I had to check the deeds to our house a few weeks ago.
The neighbours to the right of us are moving. Downsizing because their children are fully fledged now and they don’t need all of the space.
We’ve been really lucky with our neighbours both sides – friendly, helpful people who are happy to chat but never really pry. When I was spending weeks between the hospitals and other places, it was comforting to know that people would keep an eye on the house for me and let me know if anything needed my attention.
I’m sure whoever moves in next door will also be lovely. This is a quiet village, and on the whole people here are nice. And I’ve been relieved to see a few viewers turning up lately to take a look – I know our neighbours were struggling to drum up interest in the house earlier in the year.
Except. We have a shared driveway. Both houses have the right of access. So you can’t park in the space between our two houses. And the buyers… did not seem fully aware of this.
I thought I’d get ahead of it, so I checked out the deeds. The first document, from my purchase a few years ago, is very neat and simple – a clear outline of the plot (including the shared drive), and a note that refers back to two additional deeds, one dated 1981, and one dated 1967.
These are more fancy, with illuminated initials at the start of the document, and type-written text in fancy legal language. Once I had confirmed my understanding of the right to use the driveway (“by day or by night with our without vehicles of any description and with or without animals..“), I found myself reading through at the names on the documents, and wondering who lived in this house before me.
I lived in a new-build before I lived here. In a house that was totally wrong for me, but was an excellent stepping-stone in getting me the life I have now. And a few nights before I moved in here, I at the pub and wondered aloud whether my new (old) house would have ghosts.
“The Avenue? In the Village?” one of my friends asked.
“Yes – the Victorian Villas, near the school.”
“Hmm. Odd or even number?”
“Odd.”
“Ah, that’s OK then,” he winked at me, “Only the even numbers are haunted in the Village.”
This house is not haunted. Although it retains some of it’s Victorian features (the lovely bay windows and huge fireplaces in both reception rooms), it has clearly been loved over the years. It feels full of light and calm and happiness.
But over the last few months, I’ve found myself wondering whether my partner will die in the house. And whether, if he does, he will haunt the place in some way. I don’t think I’d be opposed to the memory of him being imprinted in the walls here. My relationship with death has changed a lot recently.
Do you have tell future buyers if someone has died in the house? What if it was decades ago? And peaceful?
In England, it turns out, you do not have disclose deaths. Unless the death was violent and there is a risk to the new owners.
When I looked into the records, I found a notice in a newspaper from 1966:
It’s the Suddenly that gets me every time.
Although Edith’s death registration does not give a cause, there are several documents and articles confirming she died here, in the house.
I’ve spent a few weeks now reading everything I can about Arthur and Edith. There’s not a lot out there, and I’ve reached the point of heading out to local libraries to try and get more context. I am considering writing into a few Facebook groups just to see if anyone has context – is that too much? It feels too much, some days.
I thought I would be scared by the idea of someone having died here, but actually I am strangely comforted.
Arthur and Edith got together later in life. They knew each other long before they were married. They had no children, and Arthur, it seems, had no family left to speak of.
He died a year after her, and the deeds to the house show it went to Edith’s brother and sister after that.
I’m trying to build a timeline of the house from it’s build date through to now. It has had several extensions and I am keen to find it’s original floor-plan some day.
But I keep coming back to Edith and Arthur. I think they were happy here, just the two of them. I hope so, anyway. And I like to think that Edith died peacefully, albeit unexpectedly, in a place that was familiar, calm, and full of love.
I keep thinking about what it will be like to come back to the house once my Partner is gone. Whether I will be lonely, or comforted. I think the house would have comforted Arthur. I think it knows it how.
I think it knows more than I do about people’s last days.
I find comfort in knowing that this house knows how to handle death.
[…] This House Knows […]