Home-buyer finds mummified body of former owner on couch

[Psihala]

Coroners estimate the woman's remains had been there since 2001, when she stopped making payments on the residence in the coastal town of Roses in Spain's northeast Catalonia region.


http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=70129

[quiltsbypam]

How sad is it that someone dies and nobody notices? That there isn't one single human being who is aware of it? For six years.

Oh yeah, not to mention the shock of finding a corpe in one's new home. Eeew.

Nothing a throw and some Lysol wouldn't fix.....

[Fowlplay]

This is a very sad story and I heard it on the radio the other day.

I obviously have no idea what the laws in Spain are regarding the transfer of ownership of a property or the type of obligations an owner has before selling a property (like say a bank or lender), but I found this part the most disturbing:

But authorities were surprised that bank officials who sold the residence after the foreclosure never bothered to examine it, the police official said.

I do a lot of appraisal work on foreclosed homes for the government. I'm fairly sure if something like this happened here a lawsuit for gross negligence would be the BEST thing a bank could hope for and not some sort of criminal legal action. Hell, our government gets sued if they don't mention the fact that on homes built before 1978 there is a possibility of the presence of lead based paint much less the presence of the dead body of the former owner.

[quiltsbypam]

Originally Posted by Doug4.7

Nothing a throw and some Lysol wouldn't fix.....

Febreeze. Go with Febreeze.

[imjustasteph]

Originally Posted by quiltsbypam

Febreeze. Go with Febreeze.

Febreeze has no claims of killing bacteria. Lysol does.

[Dr. Winston O'Boogie]

Yeah, but Lysol doesn't kill the odors, Febreze does.

Originally Posted by Fowlplay

This is a very sad story and I heard it on the radio the other day.

I obviously have no idea what the laws in Spain are regarding the transfer of ownership of a property or the type of obligations an owner has before selling a property (like say a bank or lender), but I found this part the most disturbing:



I do a lot of appraisal work on foreclosed homes for the government. I'm fairly sure if something like this happened here a lawsuit for gross negligence would be the BEST thing a bank could hope for and not some sort of criminal legal action. Hell, our government gets sued if they don't mention the fact that on homes built before 1978 there is a possibility of the presence of lead based paint much less the presence of the dead body of the former owner.

I wish I could say this couldn't happen here but it could. I primarily work with Investors and many, probably most of the properties they buy these days are what are known as REOs (Real Estate Owned by lender). The usual practice is the bank forecloses, then buys the property at sherriff's sale for the loan balance (which means they move money from pocket a to pocket b and pay a fee to the State).

Then they send out a 'winterizer' who cuts off the water and drains the pipes. usually only entering the basement, and maybe if VERY concientious the bathrooms. If the winterizer doesn't go in the bedroom, no one afterwards will. Then they post a sticker on the door and put a lockbox on the house and list it with a realtor who never goes in the house. I have been in houses with raccoon graveyards where literally dozens of raccoons have lived and died on site, so the decay smell is apparently not strong enough to alert neighbors.