In a news article in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet from 2012, they start off with a description of an old house:

From this description we are left with the image of a classical ghost house. Forest on all sides that frames the house and keeps the modern world away. No lights to illuminate the forms moving in the snow around you, and no one around to hear you call if anything happens.

However, what did this house do in the newspapers at the time? What had happened to make it so special?

Well, this house was involved in a trial.

And the subjects of the case were ghosts.

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The summer of 2011 was supposed to signify a new start. Linda Skriubakken had finally sold her house. A house from the 50s, close to a farm named Kongsli at the back of Vinstra.

For the buyer Christoffer Bakken Flaten this should have been a joyous occasion as well. Yet, the feeling of joy did not last long according to him. After both parts had agreed that the sale was going ahead, and gone each their way, Christoffer had started hearing rumors around town of his new house. It was supposedly haunted. To such a degree even the people around town had heard about it.

Christoffer took all the stories to heart and before he had even gained ownership of the house, or paid for himself, he had decided he did not want to find out if the stories had any truth to them. He wanted out of the deal.

A real estate broker tried to work it out between them before it got too bad, but neither part wanted to accept any settlement. Then by late Christmas the case is taken to court, and 6^th of March 2012 it was to be handled in the Norwegian district court of North-Gudbrandsdalen.

What was the core of the case?

Should the owner be required to let a buyer know there was ghosts in the house? And could the buyer prove that ghosts existed, to use as tangible proof in a court?

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Even if this might sound like a unique case, there are actually a few stories through the ages, and some myths, where the dead one way or another ended up in court.

In an old Norwegian story from a book named ‘sagaen om Øyrbyggene’, we hear about the farm Frodå. The owner of the farm and a follow of his men had drowned just before Christmas, but still came home again.

In the start the family saw this as a good sign and put forth food for them and let them have the main house at the farm each night. However, then the remaining people at the farm started dying from a mysterious sickness, and they all understood their guests from the beyond did not have good tidings for the living. In the end there was few people left at the farm, and they called for a priest, that sued the dead for causing death to those alive.

We also have a story from America in 1897, where Edward Stribbling Trout Shue were arrested for strangling his wife Zone Heaster Shue, after her ghost had shown herself for her mother repeatedly for weeks after the murder. Her death had originally been ruled an accident, and her husband had been able to cover the wounds on her neck with covering clothes, scarfs and dramatic fits each time anyone was close to have a look at her neck. She was buried, and it seemed Edward was home free.

Still, his former mother-in-law, Mary Jane Heaster, was sure he did not have a clean conscience, and she says she prayed each night for weeks for any signs of his guilt. Then, four nights in procession, her daughter appeared to her. First a bright light came into the room, and it formed into a human figure, while the room felt cold.

Her daughter then shared clues of the case with her and took her through what had led to her death. With these stories Mary Jane decided to plead her case, and she is said to have been so sure in her case, that the murder investigation was re-opened. They then found the widower had quite the story with violence from before, and a former wife that had died mysteriously.

The new information lead them to unearth Zona, which proved all their suspicions. She had been strangled the same way her ghost had told her mother. If you want to read more about this case, you can still find the witness records of Mary Jane in the West Virginia state archive.

In England we even had another case of a buyer not wanting to pay the entire price for a house because it was supposedly haunted. The walls were crying, and things moved on their own. The judge in the end decided they had to pay for themselves, and that the court could not base a case on ghosts existing.

There was a case like it in America as well, but that one ended quite different. That one amazingly ended with a house being declared legally declared haunted.

This was decided in court a day in July in 1991. The biggest difference from the other stories, where the house was called haunted from stories that was possibly made up by the buyers themselves, this house had been said to be haunted by the owners themselves since they moved in during the 1960s. The owners had told the stories to everyone about how their home was haunted, and it was even a stop for a local ghost tour. So, when the new owners took over, and no one had told them this, it was clear the seller had withheld some need-to-know information. They could not prove that the hauntings would be any sort of problem, but a group of ghost hunters showing up outside your house was a whole other problem.

New York Supreme Court said in the end: “As a matter of law, the house is haunted.”

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6^th of March 2012 it was time for the ghost house in Vinstra to have its time in court. The former owner is adamant there is no ghost at the property, but the buyer claims she told him, and that there had been tries at driving the ghosts from the property. At the same time, she had also been supposed to tell the real estate broker that had tried to work between them that the ghosts were not a problem anymore.

She also had no understanding for the buyer’s claims that the water and sewer system wasn’t up to standards in the house either.

Witnesses are called in. A woman that lived there a few months and had experienced a lot at this time was one of them. Anne Mette Blekastad claimed to have experienced a man push her down in the bed, for then to have disappeared when the lights turned on. Later she woke up to the smell of coffee, and the form of a grey woman standing in the kitchen, serving.

There is also said to have been accordion music and festive feelings from the basement. Blekastad were asked if she had been scared, and she had answered: “Yes, a little. Especially of what laid over me in bed. It was a lot cozier when the woman with the coffee came.”

Another man that had rented the house for many years also testified, but he hadn’t experienced anything weird there either, and both him and his daughter had felt safe there.

The buyer’s mother also testified, as she had brought a local medium to the house, and they had been able to catch so-called ‘orbs’ on the pictures. Balls of light that many say are energies from unknown phenomena, but that some are sure is either dust or bugs.

The medium had grown dizzy and short of breath and had been drawn towards the kitchen in the second floor. He had sensed energy from a man and a woman that remained in the house. He took several pictures of the energies around the house and had at some spots even seen the energy with his own eyes. The phone he had taken the pictures of the house on had sadly been broken, and he could not put them forth at trial as proof.

The trial created a few headlines as it went on, and in the end, they even had to find bigger accommodations for the trial, as more people wanted to come and watch. In the local newspaper GD, there was more articles around the case, about everything from mediums catching pictures of ‘orbs’ in the house, and the definition of the balls of light. GD’s Facebook page had gotten a lot of comments about the article. Many people were interested in knowing what would happen next.

Most of us are by instinct drawn close to a case when it is about ghosts or the supernatural. It just makes it a lot more interesting when it is something about the unknown.

It was also the thought of ghosts being accepted in something as grounded in reality as a court. If it was accepted there, wouldn’t it make ghosts a little more real everywhere else as well? It would be like the case in America where they legally deemed a house haunted. How much more real can a ghost be?

At the time, a lot of locals watched curious from the free spots around the court house, and then they waited 14 days for the court ruling.

20^th of march they were done, and it probably ended as most had thought.

The court does not believe in ghosts.

The ruling states: – the court cannot see that there is given enough proof for deficiencies of the property – neither with mysterious happenings, or water and sewage systems. Thus, the buyer cannot cancel the sale or demand a cut in prices.

Further on, they go on to say why they cannot let ghosts affect the sale of houses:

“According to the court’s judgment, it may not initially be an obligation to provide information for a possible circumstance that there is not even general acceptance that can exist at all. Some believe in ghosts – others don’t.

For the sake of business life, in the view of the court, it should be the case that a shortage of a real estate should have a certain verifiability. […] In our case, the court cannot see that the claims of mysterious happenings in the form of ghosts and similar can be seen as the property lacking anything.”

So logically enough: you cannot claim it is a lacking feature of the property when you say there is more there than advertised.

The buyer ended up with both the house, extra fees on late payment of the house, to pay all the court costs and compensations to the seller.

This ended quite like the case in England, where the court didn’t believe in ghosts, and the case in America would probably have gone the same way if not for the fact the house was a part of the local ghost tours, which the owners should have informed.

What is quite unsettling about the case in Vinstra though, was that the people that watched this case with the most worry was the local real estate agencies in Gudbrandsdalen.

If people could start annulling their purchase of property because they were sure the house was haunted, it was a big problem for them.

As Per Ottersen, a local writer and journalist from Vinstra says:

“Each 3^rd house is haunted here.”

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Sources:

Norwegian:

27.January 2012: https://www.gd.no/nyheter/vil-ikke-betale-for-spokelseshus/s/1-934610-5901789

31.January 2012: https://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/gjenferd-stanset-hussalg/63359918

6.March 2012: https://www.gd.no/nyheter/om-spokelser-i-rettssalen/s/1-934610-5958988

7.March 2012: https://www.gd.no/nyheter/spokelser-spilte-br-trekkspill-og-kokte-kaffe/s/1-934610-5960243

   8.March 2012: https://www.gd.no/nyheter/her-ser-du-spokelser/s/1-934610-5962842

20.March 2012: https://www.gd.no/nyheter/retten-tror-ikke-pa-gjenferd/s/1-934610-5978972

The myth of Øyrbyggene: http://heimskringla.no/wiki/Soga_um_%C3%98yrbyggjerne

English:

British haunted house: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/257447.stm

   The house legally declared haunted: http://nyacknewsandviews.com/2014/10/nsl_legally_haunted_house/

Put on trial from proof from the dead: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/garry-rodgers/how-a-ghosts-evidence-con_b_9252062.html?guccounter=1