A New York court ruled the Nyack house "haunted as a matter of law" and let the buyer walk away from $650,000

Kind 1. Helen Ackley and her family lived at 1 LaVeta Place, an 1890 Victorian on the Hudson. She wrote in Reader's Digest in 1977 and told a local newspaper in 1982 that ghosts lived there, including a Revolutionary War naval officer. In 1989 the house was on a walking tour as "a riverfront Victorian (with ghost)". That year Jeffrey Stambovsky of New York City contracted to buy it for $650,000 and paid $32,500 down. Before the closing set for 2 October 1989 he learned of its reputation and refused to close. He sued for rescission and his deposit; Ackley counterclaimed to force the sale. On 9 April 1990 the trial court dismissed his case under caveat emptor. On 18 July 1991 the Appellate Division reversed by 3 to 2. Having told the public about the ghosts, the court said, the seller could not deny them: "as a matter of law, the house is haunted." The reputation went to the value of the house, and a buyer from out of town could not have found it. The court allowed Stambovsky to seek rescission and the return of his deposit. The dissent said caveat emptor should not fall over a poltergeist. Ackley sold to another buyer, moved to Florida in 1991 and died in 2003. The house sold in January 2016 for $1,770,000^† and was listed in 2019 at $1.9 million.