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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to expect Estate Agent to disclose history of house we are buying?

139 replies

deltacogal · 10/06/2016 17:43

Found the house of our dreams and had the offer accepted but after a bit of googling we found out via online news articles that the husband committed suicide in the house last year.

AIBU to think that this is the sort of info it would have been nice to know before putting in the offer? I'm a bit woo woo about this stuff as are my kids.

Was under the impression this kind of stuff would have been disclosed?

OP posts:
Registeringisapain · 10/06/2016 20:45

I can't be arsed to argue with you Bucking. As you were, and don't get bothered about being accidentally horribly offensive. It happens all the time on mn!

Buckinbronco · 10/06/2016 21:04

I'm not going to be bothered by someone twisting my words no. You however are being extremely unkind, trying to guilt trip someone about something they clearly didn't say and have told you twice they did not. Just a form of bullying.

Registeringisapain · 10/06/2016 21:21

Wow. Twisting words, guilt tripping, extremely unkind and bullying? Feel free to report me, especially for the bullying. I'd actually quite like to know if I've come across as bullying because I sincerely didn't intend to.

All I did was explain that your original post wasn't coming across as you meant it to.

I might as well try again. Using a b c d e to stand in for your examples, where d is suicide and e is rent boy murder.

You said:
There is a difference between a or b or c or d or e. A big difference.

Some readers thought you meant:
There is a difference between (a or b or c) compared to (d or e)

It would have been more clear where your dividing line was if you had said:
There is a difference between a (or b or c or d) which are fine compared to e which is not fine.

Does that help?

Joystir58 · 10/06/2016 21:32

if it bothers you too much then don't buy the house.
What does the house feel like when you have visited it? If it seems to have a heavy energy, then you can do a couple of things:
a) Before you move in, do a meditation where you imagine sending jasmine and roses into the house, and visualise the flower petals falling into the rooms, and the heavy energy flowing out of the open windows.
b) when you move in, if the house still has a heavy feeling, open the window, burn some fresh sage leaves in a bowl and carry them through each room to clear the energy.

RubbishMantra · 10/06/2016 21:41

Bucking*, sadly, you typed the comparison between beating rent boys to death and suicide in your post at 19.43. The reason why I used quotation marks, no?

And I find your posts goady and distasteful to put it mildly. To compare Dennis Nielson, a serial killer, to somebody whose life has become such a struggle that the only course of action they feel they can take is ending their own life. Confused Angry

Buckinbronco · 10/06/2016 21:41

No. You have nothing to explain because you are wrong. clearly you find that impossible to accept, but you are still wrong. Don't waste your breath explaining when you're wrong.

I have reported

Buckinbronco · 10/06/2016 21:42

HOW IS IT COMPARING?

It is saying that deaths 50 years ago are very different from deaths a few months ago. No matter how they happened.

Do you know what, I'm leaving it now.

RubbishMantra · 10/06/2016 21:51

Who did you report for being offensive? Yourself?

I suppose not, because everyone you've upset on this thread "are wrong".

Gide · 10/06/2016 21:54

Poor guy near us shot himself and left bits in the wall. (Local rag reported it) The house has been gutted, outside re-rendered. A mate said he would have bought it cos it would've been cheap. I couldn't have lived there. Too woo.

runningincircles12 · 10/06/2016 21:55

Obviously suicide is not the same as murder, but both are unnatural deaths and like it or not, both are deaths that people find shocking. Suicides can be very violent, although the violence is directed towards the self. The problem is not that the murderer lived in the property, it is that an unnatural death took place there, either because someone felt such despair that they could not carry on or because their life was taken. So by comparing the two, people are not saying that a person who kills themself is akin to a murderer, it is that the manner of the death is disturbing.

Also, in countries where the seller must disclose unnatural deaths, suicide and murder are lumped in the same category. And of course the passage of time makes a difference. I would not be too bothered if I found out a murder had taken place during the 1940s (although it might creep me out if home alone), but if I found out that it was recent, that would unsettle me. With suicide, I would try to feel compassion of course, but again, it would be unsettling in a way that a natural death would not. It may be because I have known people who have committed suicide and it's the thought of the body being left for others to find that disturbs me, as well as the great sense of unhappiness that a suicide victim feels. I might not be being reasonable in thinking this, but it is how I feel.

PaulAnkaTheDog · 10/06/2016 22:06

Don't think it's the "dying", think it's just the manner in which he died and being reminded of that everytime we walk past the spot.

Your own fault for googling really. As someone who has sold a property after a family suicide, I find this quite upsetting. Someone's tragic decision to end their life really shouldn't be a part of the information passed to potential buyers. It's irrelevant.

MadisonAvenue · 10/06/2016 22:09

No idea where you're going to live OP if you want to avoid a place where someone died.
We live in a new build estate which is built on a former industrial site where people died nasty deaths while carrying out their jobs so who knows if someone was killed where my house is now?

RubbishMantra · 10/06/2016 22:20

DH's suicide was a result of living with paranoid schizophrenia, since puberty. Some empathic posters on another board have compared it to having a stroke - every day was a struggle for him. He was kind and gentle, but what was going on in his head made it impossible for him to continue. He shouldn't be compared to a serial killer.

He thought he was helping those he loved by hanging himself.

I have visited the place he died, and it seemed peaceful. He'd lived a life of angst. I had no fucking clue he was going to do do what he did. No mention of suicidal thoughts. When I went to see him at the funeral parlour, he did look peaceful. His skin just felt so cold.

Got the inquest coming up very soon, I just hope I can hold it together, (my legs wouldn't support me at DH's funeral, took 2 people to support me down the aisle, and I had to take my high heels off, in order to walk, and I hate anything that might cause me to draw attention to myself.)

So don't you DARE compare him to Dennis Nielson, Bucking

As you were, Buckin. Well done to making suicide survivors feel even more crap than we already do.

counterpoint · 10/06/2016 22:27

Did the suicide have something, inherently to do with the house? Otherwise no!

If, for example, a nearby motorway was so loud that it drove someone crazy with the continual noise that they had to commit suicide or similarly if the neighbours are so nasty that they never left the husband alone and caused so much aggro that the poor man had to end his life, then NO - they don't have to give you personal reasons for a death. Death is part of normal life .... unless something ABOUT the house directly caused it ... poltergeist?

PaulAnkaTheDog · 10/06/2016 22:31

Can people please approach this thread with some empathy and sympathy please? It's quite a difficult subject for some people.

Newes · 10/06/2016 22:49

Yes, it is, but that doesn't excuse an almost wilful misreading of posts that have not said what they are accused of having said.

I can see it will be a very emotive subject for some. Perhaps they should Hide it?

PaulAnkaTheDog · 10/06/2016 22:49

And btw bucking, whilst you have not said anything terribly insulting, your blasé way of talking about the death's of people is upsetting. Mantra mentioned her circumstances, understand the horrific pain someone left after a suicide feels and just stop.

PaulAnkaTheDog · 10/06/2016 22:52

No one should have to hide a thread that they feel strongly about just because people aren't willing to understand that the subject matter isn't something to be casual about. People should approach topics dealing with death with a certain amount of respect.

CompletelyAstounded · 10/06/2016 22:55

Rubbish and Registering - just to say I'm with you on this one and Buckin clearly has no idea what hurt and pain she is causing by being a complete arse, made much worse by her subsequent idiotic comments as if the first was not bad enough.
OP - sorry if you are a bit 'woo woo' about this poor guy and the devastated family he has left behind. I think their problems are worse than yours.

Newes · 10/06/2016 22:55

There was no lack of respect in Bucking's post. If other posters feel personally triggered by mention of suicide the best thing would be not to engage in threads about suicide that are only tangential to the subject.

PaulAnkaTheDog · 10/06/2016 23:01

Comparing murders to suicides is wrong. It is insulting. It is upsetting. Add in Bucking's dismissive tone and it was a recipe for disaster. She upset a recently bereaved poster and didn't even attempt to back down. That's pretty bad.

katemiddletonsnudeheels · 10/06/2016 23:04

In general I agree Paul but in this particular context (of 'bad vibes' from houses) I do think it was a relevant point.

It does not bother me what happened in buildings. The action was evil (murder) or distressing (suicide) or both of course. That has utterly nothing to do with bricks and mortar to me, but I've been posting here long enough to know others do not feel the same way. However, it is not the job of an estate agent to dwell over someone else's tragedy.

laidbackneko · 10/06/2016 23:06

There is a big difference between the house a 65 year old had a sudden heart attack in in 1980, or the house granny returned to to die at home in in 1950, or the house Mrs smith succumbed to consumption in in 1919, to the one someone hung themselves off the bannister in in October 2015 or beat a rent boy to death in in June. BIG DIFFERENCE

The point buckin chose to change "or" to "to" was totally wrong and the reason why it has caused offence. Suicide is the result of an illness, just like the previous examples given. HTH

Newes · 10/06/2016 23:06

It wasn't about murder v suicide, it was about deaths occurring in residential properties and disclosure of such by estate agents.

But don't let that get in the way of a jolly good self righteous Froth.

RubbishMantra · 10/06/2016 23:08

Thankyou Paulanka

No "wilful reading of posts", Newes. A poster compared my DDDH to Dennis Nielson. DH didn't lure young men back home, kill them in their sleep and commit necrophilia on them. Therefore I find the comparison distasteful, to say the least.