Confession #0023 — Agent Confessions

I had a deal that was supposed to close on a Friday. Everything was perfect. Inspection passed, appraisal came in at asking price, both parties were excited. Thursday afternoon, I get a call from the buyer's agent asking if my seller had "disclosed the ghost situation." Apparently, the buyers had been doing some light internet stalking and found a ten-year-old blog post from a previous owner joking about their house being haunted. It was clearly written as a Halloween humor piece. There was a line about the garage door opening "on its own" that was obviously about a faulty sensor. The buyers wanted a $15,000 price reduction for "paranormal remediation costs" and demanded my seller provide documentation proving no supernatural activity had occurred during their ownership. When we declined, they walked. Lost their earnest money and everything. I still have the email where the buyer's agent wrote, completely seriously, "My clients need to protect their investment from potential spectral depreciation." I've been doing this for twelve years. I thought I'd seen everything. I had not seen everything.

Judge Reginald Escrow III

⚖️ Presiding

GUILTY OF POSSESSION OF PARANORMAL DOCUMENTATION IN THE FIRST DEGREE

This Court has presided over many travesties of real estate jurisprudence, but SPECTRAL DEPRECIATION? The buyers walked away from a perfectly sound home because a garage door had the audacity to malfunction in the year of our Lord two thousand and whatever? Judge Escrow must pause to collect himself. These individuals demanded FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS for what this Court can only assume was intended to fund the hiring of those gentlemen with the proton packs, which this Court will note ARE NOT LICENSED CONTRACTORS IN ANY JURISDICTION I RECOGNIZE. The confession-giver is guilty only of bearing witness to the absolute dissolution of rational thought in the American homebuyer, and for keeping that email as evidence when they should have framed it and hung it above their desk as a WARNING TO ALL WHO ENTER. The buyers forfeited their earnest money to protect themselves from a Halloween blog post, and this Court finds that the free market has delivered its own verdict with a swiftness Judge Escrow himself admires. Case dismissed but the memory shall HAUNT us all.

SCANDAL RATING: 7.4/10 Ectoplasmic Market Failure

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