A Murder, a Listing, and a Legal Question

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Some of you might’ve already seen it — there’s a listing for sale in the GTA that’s getting a lot of unwanted attention.

In this house, two female relatives were found dead. The suspect (also a relative) is wanted for second-degree murder and is still at large in the area.

Yeah… not exactly your usual Friday morning coffee read.

But when I pulled up the MLS listing, I saw an interesting lesson here about disclosure of stigma.

Stigma refers to a reputational issue that may affect how people perceive or value a property.

As listing agents, there’s generally no obligation to disclose stigma.

And a murder — as awful as that sounds — usually falls under the definition of stigma.

The only obligation is to disclose latent defects — issues that aren’t visible and could make the property dangerous or unfit to live in.

But if you pull up the MLS listing for the property I mentioned above, you’ll notice the agents disclosed everything in the brokerage remarks.

So, why did they disclose?

Maybe it was to be transparent. Get ahead of the media buzz. Probably a smart marketing move.

But in my opinion, there's a legal obligation.

And that's because in this case, the stigma might actually cross the line into being a latent defect.

Why? Because the suspect hasn’t been caught.

There’s a real possibility of ongoing danger to anyone living there — that’s no longer just a reputational issue.

That’s a potential safety issue. And that changes everything.

We saw a similar situation play out with an NBA All-Star last year — the seller failed to disclose a known safety concern, and the court sided with the buyer.

That case reinforced how important it is to think carefully about what might be considered a latent defect vs. stigma, especially when safety is involved.

At the end of the day, this is a good reminder.

What feels like “just stigma” can quickly become a disclosure obligation — especially when safety’s on the line.