If you are about to buy a home, you may be interested in knowing if it is inside. Well, know that in Spain there is no law that forces the owner to reveal it. Even so, the market punishes these cursed scenarios, which take time to sell and suffer a decrease in price of between 15% and 50%, according to real estate analysts.
That is in the best of cases, because when it comes to very tragic and high-profile episodes it is impossible to close the operation. This is what happened with the chalet in Teo (A Coruña), owned by Rosario Porto and where her daughter Asunta Basterra was asphyxiated. Valued at one million euros, this property has five bedrooms, five bathrooms and a 10,000 square meter plot. After 11 years empty, a squatter and a fire, it has lost value. “They have even offered 30,000 euros,” details José Luis Gutiérrez Aranguren, former lawyer for Rosario Porto, who took his own life in prison in 2020. The lawyer describes this offer as “insulting” and recognizes others that are “also very low.” .
Bruno Hernández Vega killed his aunt and another woman and crushed them in a townhouse in Majadahonda (Madrid) with an industrial meat grinder. He has had to wait no less than 10 years. It is the time established by the Civil Code, in its article 193, to declare a person whose body has not been found deceased. The house, with three floors and 130 square meters, completely renovated, has been sold for 290,000 euros and has been rented for 1,200. In the municipality, according to Idealista, about 3,863 euros per square meter are requested, which would give the home a market value of more than half a million.
Likewise, although for a different reason, the apartment located in Plaza de Felipe II (Madrid) could not find an owner until three years after a horrible murder occurred. A young man disguised as a plumber, son of the owners, murdered the mother and injured the sister and father in 2003.
Amaya Fernández, the real estate expert who managed its sale, explains the reason: “Before selling it was necessary to disinherit, a quite complex process. After the trial and, with a conviction, he could have been deprived of his legitimate rights.” Regarding its value, Fernández points out that, “although it was paid at market price (1.5 million euros), much more could have been asked for that splendid 200 square meter penthouse.”
Homes are common scenes for these crimes. Of the more than 300 homicides and murders per year in Spain, according to the Crime statistical portal of the Ministry of the Interior, 23% occur in the victim’s home and 21% in the family home. This is what the report reveals Death and crime: Comprehensive and interdisciplinary study of murders and homicides committed and prosecuted in Spain.
Adding to the difficulty of selling a property with a past of such magnitude is . “There is no legal obligation because it is not a condition that affects the contract or the conditions of the property,” says Alejandro Fuenteslogo, expert in real estate law. With one caveat: “If the buyer states such a requirement in the contract, there would be an obligation to disclose it.”
For the owner of A6-60 Inmobiliaria, Marta Horcajada, “hiding it puts the trust and reputation of your company at risk.” For this reason he informed his client of the events that happened in a home he was about to rent in a town in Segovia. “I went with the truth first and rented it in a week.” The previous tenant was building a bunker at the time of being arrested in that house where he held a girl he contacted online for five days. “I told him and he decided to continue with the visit; “The dungeon gave chills.” The real estate agent admits that she lowered the price.
Selling these homes becomes even more complicated when the crime jumps to the media and becomes mainstream. This is when real estate professionals put their craft to the test. This is what Ana Minaya, Re/Max agent, did. “Given the magnitude of the crime committed on Barcelona Street, in Madrid, the only way was to resort to a judicial process. home staging who transformed it into a new, newly decorated apartment, which I sold in 20 days.” Minaya says that the owners called her because “there was no way to sell that house.” There, a young Danish student had been strangled and burned in June 2014 by a Belgian worker from the tenant company. According to the agent, the owner hired an energy cleaning service. Something that Cristina Álvarez, director of Ahava Terapias, describes as “common” in homes where, in addition to murders, there have been suicides or strange events have occurred. “Many clients with homes in the center or built on former hospitals, day care homes or asylums report noises, movements of furniture or presences,” he indicates. Among its therapies, “the Hebrew pendulum stands out, a holistic tool whose letters are attributed healing powers.” It is done in person or off plan and the amount does not exceed 100 euros. “The work ends with incense, incense, rue and palo santo.”
The Menendez brothers
In the United States, where 19,796 murders were committed in 2023, there is also no law that encourages reporting events of this type, despite the belief that there is. However, the Died in House portal offers the home buyer the possibility of knowing if these types of deaths have occurred in specific properties. By simply entering the address of the property, the platform provides the information. This is what will happen when you type 722 North Elm Drive, in Beverly Hills, where the luxurious mansion where the Menéndez brothers murdered their parents, José and Kitty Menéndez, is located. The crime has lowered its value from the 20 million dollars that were requested to 17 million, according to the portal Realtor.com, by which it has been acquired, coinciding with
Likewise, countless documentaries and films have covered one of the most gruesome crimes in recent North American history: the murder of American actress Sharon Tate, 26 years old, eight months pregnant, in her home in Beverly Hills in 1969. The property, where followers of Charles Mason’s sect killed the wife of filmmaker Roman Polanski and four other people, was demolished years later due to the impossibility of finding a buyer. A new mansion was built on that land, which the creator of series such as Forced ParentsJeff Franklin. The producer has chosen to rent it at the price of 225,000 dollars per month (215,000 euros), according to the American news portal TMZ.
