Tenant Couple Sues Landlord over a Haunted Rental House

by Kelly Troy on April 17th, 2012

GhostSo you’re a landlord and you maintain strong leases and good tenant-screenings - what’s the worst that could happen?  How about being sued for renting a haunted house? Are liability suits arising from alleged paranormal activity covered in YOUR dwelling policy?

While most property owners are familiar with typical exposures such as bodily injury, invasion, or privacy, and wrongful eviction (which themselves are not even covered in most landlord dwelling policies because they are ‘personal’ injury issues), this is one of the more unusual and interesting liability issues that we at InsuranceForInvestors.com have seen in a while and we thought it was worth sharing just to prove the point that any property owner can be sued for virtually any perceived wrong. You don’t have to be guilty to be accusedbut you must still pay legal costs to defend your innocence

 

 Read the Actual Story Below from CBS New York:

TOMS RIVER, N.J. (CBS New York) – Nighttime is fright time for a Toms River couple who claim the house they rented is haunted.

Jose Chinchilla and his fiancée Michele Callan say they hear eerie noises, that lights flicker, doors slam and a spectral presence tugs on their bed sheets.  The couple even called in investigators with the Shore Paranormal Research Society. The group classified the activity as “paranormal” but that it did not indicate a haunting, according to their website.

Chinchilla and Callan are suing the landlord for their $2,250 security deposit claiming the paranormal activity forced them out of the home only a week after moving in. However, the landlord believes the couple was actually spooked by the $1,500 a month rental fee and made up the ghost story to get out of their lease. The landlord has filed a counter suit against the couple. A hearing is expected at the end of this month.

Read Original Story

Kelly Troy

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kelly Troy is founder and President of InsuranceForInvestors.com as well as an active real estate investor himself, purchasing and ‘rehabbing’ both residential and commercial properties and actively engaging in non-traditional investing throughout the United States. As the founder of “STREETSMARTinvesting” as well as the developer of the “Riches in Rehabs” and “Riches in Rentals” investor programs; he has traveled extensively to host workshops and impart to other investors and real estate professionals the same principals and skills that he himself has learned regarding how to successfully profit from purchasing real estate. Kelly also established his own successful real-estate investor’s group and he is a frequent guest speaker at other REI groups and he often hosts local investing workshops in addition to teaching TREC-approved MCE courses for licensed real estate professionals. Kelly is also a combat veteran of the United States Army Infantry as well as an active member of his community, serving on several City and Regulatory Boards and having either Chaired or actively served on the Board of Directors for many professional and community organizations. In addition, after having spent several years as a traditional mortgage lender, he founded his own private-lending firm, Genesis Funding Solutions, and he was a hard-money lender underwriting and managing private loans to investors for projects of all types across the country. He is also extremely well-versed in all forms of seller-financing and in brokering privately-held mortgage notes. Prior to his investing career, Kelly was also a professional safety and risk consultant having developed many safety and risk management programs in various industries and he traveled frequently developing and implementing industrial and manufacturing processes, safety, and quality assurance programs throughout both the United States and Europe. He also worked for the Texas Worker’s Compensation Commission (TWCC) as well as the OSHA Consultation Program (OSHCON) as an Industrial Hygienist and he is; therefore, extremely familiar with risk management and loss mitigation, personal liability, worker’s compensation, and commercial risks. While having owned a previous agency with Farmer’s Insurance Group, he was chosen from over 150 agents as the President of the graduating class at the University of Farmers in Los Angeles, California and he was later recognized as one of the Top 25 commercial agents in Texas.

Leave a Reply