\n

Is it that simple?<\/h2>\n

I am still in two minds about whether this agent did anything wrong, ethically.<\/p>\n

I should point out I don’t know any of the facts<\/em> of the case; nor anything about the law. I am not suggesting the courts were wrong. I just think the ethical issues are interesting. Should you have to tell a prospective buyer about a triple murder?<\/p>\n

The (then?) national president of the Real Estate Institute did her duty by arguing that there was no ethical requirement to disclose<\/a>. <\/p>\n

No Ethical Requirement for Disclosure.<\/h2>\n

My initial reaction is to agree<\/em>. We can argue about whether the public needs more protection than caveat emptor<\/em> when making such a large purchase. However, where we are talking about your<\/em> religion or your<\/em> superstitions, surely you<\/em> are the one who has to check that everything is acceptable to your mores. <\/p>\n

If you believe in ghosts, you had better ask about violent deaths. If you believe in feng shui, you can get your own assessment of the house’s negative chi. If you believe in the FSM<\/a>, you had better get data on the local pirate levels.<\/p>\n

You can ask the vendor to show you the pest inspection report, because that affects the structural integrity of the building, but your assessment of the spiritual integrity of the house shouldn’t be protected by law.<\/p>\n

If it was protected, what would be the limits for reportable events? Triple murders? Single murders? Rape? Assisted Suicide? Drowning in the pool? Death due to old age in bed surrounded by loving relatives? Bopping a cane-toad on the head with a 5-iron? <\/p>\n

I am not afraid of ghosts. I am not afraid of “unlucky” houses – especially where the murderer was found and convicted. I’d have no problem buying a house that had been the site of a murder – hey, perhaps my bedroom was the site of a horrible murder-suicide, and I don’t know about it!<\/p>\n

So that was my position for a while… but then I read an article about a house which was the site of another famous murder. The owner complained that macabre sight-seers who come poking around, occasionally even peering in the windows.<\/p>\n

Another brief aside: Once I had a young woman as a passenger in my car, when she pointed to a row of houses. “I heard that there was a woman found murdered in one of these houses. I think it was that one.”<\/p>\n

“No,” I explained deadpan, “I dumped her body in that one, two houses down.”<\/p>\n

That, my friends, was the wrong thing to say. Please learn from my mistakes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A Conflict!<\/h2>\n

The idea of having weirdos staring at my house day and (especially) night and peering in the windows? I would absolutely hate<\/em> that. That is something that I would definitely want to know about before I bought a house! I am horrified that the real-estate agent wouldn’t warn against something unpredictable like that!<\/p>\n

But wait up… that’s just my<\/em> mores against invasion of privacy. Why should the vendor have to care about that? Surely, by my own argument, that’s my<\/em> problem, not the vendor’s.<\/p>\n

Like I said at the beginning, an interesting ethical dilemma…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should a real-estate agent be forced to tell prospects about triple-murders?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-based-on-a-true-story","category-observation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}