Must SC real estate agents tell you if a death occurred in a house for sale? What the law says

In the real estate business they are known as stigmatized houses, places where deaths or worse, murders, have occurred — or places believed to be haunted.

But does an agent in South Carolina have to tell a potential home buyer?

Nope.

The law says only if asked.

And many times, the Realtor doesn’t know the answer.

Annamarie Congemi, who sold the Simpsonville house where Food Network star Ariel Robinson killed her foster daughter, didn’t know the 3-year-old girl was murdered there.

She was the agent for the buyer, the daughter of a friend.

“They love it,” Congemi said.

She’d be more concerned about a house in a high crime area than one with a past.

“Most people don’t care, unless they are concerned about ghosts,” she said.

Morris Lyles with ERA Wilder Realty and former president of South Carolina Realtors, said people rarely ask and most Realtors only know if a death is a highly publicized crime.

He said he once was asked if anyone died in a house built in 1740.

His answer, “I presume so.”

He said best practice is if the Realtor knows, they should tell. Woe to the Realtor who doesn’t and the buyer finds out later. Not good for repeat business.

The National Association of Realtors says, “stigmatized properties can be a hard sell for some buyers, while others may be eager to take advantage of a discounted price, especially in a tight market.”

The law varies from state to state about whether the agent has an obligation to tell.

A study by real estate website Zillow found New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Minnesota are the only states that include paranormal activity in their real estate disclosure forms.

New York goes so far as to say a sale can be rescinded if a buyer is not told about ghosts.

Nine states require disclosure of a death. California requires sellers to disclose a death that had occurred within three years. It’s one year in Alaska.

South Dakota requires sellers to say if a homicide occurred.

Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, New Hampshire, New Jersey, like South Carolina, require sellers to say only if asked.

Sometimes there is just no way around it. Take as an extreme example the house where the Manson family killed actress Sharon Tate and four others 54 years ago on Aug. 9. The house on 3.3 acres overlooked Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills.

After the murders, a real estate agent who specialized in selling houses where murders took place told the owner his only hope of selling it was to move in. He did. It was almost 30 years before the house was sold to an investor who tore down the house, changed the new house’s orientation and location of the driveway, and then changed the address.

It was bought by Jeff Franklin, who created the television show “Full House,” for $6 million.

The nine-bedroom, 18 bath, 21,000 square-foot house has been on the market since early 2022. Asking price has dropped from $85 million to $54,995,000.

Franklin has been quoted as saying the property’s past has had “no impact on my life whatsoever.”

There is a website where you can see if your house has a deathly past — diedinhouse.com. Besides learning about deaths, the $11..99 report also includes meth lab records, fires, registered sex offenders nearby and other property information like taxes and previous sales.