caveat emptor

Agency says buyers should have been told about house's history


Real estate agency LJ Hooker has conceded that a couple who purchased the Sydney home where a notorious family massacre took place should have been told about its history.


It was only after Ellen Lin and Derek Kwok had agreed to pay $800,000 for a neat two-storey home in the suburb of North Ryde that they discovered the previous owners were the Gonzales family.

I honestly don't want to get to bogged down in a matter of philosphy or ethics, but honestly ... is it relevant whether someone was murdered the night before or even 150 years ago? Would it be relevant if someone had died peacefully in their sleep? Or if they'd spent 12 months in agony trying to fight cancer? What if someone had been raped, assaulted or suffered child abuse?

Is it relevant if a previous owner or tenant used the place as a brothel or a drug den? What if it was used as a meeting place for the Ku Klux Klan or an Assemblies of God prayer meeting?

To put the onus on real estate agents (how ever scrupulous they may be) to inform prospective buyers of the entire history of a propoerty is going beyond the absurd.

caveat emptor - let the buyer beware!